Many of you will have noticed that the expiry date showing on your Biometric Residence Permit (BRP) card is 31st December 2024, prior to many of your visa expiry dates. The good news is that this doesn’t mean that your leave to remain will expire on 31 December 2024. Instead it means that your card itself will simply expire on that date.
The reason for this is that UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) division of the Home Office is developing a digital immigration system. The Home Office is replacing the Biometric Residence Permit with an online record of people’s immigration status, which is known as an eVisa.
What is an eVisa?
An eVisa is an online record of your immigration status and the conditions of your permission to enter or stay in the UK. Updating your physical document to an eVisa does not affect your immigration status or the conditions of your permission to enter or stay in the UK.
With an eVisa, you’ll be able to travel to the UK without carrying a physical document in the future, except for your current passport, which must be registered to your UKVI account. Until then you will need to continue to carry your physical document if you have one.
You can use your UKVI account details to log in to the view and prove service to see your eVisa. You can also use the UKVI account to share your immigration status information with third parties, such as employers or landlords.
How do I get an eVisa and a UKVI account?
Please note that if you currently have leave to remain in the UK and have either a BRP, a BRC or other physical documents to prove your immigration status, you do not have to take any action at the moment.
According to the Home Office guidance, if you have leave to remain in the UK, you will be able to see your eVisa by generating a share code in the view and prove service once you’ve completed your UKVI account registration. This will give people temporary access to your immigration status information.
You can get a new share code whenever you need one, so you do not have to remember a single unique code to prove your status. The Home Office will also continue to share relevant information about your immigration status automatically with other public authorities, so you won’t need to interact with online services very often to prove your immigration status.
Further updates on when you need to register for a UKVI account, and what you need to do will be provided by the Home Office in 2024.
For further updates on eVisa in 2024, follow Lisa’s law for the latest immigration news.
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