If your immigration permission expired, or will expire, between 24 January and 31 May 2020 the Home Office will extend it for you up to 31 May 2020 without your having to make an immigration application or pay a fee. However, you must submit a form to its Corona virus Immigration Help Centre. Until 6 April, you had to send an email including specified information.

This provision is for people who are unable to leave the UK. It is not for people who have already left the UK – you will need to make a new application if you intend and are able to travel to the UK.

Usually, if you stay in the UK without immigration permission when you are required to hold it, you will encounter many problems. These include: not being allowed to study, work, rent private property, open and hold a bank account, drive, have access to free NHS treatment and having future immigration applications refused automatically.

On 24 March 2020, the Home Office updated its Corona virus guidance and made provision for free extensions of your immigration permission until 31 May 2020, if it expired or will expire between 24 January and 31 May – it is very important that you use this provision if you cannot make a full immigration application in the UK.

Home Office guidance states that: 

“No individual of any nationality whose leave has expired or is due to expire between 24 January 2020 and 31 May 2020, and who cannot leave the UK because of COVID-19, will be regarded as an overstayer or suffer any detriment in the future”.

Make sure that you also keep any evidence for yourself, for example, screen shots or other notifications of cancelled flights, and information about entry restrictions for the country you need to travel to. This is particularly important if you need to make an immigration application in the future, when you would usually have to declare any periods of overstay and may need evidence of what caused it.

Visa application centres outside the UK are now closed. If you have submitted an application and now want to withdraw it – see Cancel your visa, immigration or citizenship application. 

The Home Office confirmed on 17 April that Access UK (the digital application process) will hold applications for an increased period of 240 days. This is to ensure that entry clearance applications remain live and valid, so you will be able to enrol your biometric data once services have resumed.

If your Tier 4 sponsor has assigned a confirmation of acceptance of studies (CAS) or a Start-up endorsement to you but you have not been able to make an immigration application by the usual deadline or your course start date has changed, the Home Office may still grant your application. It has published guidance for sponsors about this which says that applications will not automatically be refused and will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

If you have been granted immigration permission in the UK recently, but you have not yet received your biometric residence permit (BRP), you may leave the UK without it. Try to arrange for your education provider or someone else who will remain in the UK to forward it to you. If your BRP is not collected or forwarded, it will be cancelled. This means you will need to apply for a replacement BRP visa in order to re-enter the UK, followed by a new BRP once you are back in the UK – see Passport, visa and BRP problems.

If you have been granted immigration permission but you have not been able to enter the UK to start your study, you will be able to study online, if your education provider offers this, without Tier 4 sponsorship being withdrawn or short-term student leave being cancelled.

You should be able to enter the UK with your existing immigration permission when travel is possible and courses are running again, but check this with your course provider. Your immigration permission must not have expired, and if it was granted for longer than six months you will need to apply for a transfer of conditions (vignette transfer) – see 30-day vignette lost/stolen/damaged/expired outside the UK. The Home Office has not provided guidance on whether it will offer refunds if immigration permission has expired, or you can no longer take the course for other reasons – it is unlikely that it will do so.

The same principle applies to Tier 4 dependants and others. If you have been granted immigration permission and issued with a 30-day vignette (sticker) but have not been to travel within that 30-day period, you will need to apply for a transfer of conditions (vignette transfer) when or if you are able to travel. If you are a dependant, the Tier 4 student in your family must still have valid Tier 4 leave, whether they are inside or outside the UK. 

The current advice is that students who currently remain at university should now not travel. Universities will continue to support those students who do not have another alternative, such as international students who do not have a home in the UK, students who can’t return to another address for safety reasons, and health students who have transferred to working for the NHS. 

Universities will do all they can to ensure that students who remain at university have access to support, food and other provisions and that critical services – like heating, water, electricity and security – are maintained. Students can contact their university to understand the support available to them. 

The UK government has issued guidance for residential educational settings. It notes that ‘it is important that institutions operate a ‘non-eviction’ policy, so that no student is required to leave halls if their contract is up, if their rental agreement does not cover holiday periods or if they are unable to pay their rent. This applies whether students are self-isolating or not, and is particularly important in the case of international students, care leavers and estranged students.’ 

Universities will do all they can to ensure that students who remain at university have access to support, food and other provisions and that critical services – like heating, water, electricity and security – are maintained. Students can contact their university to understand the support available to them. The Office for Students has published a briefing note on student accommodation.

The government will not consider it a breach of sponsor duties where students have chosen to return overseas but wish to continue their current studies via distance learning; these students will be able to keep their Tier 4 visa. The usual restrictions and reporting requirements will apply where a student has withdrawn from their course or formally deferred. 

Tier 4 students are not normally permitted to undertake distance learning courses. However, due to the current exceptional circumstances, the government has stated that they will not consider it a breach of sponsor duties to offer distance learning to existing Tier 4 students in the UK or to students who have chosen to return overseas but wish to continue their current studies. Sponsors do not need to withdraw sponsorship in these circumstances.

On 24 March, the UK government released further guidance for visa holders in the UK. They have stated that visas shall be extended to 31 May 2020 if an individual cannot leave because of travel restrictions or self-isolation. The government is now requesting that individuals contact the Corona virus Immigration Team to detail their situation.

NHS treatment for the corona virus (COVID-19) is free of charge for everyone. For further information, please consult advice available from UKCISA.

To get more doctors and nurses on the frontline, the Home Office has lifted the restriction on the amount of hour’s student nurses and doctors can work in the NHS. On top of these changes, pre-registered overseas nurses who are currently required to sit their first skills test within three months and to pass the test within eight months, will now have this deadline extended to the end of the year as well. This will give overseas nurses more time to pass their exams, whilst they spend the immediate term working on the frontline. Trainee doctors and nurses will also not be limited by the number of hours they can work in the NHS during term time.

The government has recently updated its guidance. It states that if students are already in the UK, they can start their course or studies before their visa application has been decided if:

• Their sponsor is a Tier 4 sponsor
• They have been given a confirmation of acceptance for studies (CAS)
• They submitted their application before their current visa expired and they show their sponsor evidence of this
• The course they will start is the same as the one listed on their CAS
• They have a valid Academic Technology Approval Scheme (ATAS) certificate if required

If their application is eventually rejected as invalid or refused they must stop their course.

Students should initially contact their universities as they may have additional support in place and hardship funds that students are able to access. Further information on this can be found on the UKCISA website.

If you have immigration queries related to corona virus, please email the Corona virus Immigration Help Centre.

Email: [email protected]. Your email must be in English.

Home office aims to reply to your email within 5 working days. You can also call the Corona virus Immigration Help Centre. If you’ve emailed the help centre already, please do not contact them by phone.

Telephone: 0800 678 1767 (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm)