Travelling Abroad

It is recommended you start planning any travel in the earlier part of your stay rather than leaving it until the final stages. The vacation periods during the academic year are an obvious time for travel. It is rare that a student’s permission to return to the UK will expire at these times and if you need a visa for another country you may need to have several months left on your UK permission.  

Before travelling you will need to check the immigration requirements of the country that you are travelling to and that UK law allows you to return. Make sure you take a photocopy or scan of your passport and visa/BRP card, and keep them in a safe place in case you lose the originals.The UKCISA website has more information about what to do if you lose your travel documents while abroad. We would also strongly advise that you take out travel insurance for your time outside the UK. 

Before you travel you must check whether you will be able to satisfy the immigration requirements for your destination country. If you have to apply for a visa before travelling this could take weeks to be processed and so it is important to plan ahead. You can usually find all the information you need on how to apply, including what documents are required, on the website of the embassy for the country you plan to visit. Immigration enquiries are usually dealt with by the ‘visa’ or ‘consular’ section of the embassy, and sometimes outsourced to private companies.  

Although the Student Advice and Support Service can help you access the information, it cannot give specialist advice on visa laws or procedures in other countries. If required, you will need to contact the relevant embassy direct. 

You can find contact details for foreign embassies in the UK on the gov.uk website – see the London Diplomatic List. 

Any Tier 4 permission to stay in the UK includes Northern Ireland but does not include the Republic of Ireland. However, between the UK and Ireland there is free movement of British and Irish Nationals and immigration checks between the British and Irish borders are made on an occasional rather than systematic basis. If you are planning to visit Ireland you should check whether you need a visa before travelling.  

Although Chinese and Indian nationals can visit the UK and Ireland using a single ‘visit’ visa this does not apply to Tier 4 visas.

If you have settled or pre-settled status under the UK Government’s EU Settlement Scheme you can travel in and out of the UK. The following information is for students with Tier 4 or Student permission.  

If you have a Tier 4 or Student visa granted overseas or your Tier 4 or Student permission was granted by the UKVI inside the UK for a period of more than 6 months you should be allowed to re-enter the UK after a short trip abroad, unless the Border Officer at the port of entry decides your circumstances have changed such that your permission to stay should be cancelled (this is not likely to happen if you are a continuing student).  

If your last period of Tier 4 or Student permission leave was granted in the UK for 6 months or less, your immigration permission will automatically come to an end (lapse) when you leave the Common Travel Area (see below) and you will not be able to return to the UK without obtaining fresh immigration permission. 

If your permission has been varied, for example curtailed (reduced in length) by UKVI in response to leaving or finishing your course early, it will automatically come to an end (lapse) when you leave the Common Travel Area (see below). 

You can expect to be refused re-entry to the UK if your immigration permission has lapsed, as in the above examples. 

You can also be refused re-entry if the permission was last obtained on false information, or the Border Officer decides that there are medical grounds or that it would be ‘conducive to the public good’ to cancel the permission.