Criminal Record Certificate Requirement for Entry Clearance Process to be Extended

United Kingdom

Tier 2 visa applicants who are applying to work in certain occupations within the education, health and social care sectors on or after April 2017 will need to provide a criminal record certificate from any country in which they have lived for 12 months or more in the past 10 years as part of their entry clearance application. The requirement will also apply to their adult dependants. The new requirement may delay documentation gathering during the entry clearance process.

Currently, criminal record certificates are only required for overseas applicants in the Tier 1 (Entrepreneur) and Tier 1 (Investor) categories and their adult dependants.

This will only affect those who apply for a visa after the requirement has come into effect.

The relevant Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) codes that will be affected by this new requirement can be found here.

What This Means for Employers and Foreign Nationals

Sponsors will be responsible for informing prospective employees of the new requirement once a Certificate of Sponsorship is issued. Failure to provide the criminal record certificate may result in refusal of the visa.

Those who require assistance in obtaining criminal record certificates should contact their Fragomen case team for further information. Assistance with obtaining a criminal record certificate could result in a fee.

Fragomen will provide further updates as more information becomes available.

This alert is for informational purposes only. If you have any questions, please contact the global immigration professional with whom you work at Fragomen or send an email to [email protected].

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