In this article we look at how foreign eSports (competitive video gaming) competitors can use the visitor route to participate in UK competitions and what the rules say about earning prize money. We also look at options for gamers looking to apply the ...

A visit visa is a visa allowing a person to visit the United Kingdom for up to six months at a time, during which time they are not allowed to work. Visa nationals have to apply for and be granted a visit visa before they travel otherwise they will au ...

Criminal convictions and other signs of poor character can, unsurprisingly, negatively affect applications for leave to enter or remain in the UK. Those caught out by these rules over the years include former boxer Mike Tyson, Duane “Dog the Bou ...

Making a mistake on an immigration application form can be disastrous. If the mistake is interpreted by officials as an attempt to mislead or deceive, the application may be refused. If the application was for entry clearance, it can also lead to a te ...

One of the most common UK immigration myths is that there is a maximum permitted stay of 180 days in a year (or six months in 12 months) for UK visitors.  This myth has been propagated not just by migrants but also by advisers and even UK Border Forc ...

Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) has been on the government’s agenda for some time. Finally, in the March 2023 Statement of Changes to the Immigration Rules HC 1160, the long-awaited Electronic Travel Authorisation scheme was announced. This po ...

The common travel area enables passport-free and legal travel between the United Kingdom (including Northern Ireland), the Republic of Ireland, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands for British and Irish citizens and migrants with lawful status. Onc ...

The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration has now published a report on visit visa operations between December 2022 and January 2023 which confirms that overall, this area of the Home Office is functioning well, with an apparent “fo ...

Owing a debt to the National Health Service is a ground for refusing applications for permission to enter or remain in the UK. Such debts arise because “overseas visitors” are charged for certain types of NHS treatment. The National Health ...

Before 1 January 2021, British and EU citizens did not require a visa to travel across the Channel on a business trip. This is largely still the case post-Brexit, so we’ve been left with the appearance that nothing has really changed from a legal pe ...

A visit visa can be cancelled for a variety of reasons. One such reason is that the person’s exclusion from the UK is “conducive to the public good” due to their conduct, character and associations. The Court of Appeal considered this provision ...

British businesses have long relied on workers from the European Union to come in for short or medium-term projects. Before Brexit, this was frictionless from an immigration perspective. People arrived, people worked, people left and businesses were h ...

Travel to the UK is opening back up, but not as we previously knew it. The news has been replete with examples of EU citizens being denied entry at UK airports and detained for removal. These stories are nothing new to jaded non-European ears. But for ...

No doubt you will have read about the mudslinging between the UK and EU over the lack of a visa-free deal for touring musicians and entertainers. This has been retweeted and attacked by seemingly every artist you’ve heard of, and even been debated i ...

New Statement of Changes alert! With the end of EU free movement nearly here and the visitor route likely to see greater use in future, changes to the route have (in the nick of time) now been announced. A new Appendix V will replace the existing vers ...

What happens when you enter the UK as a visitor and then apply to remain here so that you can stay with your British family members? Most immigration lawyers can easily answer this question: your application will be refused. But things can get a bit m ...

Every immigration lawyer in the UK will, at least once in their career, be sat in front of a nonchalant non-visa national (usually American, Canadian or Australian) who is blissfully unaware that they have either overstayed their leave as a visitor, b ...

A cross-party group of MPs has published a highly critical report on the Home Office’s treatment of visit visa applicants from Africa. It forms part of an ongoing inquiry into the high level of visa refusals for Africans seeking to visit the UK for ...

The removal of full rights of appeal for family visit visas in 2013 has led to a legal dilemma for those considering a challenge to a refusal: should they give up, re-apply, attempt a human rights appeal or launch an application for judicial review? T ...

In short: the Home Office are frequently refusing them. This may not come as a surprise to immigration lawyers, who are all too familiar with the Home Office’s culture of disbelief, but it has come as a nasty shock to many artists, authors, and perf ...

Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich, whose Tier 1 Investor visa is apparently subject to processing delays, has reportedly been granted Israeli citizenship. The media coverage of the Russian billionaire’s visa woes heavily implies that ...

The Court of Appeal has dealt a serious blow to rights of appeal for visitors to the UK. Here we analyse the legal situation and take a look at the three judgments. ...

Hearty congratulations from all of us at Free Movement to the former army officer and UN charity worker who are due to marry next year. But given that Meghan Markle is an American citizen, what hoops will the happy couple need to jump through in orde ...

The Home Office appears to be cracking down on the entry of foreign amateur cricketers and sportspeople. Emails released by the Home Office under a Freedom of Information request suggest that unpaid amateur cricketers who might in future wish to earn ...

“Two visas had been rejected … I was wrenched by a heavy feeling of humiliation…trying to prove that I’m a “normal person” like any Englishman, that I’m not aspiring to swap my career in Egypt as a cartoonist [and] scriptwriter … for B ...

First of all, the official headnote to Muhandiramge (section S-LTR.1.7) [2015] UKUT 675 (IAC) (20 November 2015): Where an application for leave to remain in the United Kingdom is refused under Section S-LTR.1.7 of Appendix FM of the Immigration Rules ...

Following his attention seeking call for all Muslims to be banned from entering the United States, there have been calls for Donald Trump to be given a “visa ban” preventing him from coming to the UK. Is this feasible in UK immigration la ...

Major changes to the Immigration Rules affecting refugees, Tiers 1, 2 and 5, EEA nationals sponsoring family members under the Immigration Rules, visitors, applications for Administrative Review and knowledge of language and life tests are being intro ...

Improvements have been made to the quality of decisions and to record-keeping in the Home Office’s Visa Section in Jordan. However, the decision makers regularly failed to take supporting evidence adequately into account, and, in a fifth of ca ...

The family visit visa system underwent an inspection by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration last month. The posts inspected were Abu Dhabi, Accra, Amman, Dhaka, Kingston, Manila, Nairobi, New Delhi, Croydon and Sheffield. The In ...

In an interesting example of the self defeating nature of the UK’s immigration rules, failure to follow Home Office policy and failure of basic common sense, the renowned Chinese artist Mr Ai Wei Wei has been refused a visit visa by a senio ...

In the case of Adjei (visit visas – Article 8) [2015] UKUT 261 (IAC) the Upper Tribunal dismisses an appeal against refusal of a family visit visa. This is despite the First-tier Tribunal finding that the application in question in truth met the r ...