All students are required to be enrolled on their course and must enrol online on My Imperial.

To enrol online, student visa holders must provide a copy of their current passport and visa beforehand. The instructions on this are provided on My Imperial and by the Admissions team in their email communications sent to you.

Students on a course for 6 months or less

Find out what you need to do for short-term study. This includes information on what documents you need to upload on My Imperial.

Students with a Student Route visa

Non-EU/EEA national on a Student Visa:

You will receive a temporary 90-day entry vignette in your passport. A vignette is a sticker placed in your passport following a successful entry clearance application. It contains basic details about you and the permission you have been granted. You need to upload a copy of this to My Imperial in the My Passport and Visa tile.

• You will need to travel to the UK within the validity period of the dates given on the visa. You must only enter the UK on or after the start date and on or before the end date of this vignette.
• If you enter before the start date, you will not have activated your visa, and will have to exit the UK and re-enter according to the dates on your vignette.

Evidence of date of entry

Certain nationalities can use E-gates at a UK airport to enter the UK. If you use an E-gate, you will need to ensure you keep evidence of your date of entry to the UK in the form of a boarding pass/flight ticket or booking confirmation.

You will need to provide this evidence to the visa compliance team so they can check that you have activated your student visa. You will be sent an email to provide this once you have uploaded your 90-day entry vignette to My Imperial. 

Collect your Biometric Residence Permit (BRP)

During the visa application stages, you would have selected whether you wanted to collect your BRP from Imperial and if so, you would have provided UKVI with our Alternative Collection Code (ACL). You can also check your UKVI decision letter to check for collection address. Please see the instructions below as the exact location for collection on campus will be different.

You will need to get a Biometric Residence Permit (BRP) after you arrive in the UK.

You do not have to apply for a BRP. It is provided automatically when your visa is approved.

Students who have applied in the UK for a new Student Visa

If you have applied in the UK for your visa then you will not have an entry vignette in your passport. Depending on your nationality, you will either receive a BRP card only or you may receive digital immigration status only (please see section on EU/EEA/Swiss nationals and non-visa nationals below) or in some cases both.

If you opted to collect your BRP from the College then the Visa Compliance Team will notify you so that you can book an appointment to collect it. If you opted to collect it from the post office then you must collect it and upload a copy of both sides to My Imperial.

EU/EEA/Swiss nationals (including pre-settled or settled status under the European Settlement Scheme) and non-visa nationals with digital immigration status

You will be granted a Digital Immigration Status by the United Kingdom Visas and Immigration (UKVI) once your application is approved.

If you have digital immigration permission, you will not receive a BRP. However, you must prove your immigration status.

The letter or email you received from UKVI will include details of your immigration permission. To prove your immigration status, you must generate a share code. This allows us to check and verify your status.

Find out how to access your digital status and generate a share code. Please choose the purpose of the check as ‘other’ / ‘something else’. Do not choose 'work' or 'rent'.

Once you have your code, you must enter the share code details in the My Visa section of My Imperial. Please enter the start and end date on My Imperial as it appears when you view your status. Please attach a PDF of your share code. 

If you have Digital Student Immigration status, you should only enter the UK on or after the start date of your digital student permission.

You must keep evidence of your date of entry to the UK. This can be a boarding pass, flight ticket or booking confirmation. You must provide this to the Visa Compliance team. We will send you an email asking for this once your immigration status has been verified.

If you enter the UK before the start date of your visa then you will be entering as a visitor and therefore you will need to leave the UK and the Common Travel Area and re-enter on or after the start date of your digital status.

If you have different UK visa to study

Please upload a copy of your current UK visa to My Imperial. We will check this before you are cleared to enrol. If you have a stamped vignette and a BRP, please upload a copy of both sides of your BRP to My Imperial.

Further information and help

Find further information from the International Student Support team.

You can contact the team if you have any visa-related queries and/or immigration issues.