Essential guide on maintaining your student visa status in the UK, covering everything from attendance requirements to visa renewals, ensuring your educational journey remains uninterrupted.
This page is for anyone who has, or who is applying for, Student immigration permission. Having Student permission includes having permission granted under the current Student route as well as permission granted under Tier 4 (General).
Your Student permission will be given to you in one or more forms of documentation. Increasingly, the Home Office is granting permission in the form of anonline immigration status (also known as an 'eVisa'). Read oureVisa page to keep up to date with what we know as the Home Office introduces it. If you want to know what you should receive, see ‘Receiving your decision’, in our information for Applying outside the UK or for Applying in the UK.
Student permission is granted with immigration conditions, which are usually stated on your immigration documentation. You also have requirements and obligations related to the Immigration Rules, your studies, and your Student sponsor. This section explains all of these, plus some general good practice on protecting your Student status.
Conditions of Student immigration permission
Last updated December 11, 2024
YourStudent immigration permission will be subject to certain conditions. It is very important that you understand these conditions. A breach of conditions can have serious consequences for both your current Student permission and any future immigration applications you may make.
Every time you enter or re-enter the UK you must intend to study, or continue to study, at the Student sponsor that issued your CAS. Your Student sponsor's sponsor licence number is on your visa sticker (vignette); it was also on your Biometric Residence Permit (BRP) if you were issued one. As far as we are aware, it is not yet detailed in your eVisa; concerns about this have been raised to the Home Office by many people working in the education sector If you do not enrol, or if you fail to continue with your studies, your Student sponsor must normally report this to the Home Office. See Sponsorship duties at theHome Office Student sponsor guidance.
If you have changed your mind about your current course, or you have completed your course and want to do more study, it may be possible to join a new course at your current institution. This will depend on the study condition you are subject to.
If you do change course, your Student sponsor will inform the Home Office about this. See Sponsorship duties at theHome Office Student sponsor guidance.
There is some limited flexibility to switch to a different Student sponsor but you must apply for permission from the Home Office first. The only exception to this is if your new course is considered assupplementary study; this means you will be studying it in addition.
If you were required to obtain an Academic Technology Approval Scheme (ATAS) clearance certificate as part of your Student application you must apply for a new ATAS certificate within 28 days, if one of the following subsequently happens:
Your course content or research proposal changes; and/or
Your course completion date (as stated on your CAS) is postponed by more than three calendar months.
We recommend that you seek advice from a student adviser at your institution if you are uncertain whether or not you must apply for a new ATAS clearance certificate.
People with Student permission either have a work restriction, which may be expressed in terms of the number of hours you are allowed to work and the types of work you can do, or a work prohibition which means you cannot work at all. For further information, seeStudent work.
The immigration authorities treat work restrictions very seriously. They can refuse your immigration application, or remove you from the UK, if you work too many hours or if you do work which you are not allowed to do. You might also be barred from returning to the UK for a certain period.
Your immigration conditions prohibit you from accessing 'public funds', which means certain specific welfare benefits and local authority housing. However, using the National Health Service, sending your child to a state school, being exempt from the Council Tax, and paying 'home' fees for study, do not count as accessing 'public funds'. See our info onPublic funds for a full list of what is included.
If you claim public funds, despite having a 'no recourse to public funds' condition, you:
will be breaching the conditions of your immigration permission; and
may have problems obtaining an immigration extension in the UK; and
may be barred from coming back to the UK for at least 12 months (and, in some cases, five or ten years), under many categories and not just as a Student.
In August 2022, the Home Office announced it was abolishing the requirement to register with police (known as 'police registration'). The Immigration Rules were formally amended in November 2022, at which point the scheme was then legally abolished. You can read gov.uk information confirming the closure of the scheme atUK visas and registering with the police.
