Biometric Residence Permits come to an end

By Guest Writer | October 31, 2024 | Compliance, News, Right to Work

The Home Office has confirmed that Biometric Residence Permits (BRPs) will no longer be issued or replaced from today (31st October 2024) and all UK new visa applicants will be issued with an eVisa. This is in line with the UK’s transition to a fully digital immigration status.

In this blog, Callum De Freitas, Solicitor at Field Seymour Parkes shares more information about what that means to employers and their employees today and moving forwards:

What is an eVisa?

Biometric Residence Permits (BRPs) were introduced in 2008, to act as proof of an individual’s immigration status and Right to Work in the UK. Traditionally, an individual who applied for a visa would receive a vignette visa stamp in their passport and would then need to collect their BRP on arrival in the UK.

More recently, visa applicants who have used the Home Office’s UK Immigration: ID Check app to register their biometric information, as opposed to providing their biometrics at a face-to-face appointment, have instead been granted electronic visas (eVisas). Today, an eVisa is a digital record of someone’s immigration status and it allows an individual to view and share their immigration status when needed, for example to prove their Right to Work.

Along with this change, BRPs issued over the last year or so have an expiry date of 31st December 2024, even where the migrant’s permission to stay in the UK is for a longer period. This reflects the Home Office’s intention that all BRPs will be replaced with eVisas by January 2025.

To effect this change, the Home Office has been inviting migrants to create a UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) account. Some migrants will already have an account, created in the process of a past visa application. Creating a UKVI account means a migrant can access their eVisa and prove their Right to Work status digitally.

What does this mean for employees?

If your employee is a non-UK / Irish national who already has an eVisa and a UKVI account, then there is no need to worry about these changes. You should still recommend that employees keep their account updated with changes in contact and passport details. They can do this here.

For any employee who has a physical immigration document, like a BRP, which expires on or before 31 December 2024 (i.e. those who do not already have a UKVI account), you should encourage them to take action and create a UKVI account to access their eVisa. This should be done before the expiry date of the BRP.

If your employee already has a UKVI account, but was granted a BRP rather than an eVisa, then they should try logging in to their UKVI account to ensure that they can access their eVisa.

If they don’t yet have a UKVI account, the Home Office will contact them using the email address given in their visa application. They should ensure that they are regularly checking this email address, including spam/junk. They will need to create a UKVI account as part of the process of moving to an eVisa – the Home Office email will explain how to do this.

If your employee doesn’t have a UKVI account but has also not received an email from the Home Office, they should be able to create a UKVI account and access their eVisa on the government website.

Even after obtaining an eVisa, the Home Office recommends that migrants retain their BRP for record-keeping purposes, even after expiry on 31 December 2024. They should also ensure that they bring their BRP with them on all overseas travel until 1st  January 2025, to avoid delays at the border.

What does this mean for employers making Right to Work checks?

For new and prospective employees, you should continue to ask those who need to prove their status using an eVisa to generate a share code on the GOV.UK website. You can then check someone’s Right to Work using the share code they provide along with their date of birth. Some physical documents will remain a valid means of proving the right to work, and further details can be found in the Home Office’s employer guidance.

For existing employees, employers will maintain a statutory excuse against a civil penalty if initial checks were undertaken in-line with the guidance that applied at the time the check was made. Only where an employee’s existing permission to stay is due to expire, as confirmed via the initial check, will you need to carry out a follow-up check to maintain a statutory excuse.

Whilst almost all BRPs and BRCs are due to expire on 31st December 2024, this expiry date may refer to the document only, and not to the holder’s underlying immigration status. There is no need to recheck the status of an existing employee solely because their BRP or BRC expires on the 31st December 2024. However, if you used a physical document to undertake the initial Right to Work check and you haven’t recorded a different visa expiry date or don’t have record of the visa expiry, you can carry out a recheck using the eVisa.

What do we need to do next?

We would recommend that you share as much information as possible with your employees and encourage them to take action as soon as possible.

The Home Office has also produced a useful fact sheet to help employers with these changes which you can read here.