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The move to eVisas: creating a UKVI online account

13th June 2024 By Caroline Asken

The move to eVisas: creating a UKVI online account

Many individuals demonstrating their lawful residence in the UK currently do so using their biometric residence permit (BRP), biometric residence card (BRC), or an endorsement in their passport. If you have an endorsement in your passport, please see our previous blog post by Emily Heinrich for details on what action you need to take as the Home Office transitions to ‘eVisas’.

BRPs will not remain valid beyond 31 December 2024. For some individuals, this is because they are required to make an immigration application to extend their leave in the UK before the expiry of their BRP. However, others have permission to stay in the UK beyond this date and it is only their BRP that is not valid beyond 31 December 2024. If you are unsure of the date your permission to stay in the UK ends, you should be able to find this in the Home Office email or letter confirming the grant of your most recent status. If your permission to stay is valid beyond 31 December 2024, you will be required to move to the digital eVisa system in order to be able to prove your immigration status in the UK from 1 January 2025.

The eVisa system

The Home Office is transitioning to a digital e-Visa system by 31 December 2024. This means that, rather than issuing new BRPs, the Home Office will provide online access only for people to confirm their immigration status.

People with temporary or indefinite permission to stay in the UK will need to create UKVI accounts online and, once you have this, you will be able to demonstrate immigration status only via an eVisa. You will not be issued with a new physical document.

Your eVisa should include your type of permission, when it expires and the conditions of your stay in the UK. You should also be able to share this information with third parties using the View and Prove service: https://www.gov.uk/view-prove-immigration-status

You can access an eVisa explanatory video here: ‘What is an eVisa? ’.

What do I need to do?

Stay updated

Some BRP holders are being emailed directly with instructions on how to create a UKVI account to access their eVisa. These email invitations are being sent in phases, before the service is made available to all BRP holders. For BRP holders who have not yet received an email, the UKVI account creation should soon be opened to all without an invitation.

The Home Office’s current guidance advises that you can sign up for updates on when you will be able to create your UKVI account. In addition, we strongly recommend checking the Home Office eVisa website for updates during 2024. We also recommend keeping your contact details up to date with UKVI, which can be done using their free-of-charge online form here.

If you have received an email invitation, create a UKVI account to access your eVisa – it is free

If you have a biometric passport, we recommend that you set up your UKVI account with the details of this passport. Once you have created your UKVI account you can follow the instructions to apply for and access your eVisa, which includes scanning your document with an app on a mobile phone. You should have your biometric passport and your BRP available when completing the form. We recommend that you scan your biometric passport when using the app as this is the document you will use when travelling in future.

Once you have followed all the instructions, you should receive confirmation by email of the creation of your eVisa. Based on recent experience, this confirmation can be received within a few minutes.

Things to consider

Connecting your biometric passport to your account – we recommend that you use your biometric passport to generate your UKVI account and eVisa. However, it is possible to use your BRP, instead, to do the above.

Travel – if it is your intention to travel towards to the end of 2024 and return to the UK beyond the expiry of your BRP on 31 December 2024, you should ensure that you have created your UKVI account and have access to your eVisa before the 31 December 2024, to minimise any potential issues when travelling to and entering the UK. You will need your passport when travelling.

Keeping your personal information in your UKVI account updated – you must keep your personal details in your UKVI account up to date, such as passport details and contact information so that your immigration status can be easily identified at the UK border. You can update your personal information in your UKVI account. If you obtain a new passport and update your UKVI account with this passport but are waiting for confirmation that your UKVI account has been updated, you should also carry your old document with you, if possible.

Our suggestions above are based on our recent experiences of the eVisa system, and we are awaiting further official guidance from the Home Office. For further information about eVisas, we recommend reading the Home Office website.

If you have further questions regarding your eVisa, we would be pleased to assist. You can use our online enquiry form or call us on 020 7401 6887.

How to avoid the minimum income requirement for partners under Appendix FM

22nd January 2024 By Barry O’Leary

Diana Baxter recently gave her thoughts on the upcoming rise in the minimum income requirement.

I have now published an article on how to avoid the minimum income requirement for partners on the excellent Free Movement site:

How to avoid the minimum income requirement for partners under Appendix FM – Free Movement

It’s all about the money!

22nd December 2023 By Diana Baxter

Just a couple of weeks after announcing, seemingly without any apparent consultation or forethought, that the minimum income requirement (MIR) for spouse visa applications would increase from £18,600 to £38,700, the Home Office has changed its mind and may increase this initially to only £29,000.

