FAQ

I’m a non-EU citizen with EUSS status. I was refused boarding to return to the UK because I could not show a BRC and they would not accept my digital proof of status. What can I do?

Unfortunately you are not alone in this.

We have written many letters to the Home Office about this, as we think their communications have led people to believe that digital status under the EU Settlement Scheme would now be enough to travel back to the UK.

In the immediate term:

• Try again to persuade the airline to accept digital status as the Home Office changed its Charging Guidance to Carriers in February 2022 to include “Where a visa national passenger does not have a valid visa or visa exemption document, you may accept evidence of pre-settled or settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme where this is provided by the passenger via the online ‘View and Prove’ service.”
   
• Apply for an EUSS Travel Permit (which should take up to 3 weeks rather than much longer for an EUSS Family Permit) - see this FAQ which includes details on how to do this.

Other things to consider:

• Complain to the Home Office if you consider that Home Office communication was responsible for the situation you find yourself in. Their letter to us acknowledged failures of communications raised in our letter, for example logging into View & Prove and reading you can “travel in and out of the country without having to prove your status, as your information will be checked automatically”.
  
  On complaints, their letter also included: “The Home Office may make ex-gratia payments to customers, beyond any legal or statutory requirements, as redress for maladministration on our part which has affected the individual – for example, if we have lost valuable documents, we would reimburse the cost of a replacement, provided evidence of the expenditure was submitted with an ex-gratia claim. Such payments are made at the discretion of the Home Office and depend on the individual circumstances of each complaint. Ex-gratia claims are submitted through the complaints route and details about how to do this can be found at: www.gov.uk/government/organisations/uk-visas-and-immigration/about/complaintsprocedure” 
   
• Report your experience to us using our reporting tool at https://www.the3million.org.uk/report-it 
   
• Submit a complaint with the Independent Monitoring Authority at https://ima-citizensrights.org.uk/complaints/can-i-complain/ 
   
• Contact your Member of Parliament (MP) - see https://www.parliament.uk/about/contacting/mp/