The police registration condition was given to people of certain nationalities, aged 16 or over, who were coming to the UK for more than six months in certain immigration categories (this included the Student route). Not everyone will have been required to register. Those who were subject to the requirement would have to register with their local police force and keep it updated about certain specified changes in their circumstances. The police registration condition was likely to have been printed on your 30-day vignette, your biometric residence permit (BRP), or in your letter from the Home Office.
No person is now required to register or to update their local police about changes, even if their existing immigration documentation says they must. This is the case for those who already registered and those who have a condition saying they must register but who never did so. However, those who were required to, but who never did so, while the scheme was still in force should seek advice before making a further immigration application. This is because it remains unclear whether or not the UK Home Office might still consider such a failure a breach of conditions.
If you are someone who has been given a condition to register with the police, and you are confused or concerned about what this means for you, please contact the international student adviser at your institution or contact us on ourStudents' advice line.
Other considerations regarding the Immigration Rules
Last updated December 11, 2024
In this section, we discuss some of the considerations you should have for the Immigration Rules you had to satisfy when you applied for your Student immigration permission, and how certain changes could affect your immigration position or future applications.
When you applied for your Student immigration permission, you confirmed that you had enough money to pay for your tuition fees and for your living costs at the monthly rate and for a period of time set by the Home Office.
If the Home Office has concerns about your ability to pay your fees and living costs, they can make further checks to confirm that the funds continue to be available or that they have been spent to fund course fees or living expenses. This might happen when, for example, you arrive in the UK after you have been granted entry clearance, or when you make a further application for immigration permission. If you use this money for other purposes, then you may have to explain this, and how you intend to cover your living expenses whilst in the UK.
If the Home Office suspects that you intend to work beyond your permitted hours, or to claim public funds in order to support yourself, your application or entry to the UK may be refused. If the money was never genuinely available to you for the purposes of study then it is possible that you will be refused further leave to remain, or entry to the UK, on the grounds that you have used deception in a previous application. If you think this might be an issue for you in a future immigration application, seek advice from your institution's student adviser.
Being convicted of a criminal offence in the UK can have serious consequences for your current immigration position. Your current permission to stay can be curtailed in some circumstances.
You must declare any criminal convictions, if asked about them in a future immigration application. Applications for entry clearance, or further leave to remain in the UK, can be refused on the basis of a person's criminal history.
Certain punishments (other than a prison sentence) such as fines, police cautions, and being disqualified from driving, count as non-custodial sentences for immigration purposes, and can also be treated very seriously.
If you are in trouble with the police, we recommend that you seek legal advice from an immigration specialist, as well as from a criminal law solicitor, as soon as possible. It is important to establish what the consequences may be for your immigration status if, for example, you are convicted of an offence or accept a caution. If you are about to make an application to extend your immigration permission, or if you have already made an application and you are waiting for a decision, seek advice. The international student adviser at your institution may be able to advise you or help you to access more specialist advice.
For more information about UK driving regulations see our information aboutdriving in the UK on our travel and transport page.
Most banks offer an environmentally-friendly (or 'green') option, where you do not receive paper statements by post. This reduces unnecessary paper usage and waste, reduces demand on the postal service, and is a popular option in the UK where many people now monitor their bank account online including through a mobile phone app.
If you make an immigration application to continue your studies, you will need to show evidence in the correct format that you have enough money to pay for your tuition fees and living costs. One way to meet these requirements is with bank statements. You can use statements you have printed yourself from online banking, but the statements must meet certain requirements decided by the UK Home Office. Our information onEvidence explains more about this.
Good practice
Last updated December 11, 2024
In this section we explain the importance of preparing for a new Student application, we tell you the things you should keep in your own files, and we explain one of the key responsibilities you have as the holder of Student permission.
Your deadline for sending an in-time application to extend your stay in the UK is the end of the final day of your current immigration permission. However, we advise that you start thinking about it four months before this date.
Make copies of everything you give to the UK immigration authorities when you make an immigration application. This means make a copy of your answers to the application form questions, as well as every document you provide with your application. Additionally, keep all of the following:
Receipts from Royal Mail
Keep receipts showing the date you post anything to the UK immigration authorities. You should always use the 'Signed For' service or, preferably, 'Special Delivery Guaranteed.'
