A BRP will only arrive at BU, if our Alternative Collection Location (ACL) code was used during the Student visa application overseas. Otherwise, BRPs will be delivered to a Post Office. If you are unsure of the collection point, find the UKVI’s email that informed you about your visa, and find the collection point in the attached .pdf letter there - it is not on its first page but indeed is highlighted in red letters on one of the later pages.

If the letter does confirm your BRP is coming to BU, please note that it usually only arrives in 2-3 weeks after the date on the UKVI letter. We are purely a location for collection, and do not have any part in the production or dispatch of the delivery of the BRPs. 

Although you will receive tracking and delivery information from the UKVI and Royal Mail about your BRP, the earliest you may collect your BRP from BU is when you come to your document check and enrolment session. These will be on different days depending on your faculty during the week starting on Monday 23rd September 2024. We will not be giving out BRPs before this because we are required to handle them and run verification checks as per strict UKVI guidelines, and due to the large volume of BRPs, this is only possible during the dedicated sessions. Please note that BRPs that arrive to us for dependants will be given out separately; but do let us know, if you are expecting any from us as we will need more information about your dependants for that collection.

For us to verify your ‘right to study’ in the UK and for us to be able to enrol you on your course, we do not need your BRP – we will only need it at some point before your Entry Clearance sticker in your passport expires, but not for being able to enrol you. We can verify your ‘right to study’ in the UK on other documents when you come to your document checking and enrolment session (see above link).

Please note that the same is true for verifying your ‘right to work’ and ‘right to rent’ in the UK. Employers and landlords can also verify these without the BRP, by other means. However, they may not be fully aware of this. Neither you nor BU are able to make them do checks without the BRP, but…

You are encouraged to point out to an employer that their own ‘Employer's guide to right to work checks’ guidance states under the ‘How to establish a statutory excuse for right to work checks’ under the ‘Biometric Residence Permits’ section (need to scroll down for this), they indeed can verify your ‘right to work’ without a BRP. Landlords’ guidance also states the same.

Banks are likely to be stricter with their immigration checks and you may find it difficult to open a new UK bank account unless you are able to provide a share code to the bank.

If you applied for your visa by registering a UKVI Account, you will be able to generate a share code from your UKVI Account to give to employers or landlords and that was again there should not be a need to present your BRP to an employer or landlord at all.

If you did not apply for your visa by registering a UKVI Account, your visa decision email might already advise you to register a UKVI Account to have access to your eVisa. Following those instructions in your visa decision letter, you should soon be able to generate share codes via your UKVI Account for employers and landlords for their checks while you still are waiting to collect your BRP.

Remember again though that all employer and landlord checks are external to any ‘right to study’ checks that BU needs to do and we are not able to help with these or make contact with employers or landlords.