As our readers may remember, initially when the Ukraine visa schemes were introduced by the UK Government back in March 2022 due to the war conflict between Russia and Ukraine, most of the visa applicants submitted their applications from outside the UK and then had to wait until their visa applications would be processed by the Home Office. After that, and subject to getting a positive decision, visa applicants would receive a permission letter – which was an electronic document that was not endorsed in the passport and was sent as a PDF document via email. That document could then have either been printed or shown on the phone, there was no legal requirement to certify it anyhow.

Using that permission letter, successful visa applicants (who were both nationals of Ukraine and their family members of various other nationalities) would then be able to come to the UK and once inside the country, apply for a BRP card that would give them full rights to live, rent property, work, study, etc.

Previously such permission letters have had no expiry date and therefore visa applicants who got it, could potentially use them to come to the UK within any period of time they wanted and needed to (be it within a 6-month period, a 1-year period or even longer).

From now on, the Home Office has amended the immigration rules and confirmed that such permission letters shall only be valid until 13 February 2025.

In practical terms, it means that those who have had their Ukraine visa scheme application submitted from outside the UK and approved, but who could not or did not want to come to the UK using that permission letter – now have a limited time until 13 February 2025 to do so.

Otherwise, as the Home Office has confirmed, such issued but unused permission letters will automatically expire on 13 February next year and it would not be possible to extend or re-issue them anymore.

Therefore, we urge all those permission letter holders, who have not used them yet to come to the UK, to seriously consider it and arrive in the UK as soon as possible.