Plan now for transition to eVisas, warns immigration lawyer

The UK Government is in the process of developing a digital immigration system - so-called eVisas. They will replace physical documents, such as such as Biometric Residence Permits (‘BRPs’) with an online record of immigration status. The deadline for the transition is the end of the year which means anyone holding physical immigration documents and whose immigration permission is due to expire after 31 December 2024 will be required to register for a UKVI account before the end of the year in order to access their eVisa. We’ll speak to an immigration lawyer about what employers need to be doing now to be ready for this new regime.

This is not a new concept. Since 2018, the UK Government has issued millions of eVisas to EEA nationals who applied under the EU Settlement Scheme, as well as to some non-visa nationals applying under certain immigration categories. In recent weeks UKVI has been e-mailing BRP holders with instructions on how to register for an online account, hence why many of our clients have been contacting our immigration team asking for help. 

So let’s hear from one of the team. Earlier I spoke to immigration specialist Shara Pledger about the rollout of the scheme which, so far, has not been a smooth one:  

Shara Pledger: “eVisas have been with us for a while and they started many years ago when we were actually looking at the transition out of Brexit and you'll see, already, lots of European nationals in the UK will have that digital proof of their status rather than a physical document. Unfortunately, as we have then expanded that service and this rollout has continued to other nationalities and to other groups of individuals in the UK, it hasn't necessarily gone all that smoothly. We did go through a process up until earlier this month (August) where it was an invitation only registration process and those invitations either didn't arrive when they were expected to arrive. We saw some instances with family groups where half might receive an invitation and the others would not. We also, as practitioners, received a lot of those invitations ourselves because we had been involved with somebody's application initially, but the invitation was not addressed to a person so it's impossible to work out who, out of the many people that we'd assisted at any one time, that invitation could relate to. So, in terms of the actual system, that has worked for the vast majority of people, so those who had received their invitation and followed the process, by and large, were able to go ahead and secure their eVisa. Now there are technical glitches, of course, lots of those are very well documented in terms of trying to log in and perhaps seeing somebody else's details, or not seeing the correct details for yourself, but hopefully those will be resolved over time. What we saw towards the start of this month (August) was that the invitation process is ended, so now it is an open registration process and anybody who has a biometric residence permit is currently able to register for their eVisa.”

Joe Glavina: “The deadline for the transition to eVisas is the end of the year, Shara, which is, of course,  a busy travel time for many people, so not ideal.”

Shara Pledger: “Making the decision to introduce this change on 31st December was an interesting one, two periods of the year where you can expect an awful lot of people to be traveling internationally, including, of course, individuals who have got friends and family who will naturally be based outside of the UK. Those are in the middle of summer and right at the end of the year, around the Christmas and New Year period. So, it is probably unfortunate that the decision was made that it would be 1st of January that the new eVisas would be absolutely essential for re-entry to the UK. What that does mean is that anybody who knows that they will be traveling over that period at the end of December into the beginning of January, they really must make sure that they have registered for their eVisas, they have connected them with their passports, just to try and mitigate those risks of there being problems on return.”
Joe Glavina: “So what’s your message to HR professionals around the communications piece, Shara? 

Shara Pledger: “I think the message for both employers and also for the individuals who are directly affected is quite simple - don't panic, just make a plan. At the moment, there isn't a huge amount that employers have been able to do up until this point because we were still in that sort of Beta testing phase in relation to the online sign up so it's not as if an employer was in a position to be able to sort of roll out comms to their entire workforce to let them know what they can do. Now that that testing phase has ended and we are in this open registration period, employers are able to do that. So, they are able to signpost to the government information. There's lots of it out there, very useful videos and slide decks that demonstrate what somebody needs to do and how they can register for their eVisa and I think employers really should be encouraged to do that. It's helpful to let the workforce know this is what we will need from you. There's a limit, however. There's the general caveat that they obviously shouldn't be giving any immigration advice because they might get themselves into trouble if they do that but, beyond that, it's very easy to overstep in this kind of area. This is not a change to somebody's status. The fact that they will have an eVisa from 1 January does not mean that they will have a different type of status, or even a different end date for their status than what they currently have today. So, there'll be no need to do things like redo somebody's right to work check based on their new eVisa, for example, and asking for that additional information, asking for that additional personal data, really can lead an employer down a route they really don't want to go down and they don’t need to go down, crucially. So really, it's just about making sure that employers are being helpful to their workforce where they can do so, but they're not overstepping and they're not asking for information that they don't actually need.”

Joe Glavina: “How does this affect an employer’s right to work checks?”

Shara Pledger: “A lot depends on how clued up an organisation already is about right to work, and that doesn't change. The transition to eVisas is in no way introducing additional burdens, really, when it comes to right to work checking. The basic duties are always the same. Employers should know and have proof of the right to work of all of their employees and, usefully, also people like contractors and other workers who might also be based on their premises. Now there will be a bit of a transaction for sure for some individuals who perhaps have, up until now, had a paper form of status, for example, but they are a minority. The vast majority of individuals with temporary, or even permanent, status in the UK will already be in possession of a biometric residence permit, or an eVisa, maybe both. Now, for those with biometric residence permits, for years the requirement has been that those individuals would be checked via a digital system. So, anybody that's been recruited in the past couple of years will have gone through that digital checking process anyway. For people that have been employees for a longer period of time, there may well be a bit of an impetus to recheck a lot of people. If there have been a lot of people that have joined an organization who were all checked with their BRP at the time that that was acceptable, a lot of those BRPs will have shown an expiry date of the 31st of December but, again, don't panic, plan. There's plenty of time to be able to make contact with those individuals and let them know, look, we conducted a right to work check that was based on your BRP, your BRP said the 31st of December, and so we will need to do a new right to work check for you after that date just to confirm that you're maintaining that right to work. Those individuals have nothing to be concerned about. They are not losing their status unless their original expiry date, coincidentally, was the 31st of December. Anybody who had status into 2025, 2026, even 2027, they will still have the same status, they'll just prove it in a different way and that should be a very straightforward thing for them to be able to resolve. So, as long as everyone's working together, sharing information, there isn't really, from a right to work perspective, anything to be too concerned about.”

Shara mentioned how there is a lot of useful information on the Government’s website including videos explaining what is changing and what will be required from 1 January. We have put a link to that in the transcript of this programme for you.

LINKS
- Link to Government website on eVisas