The UK Home Office announced the removal of the police registration requirement for relevant nationals. It has also reinstated priority processing services for overseas work and study visa applicants.
It had previously been a requirement for certain nationals with a UK visa valid for more than six months to register with the police within seven days of arrival in the United Kingdom. Their police registration certificate also needed to be updated if they changed their passport, visa, or residential address.
The police registration scheme has been suspended and the guidance withdrawn. It will be formally abolished this autumn once the relevant legislative amendments are made. In the meantime, the Home Office announced that applicants who received a visa indicating that they need to register no longer need to do so. In addition, anyone who has already registered with the police is no longer required to keep their police registration certificate updated.
The Home Office also announced that if someone has been issued a visa to enter the United Kingdom but has not yet travelled there, they may be issued a replacement visa or they may receive notification that they do not need to register with the police.
As set out in a previous LawFlash, the Home Office temporarily suspended priority processing services for overseas applications in order to prioritize applications submitted in response to the conflict in Ukraine.
The Home Office announced the return of priority processing services for work (i.e., skilled worker and global business mobility) and study visa applications from August 12, 2022. The priority processing service aims to reduce processing times to five working days and the super priority processing service aims to reduce the processing time to one to two business days. The availability of these services is dependent on submission location.
Standard work visa applications submitted without the priority service are currently taking around four weeks to process.
Priority visa services have not been reinstated for family visa applications (i.e., applications as the spouse or dependant of a British national). The standard processing time for these applications currently remains at 24 weeks.
The standard processing time for visitor visa applications is currently an average of seven weeks. However, limited priority services remain available at some submission locations.
The priority services for applicants inside the United Kingdom currently remain available.
If you have any questions or would like more information on the issues discussed in this LawFlash, please contact any of the following Morgan Lewis lawyers:
London
Yvette Allen
Carina Bryk
Washington, DC
Shannon A. Donnelly