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The British Home Office has announced changes to applications made by individuals applying for limited Leave to Remain in the UK, which will come into effect 1 April 2004.
Limited Leave to Remain (LTR) is the permission a person requires to stay in the UK. Permission is generally granted in accordance with the duration of that person's Immigration Employment Document (IED).
Currently, for those foreign nationals holding Work Permits, SBS permits and TWES permits, the limited LTR decision is made on the basis of information provided in a person's IED application. From 1 April of this year, this application will no longer be accepted. Instead, a foreign national will need to apply for limited LTR through a separate application. This process will not apply to HSMP and SAWS visa holders and there will be no major change to the application process for holders of such visas.
Currently, for applications made by an individual who is already in the UK, the IED application form for Work Permits, SBS and TWES are treated as both an IED application from the employer, and as a limited LTR application from the prospective worker.
From 1 April, the person will need to complete and sign a limited LTR application form which will be separate from the employer’s application.
By doing this the individual will confirm all the relevant details and sign the necessary declarations. Again, there will not be any change to the HSMP and SAWS application process since a separate IED form and limited LTR form are already necessary.
The new form will be called Further Leave to Remain - FLR (IED) - and applicants must complete this form and submit payment of £121, unless the applicant is exempt from the fee.
Those who are exempt from the fee are nationals of the 10 new EU accession countries joining on 1 May, plus Turkey, Moldova, Bulgaria, and Romania.
From 1 May the 10 new EU accession countries will join the EU and will therefore not require an IED. The remaining 4 countries will not be joining the EU on this date and applications made in respect of nationals of those countries will continue to be exempted from payment.
Please contact the UK work permit department at Workpermit.com on (0)207 842 0800 if you require assistance applying for Further Leave to Remain.
