I am an American in the process of filling out the online application for the EEA FP, to join my Italian husband who has been living and working in the UK for the last five years, currently as a software engineer at a major transnational.
As background, we met last June in London and married in Italy this July. I spent extended periods with him in the UK, Italy, and the US, and we have substantial documentation of our relationship including photos, letters from family, travel tickets, chat & phone logs, etc. In addition to the apostilled & translated marriage certificate and identification documents, we would be providing a letter from his employer, recent payslips, bank account statements, HMRC employment history letter, a recent tax form, his tenant agreement and a council tax bill.
One point in the application I'm uncertain on how to address relates to my employment status and financial information. I've seen comments that it's not required for me to divulge financial information, such as how much money I have for or will be spending on my trip to the UK, but I don't know if that also extends to my salary and by extension, my employment status.
I'm a self-employed freelancer and I work on a project basis; as such I don't have a single client who can provide an employment letter, though I could show bank statements for the last three months indicating that I've been getting paid regularly (payments come through PayPal deposits usually). However I'm wondering if I even need to show my own bank statements at all, as the permit is based on my husband's UK-based employment and supporting documents. But I don't know if it's in some way negative to leave my employment/financial situation unaddressed, and if I'd then need to instead say that I'm dependent on my husband currently? While he is financially supportive of me, I do still draw a fairly consistent income on my own.
Essentially I'm trying to understand if putting forward my own earnings (within the application and with bank statements to support) and trying to explain my freelance employment situation (in some way to indicate that I'm financially independent) is going to be a positive or negative on the application - or even required at all. With the alternative being (I assume) claiming dependency on my husband, and if that option is positive or negative. Again, I'm not technically dependent on him, so I'm not sure that's even appropriate.
If this information is helpful, I typically earn between $2000-3000 a month, after taxes usually around $1500-2200 per month. By contrast, my husband earns 5100 GBP per month after taxes.
Thanks so much for any help or thoughts on this! Much appreciated.