Is your Business BRP-ready?

The Home Office is currently busy replacing the traditional in-passport visa stamps with Biometric Residence Permits (or BRPs) for all successful UK visa applicants from outside of the EEA, as the main evidence of their immigration status in the UK.

About the size of a credit card, these BRPs will be available for applicants to collect from a designated Post Office up to ten days after they arrive in the UK and will display their name and personal details, along with their immigration status.

Sponsors should be warned that the introduction of BRPs for all successful overseas UK visa applications may mean that two right to work checks will be necessary, as some migrants may be required to begin work before they are able to attend a Post Office to collect their BRP. We therefore advise employers to prepare themselves ahead of time by ensuring that the appropriate right to work checks are conducted.

The Home Office has stated that, should a migrant need to begin work before being able to pick up their BRP from their designated Post Office, employers should refer to the short-term travel vignette in the migrant’s passport as evidence of their right to work in the UK.

In these cases, the sponsor will then need to take care that a second right to work check is conducted when this vignette expires or when the employee is able to produce their BRP.

The scheme is being rolled out across the globe in stages over the course of 2015, with applicants from Pakistan being the first to have received a BRP instead of a visa stamp affixed to their passport from 1 March this year.

Since then, the issuance of BRPs has been extended to a further 67 countries worldwide, with some of the most recent additions including India, China, North Korea, Malaysia, Canada, Egypt, Japan and the USA.

The Home Office plans to introduce the final phase of the scheme on 4 July, which means that successful applicants from all remaining countries worldwide will issued a BRP before the end of 2015.