Visa Refused: Your Options to Appeal or Request a Review

You can only appeal to the tribunal if you have the legal right to appeal, and you will usually be told if you do in your decision letter. Your decision letter will usually tell you if you can apply for an administrative review and if you do not have the right to appeal. If you do not have the right to appeal, you might be able to ask the Home Office for an administrative review.

GOV.UK says you may be able to appeal against the immigration decision if you are not eligible for an administrative review. Our guide to finding a regulated immigration adviser explains who can help you with an appeal or review.

The tribunal is independent of government, and a judge will listen to both sides of the argument before making a decision. You can appeal to the First-tier Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) if the Home Office has decided to:

• ✓Yes: Refuse your protection claim, also known as an asylum claim or humanitarian protection
• ✓Yes: Revoke your protection status
• ✓Yes: Refuse your human rights claim
• ✓Yes: Refuse you a residence document or deport you under the Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2016
• ✓Yes: Revoke your British citizenship
• ✓Yes: Refuse or revoke your status, vary the length or condition of your stay, or deport you under the EU Settlement Scheme
• ✓Yes: Refuse or revoke your travel permit or family permit under the EU Settlement Scheme, or restrict your rights to enter or leave the UK under those permits
• ✓Yes: Refuse or revoke your permit, or deport you, if you are a frontier worker
• ✓Yes: Refuse or revoke your leave, or deport you, if you are an S2 healthcare visitor

If you are in the UK you have 14 days from the date you received the decision letter to submit your appeal, if you are outside the UK you have 28 days from the date you received the decision letter, and if your decision letter says you must leave the UK before you can appeal you have 28 days from the date you left the UK.

If you submit your appeal after the time limit you must explain why, and the tribunal will then decide if it can still hear your appeal. You can appeal later if your administrative review was unsuccessful for an EU Settlement Scheme, frontier worker or S2 healthcare visitor application, and your administrative review decision will tell you how to appeal.

Hearings are carried out in public, and you can ask for a hearing to be held in private or to attend by video link, but you must have a reason, for example a public hearing would put you in danger. You can request extra support or adjustments at the hearing, for example an interpreter or wheelchair access, and you can ask for a male or female judge if you think there are issues in your appeal that make it appropriate, which the tribunal will decide if it can do.

You can ask for your appeal to be heard urgently at any point during the appeal process, it is free to ask, and you need to give evidence of compelling or compassionate grounds, for example letters from a doctor or hospital.

The tribunal will either allow your appeal, which does not automatically mean you will be able to enter or stay in the country and may simply mean the Home Office has to reconsider its decision, or dismiss your appeal and uphold the Home Office's original decision. You will usually get a copy of the tribunal's decision within 4 weeks of the hearing, and both you and the Home Office can appeal the decision of the tribunal.

The tribunal can order either you or the Home Office to pay the other's costs if either of you has acted unreasonably.

If you win your appeal the Home Office will change its decision, it may reconsider your entire application if your circumstances have changed since you first made your appeal, and the judge may order it to pay you a fee award up to the amount you paid for your tribunal fee.

If you lose your appeal you can ask for permission to appeal to the Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) if you think there is a legal mistake with the tribunal's decision, for example that the tribunal got the law wrong or had no evidence to support its decision.

You can contact the First-tier Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) about your appeal at contactia@justice.gov.uk or on 0300 123 1711, Monday to Friday, 9am to 4pm, and the tribunal cannot give you legal advice. You may be able to get asylum support, such as housing and money, if you have been refused asylum.

If you are in the UK you can only apply for an administrative review if you applied in the UK and your application was refused, you must apply within 14 days of getting the decision, or within 7 days if you were detained on the day you got your decision, and it costs £80.

If you are outside the UK you can only apply for an administrative review if you applied outside the UK and your application was refused, you must apply within 28 days of getting the decision, and it costs £80.

You can ask for the decision to be reviewed if your visa was cancelled because there has been a change in your circumstances, you gave false information or you failed to include relevant facts, and if you were given temporary admission to the UK you must apply within 14 days of your visa being cancelled, or within 7 days if you were detained on that date.

If your visa was cancelled at border controls outside the UK in Paris, Brussels, Dunkirk, Coquelles, Calais or Lille you must apply for an administrative review within 28 days of your visa being cancelled.

You cannot request a second administrative review unless the first review found new reasons why the original refusal was correct, and your decision letter will tell you if you can apply for a second review. If your visa has expired, you will not usually be removed from the UK until your review has been completed.

Your request for an administrative review will be withdrawn if you make any other immigration or visa application, ask for your passport back so you can travel or leave the UK, and your request will be rejected if you ask for a review of a previous decision after submitting a new application. You can email the Home Office and ask for your request to be withdrawn, and your application fee will not be refunded.

A reconsideration request is not a formal appeal or an administrative review, and you cannot ask for a reconsideration if you have a right to an appeal or a review.

You can make a reconsideration request if you believe immigration rules or policies were not followed correctly when the decision was made, you must be in the UK to make the request, and you can only make one if you applied in the UK to replace your visa with an eVisa, transfer your indefinite leave to remain to an eVisa, or extend your leave, switch your visa or settle in the UK.

You can make a request if your application for a transfer of conditions or leave to remain was successful but you believe the type or the expiry date of the leave is wrong.

You can also make a request if your transfer of conditions or no time limit application was refused and you have new evidence about the date of the application, new evidence to prove that your documents were authentic, or evidence that information received by UKVI before the decision date was not available to the team who made the decision, and these are the only kinds of new evidence you can use.

Your reconsideration request will be rejected if you:

• ✗No: Make a new application before or after you send the request
• ✗No: Have since been given permission to stay in another visa category
• ✗No: Left the UK and your permission to stay has expired
• ✗No: Were removed or deported from the UK
• ✗No: Have already exhausted your appeal rights or lost your case in a judicial review
• ✗No: Need to make an appeal or apply for an administrative review instead

To make a reconsideration request, write a letter saying why you think the decision was wrong, referring to the rules or policy under which you applied, and send it to the team who made the decision on your original application, as soon as possible and no later than 14 days after you get the decision, and you can only make one reconsideration request.

The purpose of section 3C leave is to prevent a person who makes an in-time application to extend their leave from becoming an overstayer while they are awaiting a decision on that application and while any appeal or administrative review they are entitled to is pending. A person becomes an overstayer if they remain in the UK beyond the period of their leave, which is a criminal offence under section 24 of the Immigration Act 1971.

A person will have section 3C leave if they have limited leave to enter or remain in the UK, apply to the Secretary of State to vary that leave before the leave expires, and the leave expires without the application having been decided or withdrawn. Section 3C leave continues during any period when an in-country appeal could be brought and while the appeal is pending, meaning it has been lodged and has not been finally determined.

Section 3C leave continues during any period when an administrative review could be sought and while it is pending, in that it has not been determined, as long as no new application for leave to remain has been made, and it will end if the person leaves the UK.

Section 3C leave extends your existing immigration permission, and any associated conditions, if you make an in-time application to extend your stay in the UK. Our no recourse to public funds guide explains that condition.

You can use an online form to complain to UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) about applications, appointments and decisions, and you should have any Home Office reference numbers that could help with the complaint. If you are making a complaint on behalf of someone else you will need their consent, along with their name and date of birth, and you can make your complaint in English or Welsh.

Investigating your complaint can take up to 20 working days, and complaints that suggest serious professional misconduct can take up to 12 weeks.

You can get help and advice from a solicitor or an immigration adviser and you can also contact Citizens Advice. See our guides to finding a regulated immigration adviser and to legal aid.