Correspondence
Keep letters (including the envelopes they are received in) and emails you receive from the UK immigration authorities so that you have proof of the date they were sent, as well as any receipts you are sent/given.
Travel documents
Keep documents and emails which prove each of your journeys to and from the UK, such as photocopies or scans of the tickets, letters, or documents, relating to your travel bookings, and ticket stubs (or, preferably, whole tickets) given back to you by the travel operator.
You may need to refer to these on a future occasion, so it is highly advisable to keep them indefinitely.
Additionally, at all times you should ensure that you have a copy of the current version of:
the whole of your passport, except for the blank pages; and
the front and back of your biometric residence permit (BRP), if you have one.
Make new photocopies or scans whenever any changes are made to any of these documents. If you lose any of these documents, having previously taken copies may help you to replace them.
Report changes of circumstances
Last updated December 11, 2024
You must keep the Home Office informed about changes to certain details relating to your personal circumstances. Full information about how to do this can be found by starting on the gov.uk website in its information for those who need toReport a change of circumstances if you have a visa or BRP. How you inform the Home Office of a change of details (or circumstances) depends upon whether your visa was originally granted in the form of a biometric residence permit (BRP) or a vignette (a sticker in your passport) or, more recently, in the form of an eVisa. Since 31 October 2024, BRPs are no longer issued and, instead, all those with a BRP are now being guided to set-up access to a UKVI account where they can view their immigration permission in the form of an eVisa.
Alternatively, you may have been issued with an eVisa from the outset, and not with a BRP or vignette. Immigration permission in the form of an eVisa has been rolled out throughout 2024. See our information oneVisas for what we know about the roll-out of eVisas so far.
Most of the following information in this layer, apart from the very last toggle, relates to what you must do if you are in the UK, rather than if you are outside the UK.
You must keep the Home Office informed of your current address and contact details. The Home Office will write to you if there is a problem with your Student sponsor's licence, or if your Student sponsor institution closes, or if there are any other issues or problems with your Student permission.
You may have given a temporary address, or your Student sponsor institution's address, to the Home Office when you applied for entry clearance in your home country. You must report a change of address to the Home Office once you have a fixed UK postal address. Any correspondence address you use when making a Student application in the UK will become your permanent contact address, in the Home Office records, until the next time you make an immigration application. Therefore, if you are only using the correspondence address for your Student application, you should report a change of address after the outcome of your application.
If the Home Office only has your Student sponsor institution's address, and not your personal address, you may not receive important correspondence, especially if your institution closes or its staff resources become limited.
You must also report your change of address to:
your Student sponsor, who is obliged to hold current contact details for you; and
your official financial sponsor, if you have one; and
your home country's Embassy or High Commission, if they require it.
We advise that you also inform your bank, doctor's surgery, insurance companies, driving licence issuer, and, if you own a vehicle in the UK, the relevant authority for issuing licences, see our driving information on our Travel and Transport page.
If you are in the UK and you have a pending visa application (which means you are awaiting a decision), or you have recently been granted permission but you are awaiting access to your eVisa, see Report a change of circumstances if you have a visa or BRP for guidance on how to go about updating UKVI of your change of address. Some of the information on that page refers to those who may still be awaiting a BRP but we understand this group of people will now be small to non-existent.
You also need to be prepared to notify the Home Office of changes to any of the following:
Your name
Your nationality
Your appearance
Your date of birth
Your gender
If you have details of a new passport
If you have acquired any criminal convictions
Information from UKVI, on gov.uk, can be confusing. Some processes are referenced in multiple places and seem to offer a migrant a variety of methods. Other processes do not appear to be clearly guided at all. The following information outlines our understanding of the current options available to you if you need to notify the Home Office of changes:
If you have a vignette, and your overall stay in the UK is for longer than six months, or if you have a vignette, and your overall stay is for six months or less, you use the Change of circumstances form (MCC). However, please note the MCC form is now very old and contains a lot of out-dated references; we are not sure what the future plans are for the form and whether it will continue like this or whether it will be updated in any way.
