Everyone, whatever your status
The four things almost every person needs in their first weeks, and the one page that covers every visa route.
The master index — visiting, working, studying, family, asylum, settlement and appeals.
Physical cards have been replaced by an online status. If you have not set up your UKVI account yet, start here.
Employers, landlords and border staff ask for this. A code lasts 90 days and you can get a new one whenever you need it.
You do not need ID, proof of address or proof of immigration status to register. If a surgery refuses you, it must write and explain why within 14 days.
Open to everyoneYou can start work before it arrives if you can prove your right to work. Check your eVisa first — you may already have one.
What to give an employer when they run their check.
Dated summaries of rule changes, consultations and Commons Library briefings — each one linked to the original document.
Health, housing, money and education work differently here, and English guidance can be wrong for you. Start with the Scotland page.
Students
Your university's international team is your first stop. UKCISA is the second — a national charity whose advice is free and independent of your institution.
Eligibility, money you need, documents, fees and how to apply.
Independent guidance on immigration, fees, working and life in the UK, written for international students.
Speak to a qualified adviser when the website does not answer your question.
What your visa allows, what counts as a week, and the kinds of work that are never permitted.
Fee status is decided separately from immigration status, and it is worth checking rather than assuming.
Graduates
The window between finishing a course and your student visa expiring is short, and most routes must be applied for from inside the UK.
Post-study work for people who finished an eligible UK course — eligibility, length and how to apply.
Compares the routes open to you once the course ends, including switching rather than leaving.
The main sponsored work route, and the usual next step after a Graduate visa.
Every work route in one list — useful if the obvious one does not fit your situation.
Workers
Your employment rights do not depend on your immigration status. Minimum wage, holiday pay and protection from discrimination apply to you.
Skilled Worker, Graduate, Health and Care, seasonal and temporary routes.
A charity that helps migrants with unpaid wages, unfair dismissal and exploitation, including employment tribunal cases.
What you are owed depends on your employment status — employee, worker or genuinely self-employed.
Contracts, pay, holiday, redundancy and what to do about a workplace dispute.
What to do if your sponsor or employer is using your visa as leverage.
If your job is tied to a sponsor
Losing a sponsored job affects your permission to stay, and the timescales are tight. Get advice from a regulated adviser before you resign, accept a settlement, or agree to anything in writing.
Asylum seekers and refugees
Charities run the asylum helplines and they do not make decisions on claims. Talking to them does not affect your case.
Who can claim, how the process works, and what happens at each stage.
What you may get while you wait, who is eligible, and how to claim — including short-term support after a refusal.
Independent advice and guidance for people seeking asylum, by phone, webchat or contact form.
A plain-English, step-by-step guide to the asylum and immigration system — screening, the substantive interview, decisions, appeals and fresh claims. Written for people without a lawyer as much as with one.
Where to turn when support has stopped or has not started.
Who to call for housing problems, money, English classes, schools, legal representation — and the Refugee Council line for children in England arriving alone.
Advice and support for people seeking protection in Scotland.
Advice and support for people seeking protection in Wales.
Family and partners
Family routes have financial requirements and documentary evidence rules that catch people out. Read the requirements before you book anything.
Partner, spouse, child, parent and dependant routes.
What the rules actually require, explained without jargon.
How children's circumstances affect an application to remain.
There are routes that do not depend on staying with your partner. Your status is not a reason to stay in danger.
EU, EEA and Swiss citizens
The main deadline has passed, but late applications are still possible for people with reasonable grounds for missing it.
Settled and pre-settled status, family permits and Frontier Worker permits.
Applying, moving from pre-settled to settled status, and what counts as reasonable grounds for a late application.
Plain-English version, including what happens if you were never told you needed to apply.
Settlement and citizenship
Indefinite leave to remain and citizenship are two separate applications, with different requirements and different fees.
Every route to indefinite leave to remain, and where citizenship follows.
A checker that points you to the right ILR route for your circumstances.
Citizenship is a separate application from settlement, with its own requirements and fee.
For people who have held lawful permission continuously for a decade.
How continuous leave works, and what breaks it.
Daily life: homes, money, school, driving
The practical machinery nobody explains on arrival.
Renting, council tax, repairs, and what your local council is responsible for. Private renting is open to anyone with the right to rent, but social housing, homelessness help and Council Tax Reduction are public funds.
Check your status firstWhat a landlord in England is allowed to ask for, so you can tell a lawful check from a dodgy one.
Emergency and everyday housing advice, including eviction and homelessness. They can tell you what your status entitles you to before you approach a council.
Open to everyoneScottish housing law differs from England's — use this one if you are in Scotland.
Open to everyoneSchool places and admissions, childcare, college and university. A child's place at a state school is not normally affected by a parent's immigration status or an NRPF condition.
Open to everyoneHow long you can use your existing licence, and when you must exchange or retake.
Most benefits listed here are public funds and are blocked by an NRPF condition. Contribution-based ones you have paid National Insurance for are not. Check which is which before claiming.
Check your status firstWhat the condition blocks, what stays available, how to check whether you have it, and how to ask the Home Office to remove it. Read this before claiming anything.
Open to everyoneIf your circumstances have changed, you can ask for the condition to be lifted. There is no fee. Removal is not automatic and depends on the permission you hold.
When things go wrong
Refusals, errors and expiring permission all have deadlines. Acting late is usually worse than acting imperfectly.
Appealing a visa, settlement or asylum decision, and fixing problems with your status.
If your status, date of birth or name is wrong, or your share code will not generate.
Why your permission can continue after your visa expiry date while an in-time application is pending.
What an appeal involves and how to build the evidence for it.
Know your rights before you need them.
Getting advice you can trust
In the UK it is a criminal offence to give immigration advice unless you are regulated. Check anyone before you pay them.
How adviser levels work, what advisers can and cannot do, and how to complain about one.
Search the Immigration Advice Authority's register for advisers near you, free and paid.
People prohibited from acting as immigration advisers. Worth a search before you hand over money.
Free help with benefits, work, housing, debt and consumer problems, in person and online. Advice is available whatever your immigration status.
Open to everyoneSearch for a solicitor who handles immigration work in Scotland.
The official register for England and Wales.
Signs you are being scammed
Anyone who guarantees a visa, asks you to lie on a form, refuses to give a written fee quote, insists on cash, or holds on to your passport is not someone to trust. Nobody can promise a Home Office decision.
If you have already paid an unregulated person, you cannot get your money back through the regulator — but reporting them still protects the next person.