July 20th, 2020
The Home Office does not intend to extend the Coronavirus Policy to automatically extend visas beyond 31 July 2020. The Home Office will instead make case-by-case assessments.
Until now, those with visas or leave expiring between 24 January 2020 and 31 July 2020 could apply to have their visas extended without any additional cost by completing an online form notifying the Home Office of their circumstances.
The policy was intended to ensure that those who were unable to leave the UK for COVID-19 related reasons, such as self-isolation or travel restrictions, were not at risk of overstaying their leave in the UK. The Home Office confirmed that “many, many thousands of requests” had been dealt with since the introduction of the policy.
Any migrant who needs to extend their leave beyond 31 July 2020 will now be assessed on a case-by-case basis. Where the Home Office consider there are “good reasons why someone cannot leave … we absolutely will make sure that will go down on our systems”.
