UK immigration system is becoming normal from the lift of COVID 19 lockdown. This newsletter gathers recent updates on changes to immigration law and practice caused by coronavirus. 

1. Spouse visa and minimum income

The Home Office published concession for people who have financial difficulties due to Coronavirus. There was no particular update guidance for families where one partner is on, or about to apply for, a spouse visa. Loss of earnings as a result of the coronavirus-induced economic crash may mean that the family fall foul of the financial requirements.

It is essential to satisfy the financial requirement to apply family visa category. There is now a new section of the guidance on changes to the minimum income and adequate maintenance requirement.

The HO will consider employment income for the period immediately before the loss of income due to coronavirus, provided the requirement was met for at least 6 months up to March 2020, if the applicant or partner have experienced a loss of income due to coronavirus. They will take account income as though the earning 100% of the salary, if the salary has reduced because the applicant or partner is furloughed. For self-employers, a loss of annual income due to coronavirus between 1 March 2020 and 31 July 2020 will generally be disregarded, along with the impact on employment income from the same period for future applications.

2. Student Visas

The Home Office released a separate guidance document about coronavirus and student visas. It covers a number of temporary immigration concessions for those on student visas which “will be withdrawn once the situation returns to normal”.

The section of the document covers permission of distance learning, extending a Tier 4 visa in line with students who need to repeat a year, retake a module, or resit an exam. These concessions are reiterated in another Home Office guidance for sponsor that no need to report students for missing expected contact points. Education sponsors do not need to report student absences if due to COVID-19.

The Home Office will take a pragmatic approach to considering applications to study courses with significantly different start dates to those stated on CAS or expired CAS”. Moreover, The Home Office temporarily allow higher education providers with a track record of compliance will be able to self-assess students as having a B1 level of English”.

The graduate route which allow students work after BA or MA course still scheduled to be launched in summer 2021.

3. Switching

The Home Office allows people to apply from the UK to switch to a long-term UK visa until 31 July 2020 if visas expire between 24 January 2020 and 31 July 2020. This includes applications where applicants would usually need to apply for a visa from their home country.

It would be an in-country application rather than an application for entry clearance. The concession was initially limited to people whose visa is due to expire by 31 May 2020. On 22 May, it was extended to cover those with visas expiring by 31 July.

4. Reopening Visa centres

Some of UK visa application centres overseas are opened and the applicants make an appointment for biometric information registration and upload the document. More centres are expecting to re-open depends on each country. All visa application centres within the UK phased re-opening of Service Points and new appointments can be made for now.