As it seems the threshold for the MIR is still open for debate (or rather subject to change with every unfavourable newspaper headline), I thought now was a good opportunity to give some thoughts on the MIR.

The minimum income requirement applies to visa applications for the spouse, fiancé and unmarried partners of British citizens and those settled in the UK, as well as the partners of some additional migrants with limited leave, such as refugees and those with humanitarian protection, as well now as EEA nationals who have been living in the UK since before Brexit. The MIR was introduced in July 2012 with the introduction into the Immigration Rules of Appendix FM and heralded the start of the current Home Office approach to abandon the long-standing use of numbered legislation with a variety of confusing letters and numbers (and setting the scene for the truly incomprehensible Appendix EU!). Prior to 2012, the Home Office approach was a more nuanced and flexible financial test, requiring applicants to show they had sufficient funds to maintain and accommodate themselves and their dependents in the UK without recourse to public funds (to which they would not be entitled on a spouse visa, in any event), a financial test still used for parent and adult dependent relative visa applications, as well as for those with UK partners receiving disability-related benefits.

Since 2012, we at Wesley Gryk LLP have been at the forefront of advising couples and families on the MIR and its accompanying Rules; as well as training the trainers (other lawyers and advisers). One of the key points I explain to clients and other advisers when discussing the financial requirements is not to try to make sense of them – Appendices FM and FMSE set out a very prescriptive set of rules and requirements not only for the level of income itself, but also the sources and evidence that can be used to demonstrate the requirement is met. Some of the logic in these Rules is hard to find, and it is not uncommon to come across millionaires who fail to meet them (because their money is tied up investments rather than sitting in the bank, or because the high-earner in the family is the applicant themselves overseas and this cannot be relied upon), while others can meet the requirement despite not actually being able to support themselves (for example, the applicant landlord whose rental income is £18,600 but in reality is paying out more than this in their buy-to-let mortgage payments). As a mantra I often repeat, it’s not about showing how much money you have, but rather about complying with the often bizarre set of Rules and requirements to satisfy the decision-maker.

The lawfulness of minimum income requirement itself has already been subject to legal challenge in the case of MM & Otrs which culminated in a Supreme Court judgment in 2017. Although the MIR was considered to be overly prescriptive, inflexible and disproportionately affected women, certain ethnic groups, regions and age-groups, the Supreme Court did find it acceptable in principle (with some caveats about the best interests of relevant children being sufficiently taken into account). Given the Home Office already won this battle, why create a new one now by raising the figure so disproportionately? The Home Office is correct that the £18,600 figure has not changed since 2012, but it has proposed an increase to £38,700 (which might now come in stages). This is a 108% increase.

Neither the cost of living nor people’s income has risen this much since 2012. In 2012, the average median earnings for full-time employees in the UK was £26,472. It is now £34,963[1]. This is a 32% increase. According to the Bank of England CPI inflation calculator, £18,600 in 2012 would only be £25,636 now[2]. This is a 38% increase. So how can a 108% increase possibly be justified?

So instead of pushing ahead with an increase in the MIR that is unjustifiably high, perhaps the Home Office and its Ministers could take a bit more time to think this through and adjust to a figure that corresponds more accurately to have people’s incomes and salaries have changed in the 10 years since 2012. This could save much heartache for families and also much litigation for the Home Office.

And if change is on the cards, then this should also be the opportunity to add in more flexibility to the MIR Rules so they better reflect the ability of applicants and their families to support themselves. If the high earner in the family is the applicant themselves (rather than their British spouse) then the family should be able to rely on the applicant’s employment/self-employment income and/or job offer in the UK to satisfy the MIR. If savings are held in stocks, shares or other investments in a regulated financial institution, then families should be able to rely on these without suffering a financial penalty to cash them in. If applicants or their partners are newly self-employed but can show regular income, they should not have to wait until after the financial year ends to apply. Applicants with children should not be made to suffer family separation of up to six months or longer in order to show sufficient length of employment. These are just a few suggestions of how the MIR could be proportionately increased while at the same time being revised to ensure they operate in a fair and just manner that allows applicants and their partners to demonstrate how they can support themselves living in the UK.

Please feel free to contact us should you want advice regarding your family’s eligibility for a UK visa.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1002964/average-full-time-annual-earnings-in-the-uk/

[2] https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/inflation-calculator

Sudan crisis highlights why UKVI shouldn’t hold on to passports while processing applications

4th May 2023 By Diana Baxter

We were very proud this week to have helped a Sudanese father-to-be successfully evacuate to the UK despite his passport being held by the now closed UK Visa Application Centre in Khartoum. Sadly, many others have not been so fortunate as it is estimated that thousands of Sudanese nationals are trapped inside Sudan upon the outbreak of civil war with their passports retained by the UK and other visa authorities.