Regardless of whether you have an eVisa, a BRP,or a vignette, you update these details using theChange of circumstances form (MCC). However, read the form carefully to check what the Home Office needs to know and what information you should, or can, give. Also, please note the MCC form is now very old and contains a lot of out-dated references; we are not sure what the future plans are for the form and whether it will continue like this or whether it will be updated in any way.
Gov.uk has information about this at You're outside the UK. This information reads as if it is aimed at those who are currently applying for immigration permission and who have set up a UKVI account as part of that process. The position is less clear for those who are outside of the UK and needing to change their details but who already have a UKVI account, either from an earlier entry clearance application, or from a subsequent in-country permission to stay application, or because they have created a UKVI account in 2024 as part of the eVisas roll-out. Information under the subsection on If you have a UK Visas and Immigration account suggests that, "[If you] have a decision about your application […] You can update your account details". We will be trying to seek further information from the Home Office about this.
Your Student Sponsor's duties towards you
Last updated December 11, 2024
Student sponsor institutions have specific duties they must undertake. These duties are outlined in Sponsorship duties (document 2) in theHome Office Student sponsor guidance.
Your Student sponsor must keep records about you, it must monitor your attendance on your course and, when required, it must provide information about you to the Home Office in a process called 'reporting'. Your Student sponsor must meet these duties even when you are:
doing a work placement as part of your course; or
studying at a partner institution that was named on your Confirmation of Acceptance of Studies (CAS).
If your Student sponsor does not inform the Home Office of something that it should, it could lose its Student sponsor licence.
If your institution submits a report about you to the Home Office, then you need to be aware of what can happen next. You will find examples of what your institution may need to report, below:
YourStudent sponsor college or university must report to the Home Office if you do not enrol at the point you are expected to. Therefore, if you know you will need to enrol late, it is very important to check with your Student sponsor whether this is acceptable, and to check what will be your final deadline for enrolling. If you miss the final deadline for enrolling, and your Student sponsor reports this to the Home Office, then your immigration permission will be curtailed.
Your Student sponsor institution is required by the Home Office to identify when students it is sponsoring under the Student Route have stopped studying. Therefore, your Student sponsor will monitor your attendance and participation on your course. It will explain to you what attendance and participation is required, and how this is recorded. If you miss a certain number of these expected contacts or attendances, which results in you being withdrawn from your course, then your Student sponsor is required to report this to the Home Office. 'Expected contacts' will vary between institutions, and between different types of course within an institution, and may include:
attending lessons, lectures, tutorials, seminars, or meetings, with your personal tutor or supervisor; and
submitting coursework; and
attending tests or examinations.
If you know you will miss an expected contact, for example, because you are ill you must contact your tutor or department as soon as possible. Ask whether they need to see evidence, such as a letter from a doctor. If there are any other reasons why you cannot attend your course for a short time, for example, because of a family bereavement or religious festival, speak to your tutor/department as soon as you are aware of this.
Postgraduate students who are writing up a dissertation or thesis, or waiting to complete a viva, are still monitored throughout this period. Make sure you know what contact your sponsor institution expects.
If you become ill during your studies, or if you are unable to attend or complete work due to other personal circumstances, then it might be agreed that you can miss a required class or assignment and then continue on your course.
However, if your planned break means that you cannot complete your course as planned within your current Student leave, then you may need to defer your studies. It is really important that you establish as soon as possible how much of your course you can miss, so you know whether you must defer your studies. If the length of your absence is unclear at first, maintain regular contact with your tutor, supervisor, student adviser, or other appropriate staff member, during your absence so that you and your institution can make a decision about whether you will need to defer your studies.
