The United Kingdom will implement changes to its visitor visa rules to expand business activities, allowing for a broader range of business activities.
Gatekeepers News reports that the UK’s government published an update to its immigration rules, thus permitting more activities on Visitor Visas, effective from January 31, 2024.
While digital nomads remain excluded, these adjustments aim to enhance business and tourism prospects in the country.
Changes include allowing visitors to work with clients, remote work being acceptable but not the main purpose of the visit.
Expanded business activities under the Visitor Visa and their criteria include;
1. Working with Clients: Visitors holding these visas can work with clients under certain conditions. This includes working in a company with branches in the UK and abroad, where client work constitutes a small part of their job abroad, and the work is necessary for a project or service by their employer’s UK branch. However, the project cannot be delivered directly to a UK client by the visitor’s employer overseas.
2. Remote Work: Visitors are allowed to work remotely from the UK, but the primary purpose of their visit should not be remote work.
3. Scientists, Researchers, and Academics: Professionals in these fields can engage in research activities in the UK, with the exception of academics applying for a 12-month visit visa or extending permission from within the Britain.
4. Lawyers: Lawyers can participate in additional activities in the UK, including giving advice, acting as an expert witness, participating in arbitrations, legal proceedings, and teaching.
5. Paid Speakers: Speakers visiting the UK on a visitor visa are now eligible to receive payment for their talks.
6. Permitted Paid Engagement (PPE) Visitor Route: This route will be merged into the Standard Visitor route. Those engaged in paid activities will not require a separate visa but must plan the activity within 30 days of arriving.
These changes, particularly the allowance for remote work, are anticipated to attract increased business and tourism to the United Kingdom.
Last month the Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt vowed that the UK government will expand the business visitor rules to permit businesspeople “to engage in a wider range of permitted activities and paid engagements, to take effect from January 2024. The government will also explore further reforms to the business visitor rules, during 2024.”
Traveling to the UK as a Standard Visitor encompasses purposes such as tourism, business, short-term study, and other approved reasons for up to six months, with the possibility of extension in special cases like medical treatment.