Such visa applicants are likely to be family members of British citizens, skilled workers and students resident in the UK, whose passports have been held by UKVI (or on its behalf, by the company TLScontact) for varying lengths of time. They may even include British citizens applying for Certificates of Entitlement to the Right of Abode or new passports. The last few years have seen significant delays in processing of UK visas overseas, first due to Covid (when visa offices abroad were also closed without notice, trapping applicants’ passports inside for months) and then following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Throughout 2022, family settlement visa applications regularly took up to six months for a decision and, while the timing of these has improved recently, refugee family reunion applications are averaging 12 months or longer for a decision.

This week, we were contacted by a distraught refugee in the UK whose wife applied for refugee family reunion more than 12 months ago yet she still has no decision and her passport is still held at the VAC in Khartoum. Such delays are not unusual with refugee family reunion processing yet UKVI continues to insist that passports are retained for the decision making process, unless additional fees are paid (and not universally available) to the private contractor for a ‘keep my passport’ service. The continued logic for this is increasingly hard to justify as UKVI transitions to a digital only immigration status, where applicants’ identity can be determined through biometrics and a check of biometric passports and where visa applicants in the UK (as opposed to those applying from overseas) are, for the most part, no longer required to submit their passports for consideration.

We sincerely hope and encourage UKVI and TLScontact to assist those affected by their passport loss at the TLS VAC in Khartoum by:
• immediately sending each individual affected a formal and personalised (with the relevant passport details) confirmation of the loss of their passport;
• urgently considering their outstanding visa applications and, if successful, facilitating their entry to the UK despite the lack of passport (a FAV (‘form for affixing a visa’) can be used in these circumstances).

Post pandemic changes to the sponsor guidance – hybrid working and delayed start dates

6th April 2023 By Rachael Ockenden

Several changes have come into effect for Skilled Worker sponsors over the law few months. Two of these changes in particular are a reflection of the lasting impact of the pandemic.

Hybrid working

The guidance for sponsors part 3: sponsor duties and compliance was updated on 31 March 2023 to include welcome clarification on hybrid working. It has always been the case that a sponsor is required to report when a sponsored migrant’s work location changes, within 10 working days of the change taking effect. A sponsor is now also required to report when a worker is, or will be, working remotely from home on a permanent or full-time basis or where the worker has moved, or will be moving, to a hybrid working pattern.

The guidance defines a ‘hybrid working pattern’ as a situation where the worker will work remotely on a regular and planned basis from their home or another address.

During the pandemic, the Home Office made it clear that sponsored migrants could work from home. It became less clear whether this would be permitted to continue beyond lockdowns and in line with the government’s ‘living with covid’ approach. One could have anticipated that the Home Office would argue that if a Skilled Worker migrant was working from home on a full-time basis, they do not need to be in the UK to undertake the role and therefore do not fulfil the requirements for obtaining a Skilled Worker visa. The recent changes to the guidance seem to suggest that they are not taking this approach.

Delayed start dates

Towards the end of last year, the Home Office removed the requirement to report where a sponsored migrant’s start date is delayed by no more than 28 days. This is likely a reflection of the overwhelming number of late start date reports that have been submitted since March 2020 due to the delays in visa processing times and international travel restrictions which prevented sponsored migrants from starting work in the UK as planned.

Where a sponsored migrant’s start date will be more than 28 days beyond the start date of their CoS, or their grant of immigration permission, a sponsor must report this and explain the reasons for the delayed start. However, the sponsor does not need to wait for the Home Office to review and accept the report before the sponsored migrant begins work. We believe these reports are currently taking at least several months to be processed.

Whilst the reduction in reporting duties for delays of 28 days or less is of course welcome, the system in place for delays of more than 28 days could result in sticky situations for sponsors and their sponsored migrants. If the Home Office does not accept the reason for a delay of more than 28 days, the sponsored migrant’s leave could be cancelled. This could then present various commercial and logistical issues. For example, if a sponsored migrant, their partner and children all move to the UK only to find out their leave has been cancelled within a few months, this could have significant implications. Although it may be possible for a Skilled Worker sponsored migrant to apply for leave to remain with a newly issued CoS in this situation, there would be substantial financial and administrative costs for both the sponsor and migrant.

We will need to wait and see what happens in practice and whether the ’28 day’ rule will be sufficient and flexible enough for employers. If you require advice in relation to the above or any other business immigration matters, please contact Rachael Ockenden at rachael@gryklaw.com.