When a Student sponsor decides to defer a student's course, it is obliged to notify the Home Office of this. The Home Office's policy is then to write to the student and curtail their leave because, for the time being, the Student sponsor has withdrawn their sponsorship. The curtailment will shorten the student's leave to 60 days. You should always assume that your leave will be curtailed if you defer your studies, unless you have less than 60 days left on your current leave.
While the Home Office may take some time to issue a curtailment letter, and the resulting curtailment date will be 60 days later, it is usually a good idea to leave the UK during a deferral of studies. This is because the basis for your type of leave (Student permission) will have changed.
In some situations, it may not be physically possible for you to leave the UK, even though your Student permission is going to be curtailed. For example, you may be too ill to travel. In this situation, you should seek specialist immigration advice as soon as possible; the student adviser at your institution may be able to refer you to an immigration solicitor.
After your date for resuming your studies is confirmed, your Student sponsor will issue a Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies (CAS) with your new end date. You will need to make a new Student route application using this new CAS. We advise you to seek advice from your institution about this. When and how you apply will depend on a number of factors including the length of your deferral, the level of your course, whether you are in the UK or outside the UK, whether your previous Student permission has already been curtailed and, if it has, when the curtailment takes effect.
If you decide to leave your course early you must tell your institution. If you are returning home or going to study at a different institution, you need to let your current Student sponsor institution know so that it can notify the Home Office. It will then be clear to everyone whether or not you are still studying in the UK.
If you complete your course earlier than the original expected end date, as specified on your CAS, your institution will need to inform the Home Office about this. Check whether this has been done as you will need to establish if your immigration permission is likely to be curtailed.
You may wish or need to switch to a different immigration status part-way through your studies. If this happens, you need to tell your Student sponsor, because it will need to inform the Home Office that it is no longer sponsoring you under the Student Route. Your institution will also need to check your new immigration status, because it will need evidence of this for its records.
If your sponsor has any suspicions that you are breaking the conditions of your permission to stay, for example, by working more hours than you are allowed to, then they are obliged to inform the Home Office. This could result in your current immigration permission being curtailed or future applications being refused.
Avoid overstaying
Last updated December 11, 2024
Overstaying means allowing your immigration permission to expire whilst you remain in the UK. Theimmigration rules define 'overstaying' as meaning a "person has stayed in the UK beyond [...] the time limit attached to the last permission granted [...]".
Overstaying is a criminal offence. There is no period of time for which you can lawfully overstay.
If you submit a valid application for further immigration permission before your current immigration permission expires, and your application is still being decided (is 'pending') when your current immigration permission expires, you will not be considered as an overstayer in the period of time after your current permission expires. Instead, your current immigration permission, and the conditions attached to it, will continue while your application is pending.
If you do not submit an application before your current permission expires, you become an overstayer. If you then wish to make a new Student application in order to remain in the UK, your Student sponsor may choose to not issue you a CAS in order for you to do this, and it may withdraw any unused CAS that you were issued before you became on overstayer. Seek advice from your Student sponsor about its policies on issuing CAS to overstayers, and on whether someone who makes such an application can continue to study with it.
Overstaying will have serious consequences for any future immigration applications that you make. If you overstay by more than 30 days you will normally be prohibited from coming back to the UK for at least 12 months from the date you leave the UK. Overstaying in the UK could also affect applications you make for entry to countries other than the UK. You must tell the truth in immigration applications and declare any periods of overstay if asked about them. If you are found to have used deception in an immigration application you are likely to be barred from the UK for ten years.
The Student route is for international students who want to study in the UK – find out if you can apply for immigration permission from outside of the UK.
The EU Settlement Scheme offers EU, EEA and Swiss citizens, and their eligible family members, who were in the UK before the end of the transition period, the opportunity to protect their residence in the UK beyond the transition period.
Physical documents such as BRPs, and vignettes placed in your passport, are being replaced by a digital immigration permission known as an ‘eVisa’. Find out how to check your permission and how you prove it.
