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dolorosa_12) wrote2016-10-03 04:09 pm
dolorosa_12) wrote2016-10-03 04:09 pm
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Guidance on residency documentation for EU/EEA/Swiss residents in the UK: part 1
The latest rumblings from the Tory party conference have prompted me to put this together. This will be the first of a series of posts. Once I've finished them all, I'll add an index to this first post. Please feel free to share as widely as possible, to anyone who thinks it may be useful.
A quick disclaimer, before I get started: I am not an immigration lawyer, and I am not an immigration advisor. Do not take this post as the be all and end all on this particular subject. Your first port of call should always be the official guidance on the UKVI website. However, I have, in the past, found the guidance there to be opaque, unclear, contradictory, or failing to include advice relevant to people in certain situations, so what I'm hoping to do here is to provide clear, concise information relevant to people in a variety of situations.
A bit about me
I am an Australian immigrant living in the UK. I arrived here just over eight years ago, and have held a series of visas over that time period. Last year, I successfully applied for an EEA (Extended Family Member) residence permit as the family member of my German fiance. At the same time, he successfully applied for an EEA Document Certifying Permanent Residence. (Don't worry if you don't know what these types of documents are. You will do by the end of this post!) Due to a law change, I was able to become a British citizen this year, and my partner is on track to become a citizen by naturalisation early next year. I have a great deal of experience with EU-route residence documentation in the UK and the strange quirks and pitfalls involved in making these applications.
Who this guidance is intended for
EU/EEA/Swiss people currently living in the UK, or who intend to move here in the immediate future
EU/EEA/Swiss people who have lived in the UK and exercised treaty rights for at least five years (again, I will explain what 'exercising treaty rights' means below)
Non-EU/EEA/Swiss people who are the family members of an EU/EEA/Swiss person, such as dependent children, spouses, long-term partners, dependent parents, and so on
There are four different types of documents that you may need to apply for. This will help you pick the right one for your situation.
Are you an EU/EEA/Swiss person who is about to move to the UK, or who has lived here for fewer than five consecutive years? Are you exercising treaty rights (I will outline what this means in a minute), or will you be doing so once you make the move? Then you need a registration certificate.
Are you the non-EU/EEA/Swiss family member of an EU/EEA/Swiss person and planning to move with them to the UK, or join them after they have moved? You need an EEA Family Permit.
Are you the non-EU/EEA/Swiss family member of an EU/EEA/Swiss person who has come to the UK on an EEA Family Permit and are you planning to stay on with them? Alternatively, are you a non-EU/EEA/Swiss person currently in the UK on another visa category (such as a Youth Mobility visa, student visa, or Tier 2 visa), and wanting to switch to an EU-route residence permit? (I was in this category - an Australian on a Tier 4 visa in a relationship with a German.) If so, you need an EEA (Family Member) or EEA (Extended Family Member) residence permit.
Are you an EU/EEA/Swiss person who has held a registration certificate for five consecutive years, or exercised treaty rights in the UK for five consecutive years? Or are you the non-EU/EEA/Swiss family member of an EU/EEA/Swiss person and have held your EEA (Family Member) or EEA (Extended Family Member) residence permit for five consecutive years? You need the EEA (Permanent Residence) document.
There are various ways to exercise treaty rights. I am more familiar with some than others, but please ask me for more detail about the ones with which I have less familiarity, and I can try to find out the answers to your questions.
1. Employed
You hold full- or part-time employment and earn a wage. At present there is no minimum earnings threshold, however, the guidance states that the work be 'meaningful and genuine, not marginal or ancillary'. This is a bit vague, but I would expect anyone in a permanent full-time or part-time (as long as it's not, say, five hours a week cash-in-hand while you're also studying) work to be fine. A fixed-term contract would count as well, as would a zero-hours contract, as long as you could prove the hours you were working and pay you were receiving. My partner used a period in which he was working four part-time jobs simultaneously for part of his application, and this was accepted. Parental leave would count as employment, but if you quit your job to be a stay-at-home parent, you would fall into a different category.
You can prove your worker status with some or all of the following: a contract or letter from your employer on company letterhead which states clearly the start (and, if relevant, end) date of your employment, hours worked per week, and annual income; payslips covering the time period; itemised bank statements covering the time period and showing payments from your employer.
2. Self-employed
You work for yourself and earn money through your work. This has the same requirement that the work be 'meaningful and effective'. I know very little about this category, but if anyone who reads this is self-employed, I am happy to do further investigations about what is involved and what documents would be needed to prove it. As far as I'm aware, you will need to provide things like business bank statements, invoices and other documents proving economic activity.
3. Student
You are in full-time study at a recognised educational institution in the UK.
You can prove your student status with degree transcripts, degree certificate, and/or a letter from your educational institution stating that you are, or were, a full-time student and the start and end dates of your course.
