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Announcement from The Home Office on Immigration Rules

By 23rd October 2020 No Comments
Photo in colour of Chinatown London

London’s Chinatown

Home Office Statement Published

The Home Office published its Statement of changes to the Immigration Rules on 22 October 2020. This means that new Post-Brexit Immigration System is now clearer.

What Changes? 

A new visa route will be open for Hong Kong British National (Overseas) applicants from 31 January 2021.

This is something we discuss extensively in our recent posts. On this subject, you can find more details about the BN(O) visa route HERE.

For instance, new Hong Kong British National (Overseas) route covers two sub-routes. These are the BN(O) Status Holder route and the BN(O) Household Member route. This route covers BN(O) citizens, their dependant partner and dependent child, who are ordinarily resident in Hong Kong or the UK. Other family members with a high degree of dependency may also apply in exceptional cases.

Whilst the latter route covers BN(O) citizens’ adult child who was born on or after 1 July 1997, the BN(O) Household Member and dependant partner or child must be ordinarily resident in Hong Kong. Or, alternatively they may be resident in the UK and part of the same household as the BN(O) citizen to apply.

So, this means that under the Hong Kong British National (Overseas) route, applicants are allowed to live, study and work in the UK. Also they can apply for settlement after five years of lawful residence.

The new Skilled Worker route will replace the current Tier 2 route

Amongst these, the significant changes are:

  1. The cooling-off period and six-year residence limit is abolished for Tier 2 General/ Skilled workers
  2. The minimum salary requirement for Tier 2 General/ Skilled workers for settlement applications is abolished
  3. Tier 2 (ICT) applicants are allowed to switch in the country to the new Skilled Worker route. If you would like to learn more about the new Skilled Worker route, please click HERE.

Therefore, overall, the new Immigration System changes the whole frame of the current Rules to incorporate new changes after the free movement with the EU ends.

What should I do?

Taylor Hampton’s immigration team will keep you updated with the latest Immigration Rules and is here to assist for your Immigration applications to the UK.

Please, then, get in touch by calling us on 020 7427 5972 or submit an enquiry HERE. And, of course you can follow us for similar content on our social media platforms on FacebookLinkedIn or Twitter.