Biometric Residence Permit rollout now complete

25 August 2015

Since 2008, the Home Office has been phasing in the Biometric Residence Permit (BRP), which replaces a range of older less secure immigration documents and provides a simple and secure means of checking a migrant’s identity and right to work.

The roll out of the BRP has now been completed. From now the BRP will be the only document issued to non-European Economic Area (EEA) migrants permitted to stay in the UK for more than six months under the UK’s Immigration Rules. Non-EEA migrants who register with the Home Office as exercising European Union (EU) treaty rights as family members of EU nationals will receive a Biometric Residence Card (BRC), which closely resembles the BRP.

The BRP and the BRC are single credit card sized documents and allow migrant workers from outside the EEA to evidence their right to enter or remain in the UK.

The BRP only applies to migrants from countries outside the European Economic Area, their partners and children.

The BRP shows the worker’s digital photograph, biographical data (name, nationality and date of birth), any immigration conditions or restrictions, and the date the person’s permission to remain expires on the face of the card. This information is replicated digitally on a chip in the card, together with the holder’s fingerprints.

The Home Office is also working with Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to incorporate a migrant’s National Insurance number on the BRP for migrants in employment-related categories, and BRPs issued to Tier 2 skilled workers have started to include the National Insurance number.

HMRC provided this update in their latest Employer Bulletin.