The Home Office has published its policy paper ‘Delivering Border Security’. This follows the establishment of the Border Security Command (BSC) on 5 July 2024, as part of the Home Office’s strategy to strengthen UK border security. The BSC aims to provide a comprehensive, long-term strategy for UK border security, with an initial focus on tackling organised immigration crime (OIC) and reducing irregular migration. The government is investing £150 million in new technology, capabilities, and specialist officers, including the recruitment of 100 additional intelligence and investigation officers. A forthcoming Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill will introduce stronger powers for law enforcement agencies and enhance data sharing between partners. The BSC will work closely with other government departments and international partners to address the evolving threats to UK border security, including terrorism, hostile state actors, and serious organised crime. Tighter border security is planned to include increased pre-travel checks and enhanced automaton at the border to detect imposters.

The Home Office has published its latest statistics covering the creation of UKVI accounts, which enable online immigration status (eVisas) to be accessed. These show that between March 2024 and April 2025 there were 4,305,068 UKVI accounts created, while the Home Office estimates that there are 300,000 persons with UK immigration status who require to obtain a UKVI account who still have not done so. There has been no announcement extending the deadline for continued use of expired Biometric Residence Permits for travel on or after 1 June 2025, so it is imperative that those remaining persons do take steps to obtain one.

The Home Office has announced an expansion of the Hong Kong British National (Overseas) visa route, extending eligibility to adult children of BN(O) status holders who were under the age of 18 at the time of Hong Kong's handover to China in 1997. Under the changes, eligible individuals will be able to apply independently of their parents, with their partners and children also permitted to relocate to the UK. The government estimates that around 26,000 people will arrive under the expanded route over the next five years. The Home Secretary confirmed in November 2025 that Hong Kong residents will continue to benefit from a five-year pathway to permanent UK settlement, compared with a new standard baseline of ten years' residence for most other migrants.

The Home Office has expanded its ‘Deport Now Appeal Later’ scheme from eight to 23 countries, enabling foreign nationals from listed countries whose human rights claims are refused to be removed to their home country before appealing the decision. The measure aims to increase the UK’s ability to remove foreign criminals at the earliest opportunity, ease pressure on the detention and prison estate, and reduce taxpayer costs from prolonged appeals. Individuals will be able to participate in UK appeal hearings from overseas via video technology. The government is in ongoing discussions with other countries regarding potential inclusion in the scheme. The Home Office is also legislating to ensure that asylum seekers who commit notifiable sex offences are stripped of their right to claim refugee protections under the Borders Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill and has invested £5m to deploy specialist staff to almost 80 jails to accelerate removals.

The Home Office has updated its guidance webpage 'Coronavirus (COVID-19): advice for UK visa applicants and temporary UK residents'. It extends the 'Covid Visa Concession Scheme' to 19 July 2021 (previously 21 June 2021). The scheme permits eligible persons overseas who have been unable to return to the UK due to coronavirus travel restrictions, and whose permission has since expired, to enter the UK and make an application for permission to stay or settlement.

The Home Office has extended the deadline for responses to its call for evidence on the creation of a new Independent Appeals Body, part of wider reforms to the UK asylum system, to 6 May 2026.

The Home Office has announced that children aged 8 and over are now eligible to use UK electronic passport gates (eGates), provided they are at least 120 cm tall and are accompanied by an adult. The change applies to more than 290 eGates at UK airports, ports and juxtaposed ports. Based on 2025 UK arrival figures, an estimated 1.5 million more children are expected to be eligible over the next year.

The Home Office has extended its concession for offshore well boat workers from 8 February 2024 to 8 February 2026. Under the time-limited concession, workers who are employed by an approved company that own, or are operating, well boat vessels in UK territorial seas may be considered for a six-month grant of leave to enter. Napier AS, Scanbio Marine Group AS and FSV Group AS have been added to the list of approved well boat companies, and the minimum annual salary has been increased from £25,600 to £26,200.

The Home Office has extended the offshore well boat workers concession for three more years, until 8 February 2029. It has also raised the minimum annual salary threshold, from £26,200 to £41,700 (the same level as the standard general salary threshold in the Skilled Worker route). The concession allows periods of leave to enter for up to six months at a time to be granted to overseas workers employed by an approved company to work within UK territorial waters on a well boat owned or operated by that company.

The Home Office has announced that it is to extend the illegal working regime so that businesses will need to undertake right to work checks of persons in the gig economy and zero-hours workers who are ‘working in their name’, or they may face a fine or other penalty if the person has no right to work for them in the UK. Previously, this regime has only applied where there is a traditional employment relationship. This change will be relevant for sectors such as construction, food delivery, beauty salons and courier services. Relevant penalties will include fines up to £60,000 per worker, business closures, director disqualifications and prison sentences up to five years. In the same announcement, the Home Office confirmed the increased operational action by Immigration Enforcement teams in this area, noting that since July 2024 6,784 illegal working visits have been made to premises and 4,779 arrests made. This is stated to be an increase of 40% and 42% compared to the same period 12 months ago. In the same time period, 1,508 civil penalty notices have been issued.

This Practice Note contains a spreadsheet for calculating the Home Office fees (including immigration health surcharge) associated with an application for entry clearance, permission to stay and settlement in some common business and personal immigration routes. It also sets out the fees for sponsoring migrant workers where the adviser is acting for the sponsor, in certain routes. This includes the sponsor licence fee, immigration skills charge and the cost of assigning a Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS). The calculator is intended to be used for saving time at the onboarding and new client enquiry stages. The resulting total figures and breakdowns can be easily pasted into an email. Note that the calculator does not cover all the immigration routes or scenarios. It is intended to cover common routes relevant to business immigration advisers in their day-to-day work. The immigration health surcharge figure may also be higher in some routes than the figure stated on the calculator, where the length of permission granted can depend on variable factors. Home Office fees calculator Fees taking into account fee increases

Using this Practice Note This page contains an alphabetical list of Home Office application forms for use in applications made from within the UK, with links where relevant to a fully editable and saveable Lexis®Smart version of each form (see below). Where applications are made online, the links for these are also provided. In the case of applications for permission to stay in some routes, this link is to the GOV.UK page on the relevant Home Office tool for extension of stay in that route. This will contain an ‘apply’ button, which takes you to the form. For switching, this is generally the same form, but you can use the tool to navigate to the switching page. Using Lexis®Smart versions of Home Office forms and checking they are up-to-date When the Home Office issues a new version of a form in PDF format, it does not provide LexisNexis® with a copy in advance. As a result, we only become aware of that new version at the point that the Home Office publishes it on