Protecting your Student status

Last modified: 11 December 2024

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 an online immigration status (also known as an 'eVisa'). Read our eVisa 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 modified: 11 December 2024

Your Student 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. 

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Study

ATAS

Work conditions

'No recourse to public funds'

Police registration - no longer required

Other considerations regarding the Immigration Rules

Last modified: 11 December 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. 

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Living costs

Criminal convictions, driving offences

Bank statements

Good practice

Last modified: 11 December 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. 

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Preparing to extend your Student visa if you need more time 

Keep copies of important documents

Report changes of circumstances

Last modified: 11 December 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 to Report 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 on eVisas 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. 

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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: 

 

Changing your name, nationality, appearance, date of birth, or gender, whilst in the UK

Provide details of a new passport whilst in the UK

Criminal convictions, and other relevant changes including relating to your relationship with family members living with in the UK

Changes of circumstance whilst you are outside the UK

Your Student Sponsor's duties towards you

Last modified: 11 December 2024

Student sponsor institutions have specific duties they must undertake. These duties are outlined in Sponsorship duties (document 2) in the Home 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: 

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Non-enrolment or late enrolment

Attendance and participation

Breaks from study

Withdrawing, finishing early, switching out of Student permission

Breaking your immigration conditions

Avoid overstaying

Last modified: 11 December 2024

Overstaying means allowing your immigration permission to expire whilst you remain in the UK. The immgration 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. 

If you need more time in the UK to complete your studies, see our page on Student route: applying in the UK.  

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