Immigration Reporting and Curtailment
As your Tier 4/Student sponsor, Queen Mary University of London is required to report some matters to the Home Office. This includes if any of the following events occur:
- you don’t enrol on your programme of studies
- you are de-registered for non-payment of tuition fees
- you fail to attend or engage with your programme of studies
- you interrupt your studies for more than 60 days
- you are required to re-sit out of attendance
- you finish your studies earlier than expected
- you withdraw from your studies
The report from Queen Mary is sent to the Home Office electronically. The report means that Queen Mary will stop sponsoring your immigration permission. You will normally receive confirmation of this report from the Academic Registry (this may be included in the letter confirming that one of the above has happened).
When Queen Mary sends the report to the Home Office, it will include your term-time contact address, phone number and e-mail address. For this reason, it is very important that you make sure that your term-time contact details on MySIS (https://mysis.qmul.ac.uk) are always up to date.
Our understanding is that, if the event which triggers the report occurred after the official end date of your course, Queen Mary will not report anything to the Home Office. If you are unsure, please contact the Student Enquiry Centre, who will be able to confirm if a report has been made.
If this applies to you, click on the sections below to find out what will happen. You may also find it useful to read our guide to Resitting, Interrupting, or Leaving your course, which explains the Queen Mary procedures.
After Queen Mary University of London has sent the report, the Home Office will normally curtail your immigration permission - read the relevant sections below, depending on whether you are in or out of the UK, to see how long your permission will be curtailed by.
It is difficult to say how long it will take for the Home Office to curtail your immigration permission. They could make a decision the day they receive the report from Queen Mary or it could take many months.
If you are in the UK and the Home Office curtails your immigration permission, they will write to you informing you of that decision - this is known as 'serving the curtailment notice'. The Home Office will will normally serve the curtailment notice by posting you a letter, or emailing you. If you are sent a letter, your immigration permission will be curtailed to 60 days from the date they write to you, plus an additional 3 working days to allow for the postage time. If you are sent an email, your immigration permission will be curtailed to 60 days from the date they send the email. The Home Office will normally ask you to cut up your BRP card and they will give you an address to post it to, before you leave the UK. It is advisable to make sure you have a copy or a photo of the BRP before you post it.
You cannot appeal against this decision. If you think the decision is incorrect (for example because you have already resumed your studies, or you will be resuming your studies within 60 days of date when the decision was made), seek advice from a Welfare Adviser at the Advice and Counselling Service.
The Home Office will send the letter or e-mail to the addresses provided in the report from Queen Mary. For this reason, it is very important that you make sure that your Term-time contact details on MySIS (https://mysis.qmul.ac.uk) are always up to date.
If your contact details change from those in the report, you should inform the Home Office so that they always have your correct address.
You can inform the Home Office of changes of your address by following these instructions.
Your immigration permission will be curtailed, even if you don’t receive the letter informing you of this (e.g. because the Home Office have sent it to your old address). If this happens you may accidentally stay in the UK illegally. Depending on how long you have stayed in the UK, this may prevent you from making a new UK immigration application.
To avoid the risk of accidentally staying in the UK illegally (e.g. because the Home Office sends your letter to the wrong address) you should leave the UK within 60 days of the date when Queen Mary reported you to the Home Office.
If you have remained in the UK and you have resumed your studies or will do shortly (within the next 60 days), you can contact a Welfare Adviser at the Advice and Counselling Service. The Welfare Adviser will be able to check with the Home Office to see if your immigration permission has been curtailed.
If it has not been curtailed, the Welfare Adviser will ask the Home Office to make a note on their records to state that you have resumed your studies or will resume your studies shortly. This should mean that your immigration permission will not be curtailed.
If you need more time to complete your studies, you will need to make a new immigration application. For more information, see our guidance on applying for Student immigration permission.
If your immigration permission has been curtailed, the Welfare Adviser will see if it is possible to overturn the decision. If it is not possible to overturn the Home Office's decision, see the next section.
If the Home Office has decided to curtail your immigration permission to 60 days, you will need to know the new end date. You should be able to find this in the curtailment letter or email from the Home Office. You can then work out if you can make a new Student immigration application.
You can check our guidance to see if you would be eligible to make a new application in the UK, based on your new (curtailed) visa end date. You course should re-start within 28 days of your new (curtailed) visa expiry date.
If you are not sure what date you will be resuming you studies, contact the Student Enquiry Centre. Your resumption date will also be confirmed on your CAS statement.
In some cases you may be able to apply for further permission to stay in the UK. For example:
- If you have a well-founded fear that you would face persecution if you return home
- If you are not well enough to travel
- If you are able to make an immigration application for another reason (e.g. studies, work, to stay with family members)
If you think any of the above might apply to you, you should seek advice from a regulated specialist immigration adviser.
If Queen Mary reported that you successfully completed your course earlier than expected, the Home Office policy is to curtail your immigration permission so that you would have the same "wrap-up" period after your new end date as you would if you had completed when expected. For example, if you had been granted four months of additional immigration permission after your course was due to end, the Home Office will curtail your immigration permission so that you have four months immigration permission from your new course end date. You can read more about this policy in the section "Deciding the date of expiry for curtailed leave" in the Home Office staff guidance document Curtailment.
Whether you can work depends on the reason why you are being curtailed:
- If you are not attending your programme because you are interrupting, re-sitting out of attendance or you have withdrawn, you must stop working as soon as this change to your studies takes effect. If you continue to work you could be in breach of your immigration conditions.
- If you successfully complete your course earlier than expected (for example because you changed programme to a shorter one) you can work in line with your Tier 4 or Student conditions for the normal expected wrap-up period (up to 4 months from your new course end date if your course is 12 months or longer).
Detailed information is available in the International Part-time and Vacation work guide
If your immigration permission has been curtailed, including if it is because you have successfully completed your course early, and you leave the UK, or are overseas at the time when your immigration permission is curtailed, then you should not try to travel back to the UK with this permission.
For example if you complete your course early and this results in your immigration permission being curtailed, but you wish to return to the UK for your graduation ceremony, you should apply for the appropriate permission before returning to the UK.
If you are not sure whether your immigration permission has already been curtailed, you can contact us and we can help you to check.