Please note this common pitfall: for your student time to count as 'exercising treaty rights', you need to have comprehensive sickness insurance. Even though you are entitled to use the NHS, THIS DOES NOT COUNT. You must have either private health insurance from the UK or your home country (my partner had private German health insurance during his student years, which meant they counted), or an EHIC card from your home country. Likewise, if you are a student wishing to sponsor a non-EU/EEA/Swiss family member, THEY NEED TO HAVE COMPREHENSIVE SICKNESS INSURANCE TOO, OR THEIR APPLICATION WILL BE REJECTED.
4. Self-sufficient
You reside in the UK and are financially self-sufficient (perhaps you live on savings, or an inheritance, or are supported financially by your spouse, partner, or other relatives).
I'm not entirely sure how you would prove this, but I imagine itemised bank statements would be helpful. If you think you fall into this category, let me know and I can investigate further.
As with people in the student category, you can only count a period of self-sufficiency as 'exercising treaty rights' if you have comprehensive sickness insurance. Likewise, if you are self-sufficient and want to sponsor a family member, they need to have comprehensive sickness insurance too. I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH. BEING ABLE TO USE THE NHS DOES NOT COUNT IF YOU ARE IN THIS CATEGORY.
5. Jobseeker
You are in the UK, and are out of work but seeking employment.
To prove this, it is not enough to simply say you are a jobseeker. You need to show evidence. Evidence would include having signed on at the Jobcentre, or having joined a recruitment/temp agency, and providing copies of job applications you sent, invitations to interviews, and so on.
Another common pitfall: while it is not stated anywhere in the guidance, in practice UKVI will not accept long periods in the jobseeker category as counting towards permanent residence. I have heard of people being rejected if their jobseeking period was longer than three months, and while this is not made clear anywhere, this is probably a good rule of thumb to apply to your own application.
If you come from an EU8 country (Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, or Slovenia) and want to count the years between 1 May 2004 to 30 April 2011 towards your qualifying period, you will need to have a WRS card or certificate if you want to claim 'employed' status for any time during that period. The same goes for people from EU2 countries (Bulgaria or Romania) using years between 1 January 2007 to 31 December 2013 - you will need the appropriate Accession worker (‘purple’) card, Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme (SAWS) card, ‘yellow’ registration certificate issued to students, or ‘blue’ (exempt) registration certificate for those years to count in the relevant category. Croatians (EU1 nationals) will need to have Worker authorisation (‘purple’) registration certificate, ‘yellow’ registration certificate issued to students, or ‘blue’ (exempt) registration certificate.
If you don't come from those countries, or if you are using years after the dates mentioned above, ignore the preceding paragraph.
What to do next
Work out which document is appropriate for you
Figure out which category or categories you fall into in terms of exercising treaty rights. If you are applying for a document certifying permanent residence, it may be that you fall into several categories across the five-year period, so make a timeline of what you were doing (e.g. September 2011-June 2012: student; July 2012-August 2012: jobseeker; August 2012-present: worker).
If you are the non-EU/EEA/Swiss family member, your own activities are irrelevant. Instead, work out which category or categories your EU/EEA/Swiss spouse, partner, or relative falls into. In your application, you will need to provide documentation for their exercise of treaty rights.
In the next post in this series, I cover the process of making an application for a registration certificate.
Please feel free to comment with any questions or requests for clarification. If you want your request kept private, you can send me a private message via Dreamwidth or Livejournal, or comment with your email address and I will email you.
A quick disclaimer, before I get started: I am not an immigration lawyer, and I am not an immigration advisor. Do not take this post as the be all and end all on this particular subject. Your first port of call should always be the official guidance on the UKVI website. However, I have, in the past, found the guidance there to be opaque, unclear, contradictory, or failing to include advice relevant to people in certain situations, so what I'm hoping to do here is to provide clear, concise information relevant to people in a variety of situations.
A bit about me
I am an Australian immigrant living in the UK. I arrived here just over eight years ago, and have held a series of visas over that time period. Last year, I successfully applied for an EEA (Extended Family Member) residence permit as the family member of my German fiance. At the same time, he successfully applied for an EEA Document Certifying Permanent Residence. (Don't worry if you don't know what these types of documents are. You will do by the end of this post!) Due to a law change, I was able to become a British citizen this year, and my partner is on track to become a citizen by naturalisation early next year. I have a great deal of experience with EU-route residence documentation in the UK and the strange quirks and pitfalls involved in making these applications.
Who this guidance is intended for
There are four different types of documents that you may need to apply for. This will help you pick the right one for your situation.
Are you an EU/EEA/Swiss person who is about to move to the UK, or who has lived here for fewer than five consecutive years? Are you exercising treaty rights (I will outline what this means in a minute), or will you be doing so once you make the move? Then you need a registration certificate.
Are you the non-EU/EEA/Swiss family member of an EU/EEA/Swiss person and planning to move with them to the UK, or join them after they have moved? You need an EEA Family Permit.
Are you the non-EU/EEA/Swiss family member of an EU/EEA/Swiss person who has come to the UK on an EEA Family Permit and are you planning to stay on with them? Alternatively, are you a non-EU/EEA/Swiss person currently in the UK on another visa category (such as a Youth Mobility visa, student visa, or Tier 2 visa), and wanting to switch to an EU-route residence permit? (I was in this category - an Australian on a Tier 4 visa in a relationship with a German.) If so, you need an EEA (Family Member) or EEA (Extended Family Member) residence permit.
