How to Obtain Your BRP (Biometric Residence Permit)

In order to collect your BRP from the Post Office, you must bring with you:

• Your passport
• Your UKVI decision letter which accompanied your 90-day travel visa

You do not need an appointment to collect your BRP from the Post Office. Most students who select Post Office collection will find that the Piccadilly Plaza Post Office is their collection point. The opening times of other Post Office branches can be searched for here.

If you lose your decision letter after arrival in the UK, before collecting your BRP, if you know where you need to collect your BRP from, just take your passport with the vignette in to collect your BRP, and explain that you have lost the decision letter.

Once you have made your visa application it is not possible to change the collection of your card from a Post Office branch to the University, or to change the collection of your BRP from the University to a Post Office branch. If your BRP has been sent to a Post Office that is no longer convenient for you to visit, you can arrange for your BRP card to be sent to a different Post Office; see the Home Office website for details.

After you have collected your BRP card, you will need to complete your right to study check at the University.

As you will be under 18 you need to be accompanied by a responsible adult (someone who is over 18 years) when you go to the Post Office. Your parent or guardian can be your Responsible Adult without prior approval from the Home Office only if:

• They are collecting their own BRP at the same time, and

• The vignette in their passport states that you are their dependent (this will be shown by a printed remark such as “Dependant of John Smith”).

In all other cases the adult who will accompany you must be approved in advance by the Home Office, even if they are your parent or legal guardian.

In order to register as the Responsible Adult go to www.gov.uk/biometric-residence-permits/collect

It will take at least a week for the UKVI to process a request to approve a Responsible Adult, and the process cannot be speeded up if that person is about to leave the UK, so please ensure that they apply as soon as possible.

The Responsible Adult will have to provide evidence of their identity when accompanying you to collect your biometric residence permit.

To prove their identity the Responsible Adult must present one of the following identity documents:

• Passport

• European national identity card (European citizen only)

• UK issued biometric residence permit.

If approved, you and the Responsible Adult will receive an authorisation e-mail. You and the responsible adult will need to present these to the Post Office Customer Service Adviser at the time of collection and you will not be able to collect your permit without them.

If you have not travelled with someone who is able to collect on your behalf please contact visa@manchester.ac.uk as it may be possible for a member of the Student Immigration Team to collect your BRP on your behalf from the Post Office. 

If you know where you need to collect your BRP from, just take your passport with the vignette in to collect your BRP, and explain that you have lost the decision letter.

If you do not know where you are required to collect your BRP from, or if you lose your passport, after arrival in the UK, prior to BRP collection you should use the form on the Gov.UK website to report your situation to the Home Office. They will write to you in 5 working days with instructions telling you what you need to do next.

If you have a BRP with an expiry date that has been limited to 31 December 2024, UKVI will contact you and let you know how to create a UKVI account and access your eVisa before your BRP expires.

Once you have been contacted to create an account, either by email or in a decision letter, then you can proceed and follow the relevant instructions to do so. 

UKVI are inviting visa holders in stages so you do not have to worry if you have not yet been contacted about creating an account. You should be invited to create your account and access your digital visa later in 2024 before your current BRP expires. You can sign up for updates from UKVI to keep up to date on when you’ll be able to access your eVisa.  

Once you’ve created your UKVI account you will be able to sign in to the view and prove service to access your eVisa and you will need to send through a share code so we can verify your updated Student status by following the instructions below

1. Go to the Gov.uk webpage and click Start Now
2. Select the document used when making your visa application
3. Enter your document reference number
4. Enter your date of birth
5. Select how you would like to receive a security code (this will be contact details you provided when making your application).
6. Enter the security code sent to you and you will be able to login
7. This page will show your immigraton status and provide other information
8. Select Prove your Status, just below your details.
9. Tick 'Something Else' and Select 'Preview what the checker will see'
10. Click continue to generate a Share Code, this will be a combination of letters and numbers that should start with an S. Make sure to copy or screen shot this code.
11. E-mail visa@manchester.ac.uk with your share code with your ID and 'eVisa sharecode' as the email subject.

You can find further information about UKVI's transition to eVisas here.