Are you an EU/EEA/Swiss person who has held a registration certificate for five consecutive years, or exercised treaty rights in the UK for five consecutive years? Or are you the non-EU/EEA/Swiss family member of an EU/EEA/Swiss person and have held your EEA (Family Member) or EEA (Extended Family Member) residence permit for five consecutive years? You need the EEA (Permanent Residence) document.
There are various ways to exercise treaty rights. I am more familiar with some than others, but please ask me for more detail about the ones with which I have less familiarity, and I can try to find out the answers to your questions.
1. Employed
You hold full- or part-time employment and earn a wage. At present there is no minimum earnings threshold, however, the guidance states that the work be 'meaningful and genuine, not marginal or ancillary'. This is a bit vague, but I would expect anyone in a permanent full-time or part-time (as long as it's not, say, five hours a week cash-in-hand while you're also studying) work to be fine. A fixed-term contract would count as well, as would a zero-hours contract, as long as you could prove the hours you were working and pay you were receiving. My partner used a period in which he was working four part-time jobs simultaneously for part of his application, and this was accepted. Parental leave would count as employment, but if you quit your job to be a stay-at-home parent, you would fall into a different category.
You can prove your worker status with some or all of the following: a contract or letter from your employer on company letterhead which states clearly the start (and, if relevant, end) date of your employment, hours worked per week, and annual income; payslips covering the time period; itemised bank statements covering the time period and showing payments from your employer.
2. Self-employed
You work for yourself and earn money through your work. This has the same requirement that the work be 'meaningful and effective'. I know very little about this category, but if anyone who reads this is self-employed, I am happy to do further investigations about what is involved and what documents would be needed to prove it. As far as I'm aware, you will need to provide things like business bank statements, invoices and other documents proving economic activity.
3. Student
You are in full-time study at a recognised educational institution in the UK.
You can prove your student status with degree transcripts, degree certificate, and/or a letter from your educational institution stating that you are, or were, a full-time student and the start and end dates of your course.
Please note this common pitfall: for your student time to count as 'exercising treaty rights', you need to have comprehensive sickness insurance. Even though you are entitled to use the NHS, THIS DOES NOT COUNT. You must have either private health insurance from the UK or your home country (my partner had private German health insurance during his student years, which meant they counted), or an EHIC card from your home country. Likewise, if you are a student wishing to sponsor a non-EU/EEA/Swiss family member, THEY NEED TO HAVE COMPREHENSIVE SICKNESS INSURANCE TOO, OR THEIR APPLICATION WILL BE REJECTED.
4. Self-sufficient
You reside in the UK and are financially self-sufficient (perhaps you live on savings, or an inheritance, or are supported financially by your spouse, partner, or other relatives).
I'm not entirely sure how you would prove this, but I imagine itemised bank statements would be helpful. If you think you fall into this category, let me know and I can investigate further.
As with people in the student category, you can only count a period of self-sufficiency as 'exercising treaty rights' if you have comprehensive sickness insurance. Likewise, if you are self-sufficient and want to sponsor a family member, they need to have comprehensive sickness insurance too. I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH. BEING ABLE TO USE THE NHS DOES NOT COUNT IF YOU ARE IN THIS CATEGORY.
5. Jobseeker
You are in the UK, and are out of work but seeking employment.
To prove this, it is not enough to simply say you are a jobseeker. You need to show evidence. Evidence would include having signed on at the Jobcentre, or having joined a recruitment/temp agency, and providing copies of job applications you sent, invitations to interviews, and so on.
Another common pitfall: while it is not stated anywhere in the guidance, in practice UKVI will not accept long periods in the jobseeker category as counting towards permanent residence. I have heard of people being rejected if their jobseeking period was longer than three months, and while this is not made clear anywhere, this is probably a good rule of thumb to apply to your own application.
If you come from an EU8 country (Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, or Slovenia) and want to count the years between 1 May 2004 to 30 April 2011 towards your qualifying period, you will need to have a WRS card or certificate if you want to claim 'employed' status for any time during that period. The same goes for people from EU2 countries (Bulgaria or Romania) using years between 1 January 2007 to 31 December 2013 - you will need the appropriate Accession worker (‘purple’) card, Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme (SAWS) card, ‘yellow’ registration certificate issued to students, or ‘blue’ (exempt) registration certificate for those years to count in the relevant category. Croatians (EU1 nationals) will need to have Worker authorisation (‘purple’) registration certificate, ‘yellow’ registration certificate issued to students, or ‘blue’ (exempt) registration certificate.
If you don't come from those countries, or if you are using years after the dates mentioned above, ignore the preceding paragraph.
What to do next
In the next post in this series, I cover the process of making an application for a registration certificate.
Please feel free to comment with any questions or requests for clarification. If you want your request kept private, you can send me a private message via Dreamwidth or Livejournal, or comment with your email address and I will email you.