Student Services

International students who successfully complete an undergraduate degree or postgraduate degree at the University of Lincoln with Student immigration permission at the time of application will be eligible.

You will be able to apply after the Board of Examiners have confirmed your final results, showing that you have successfully completed your course. The Student Visa Compliance Team at the University of Lincoln will report your successful completion to UKVI, and you can apply after this.

The Student Visa Compliance Team at the University of Lincoln will not report your successful completion to UKVI until you have paid in full, all of the tuition fees for your course.

If your Student permission expired before 1 July 2021, you will not be eligible to apply (unless you can extend your Student permission first).

You can only apply from inside the UK. You must apply before your current visa expires.  

Normally if your total course is 12 months or shorter, you should spend the full duration of your course in the UK with Student immigration permission, if your course is longer than 12 months you should spend at least 12 months in the UK with Student immigration permission.

You will only be eligible to apply for the Graduate Route visa once, even if you undertake more than one eligible course in the UK. Therefore if you are planning to do a undergraduate and postgraduate course in the UK, think about when would be the best time to apply depending on your career plans.

Currently, the Graduate Route visa allows students who have completed a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree to stay for up to two years to work at any skill level, or to look for work. Those who have completed a PhD will be granted permission for 3 years.

The Graduate Route rules are changing from the 1st January 2027.

Graduate Route applications made on or after 1st January 2027 will be granted permission for 18 months and not 2 years.  PhD students will still be granted permission for 3 years.

The Graduate Route process is NOT automatic and so you will need to apply by completing an online form.   The application form will ask you for your CAS number. The CAS number is the number of the CAS that was given to you for your original Student Visa.

You will NOT need a new CAS to make a Graduate Route visa application.

You will only meet the eligibility criteria for the qualification, after the exam board for your programme has taken place, and your results have been officially confirmed. You must have successfully completed your course and your successful completion reported to UKVI in order to be eligible.

Successful completion of your studies is when you have completed your programme and the Board of Examiners have confirmed your award of qualification. Programme boards normally take place  1-2 months after the end date of your course, however this may vary between Schools.

The Student Visa Compliance Team at the University of Lincoln will report your successful completion to UKVI. You can only apply after this.

You must apply before your current Student immigration permission expires, or on the day it expires at the very latest.

It is not recommended to wait until the day your visa expires to apply, but if you do apply on the day your visa expires, please see the information from UKCISA about completing the application form.

You DO NOT need a new CAS to make a Graduate Route visa application.

The Graduate Route application form will ask you for your CAS number. This will be the number of the CAS that was provided to you for your original Student Visa application.

The application fee is £880, and the Immigration Health Surcharge is currently £1,035 per year of permission granted.

Your eligible dependants will also have to pay an application fee and the Immigration Health Surcharge. Graduate visa: How much it costs – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

If you were sponsored by a government or international organisation for your studies, or were sponsored during the 12 months before you make your application for the Graduate Route, then you will need to provide a letter of consent from your sponsor. The letter of consent should say that your sponsor agrees to you remaining in the UK. This is required if the scholarship covered both tuition fees and living expenses.

As the University of Lincoln is not a government or international scholarship agency, you will not require a letter of consent if you have been sponsored by the University of Lincoln. 

We are aware that the visa application form currently asks you to provide a letter of consent if you have previously been sponsored by any official financial sponsor, however this is not in accordance with the Immigration Rules which only requires the letter of consent if you were sponsored by a government or international scholarship agency. If you previously received a scholarship from the University of Lincoln, you can write a cover letter to submit with your supporting documents to explain that a letter of consent is not required because you were not sponsored by a government or international scholarship agency.

If you were sponsored by a government or international organisation for either your tuition fees or living expenses, or both, then please check if the terms and conditions of your sponsorship permits you to stay in the U.K on completion of your course.

You can work full time whilst waiting for your Graduate Route application decision. However;

If you made your most recent Student application before 6 April 2022:

You must wait for a decision on your Graduate application before you can start:

• a permanent full-time job (a job with no end date on the employment contract)
• self-employment
• work as an entertainer

If you made your most recent Student application on or after 6 April 2022:

You can start a full-time permanent job after making your Graduate route application. However, you must wait for the decision if you are planning work as an entertainer, or you plan to be self-employed.

You must not work as a professional sportsperson with Graduate permission. The date on which you applied for Student or Graduate permission makes no difference.

If your partner and children joined you in the UK as ‘dependants’ on your current Student visa or Tier 4 (General) student visa, they can apply to stay as dependants on your Graduate visa. All dependants have to be in the UK when the Graduate Visa application is made.

If your child was born in the UK during your current Student or Tier 4 (General) student visa, they can also apply.

If their application is successful, their visa will end on the same date as yours.

Students starting courses from 1st January 2024 will not be allowed to bring dependants with them on their Student Visa unless they are going to be studying on a postgraduate research course or a PhD course.

The Graduate Route eligibility criteria will not change and so students affected by the dependant visa change will not be able to have dependants join them in the UK under the Graduate Route.  

PhD students will be eligible to apply after they have been awarded their PhD. They will be granted 3 years to stay and work in the UK.

If your application decision is still pending after the date that your Student visa expires, you are still in the UK legally as long as you submitted your Graduate Route application before your Student Visa expired.

If you apply in the UK to switch to the Graduate route you should not travel until the outcome of the application. This is because travelling outside the Common Travel Area automatically withdraws your application.

If you need to travel very urgently while your application is pending, your application will be automatically withdrawn when you leave the Common Travel Area, but if your Tier 4 or Student visa is still valid you can re-enter the UK after your travel. You will then need to apply again under the Graduate route and pay the application fee again. Only the Immigration Health Surcharge from your first application would be refunded.

As long as it is confirmed that you have successfully completed your course while you still hold valid Tier 4 or Student Visa permission, you have cleared any outstanding Tuition Fees and you are still in the UK, you will be in time to apply for the Graduate Route (subject to meeting all of the other qualifying criteria).

If you are an Undergraduate student who has resits during the late summer resit period, your results should normally be released in the September following the August resit.

If you are a Postgraduate Taught student who has resit exams, or you need to resubmit your dissertation, you would only be eligible for the Graduate Route if the resit/resubmission takes place AND official results are released before your Student Visa immigration permission expires.

If you are resitting your project or dissertation, The University of Lincoln will not usually issue you with a CAS or provide you with any documentation to support any other type of immigration application on the basis of your studies because there is not normally a requirement for you to be in the UK.

If you are resitting a project or dissertation, you should be able to do this outside of the UK. If your project or dissertation requires sample data, your school should provide you with this.

If you feel that you need physical access to the Library or other resources (though strictly speaking you shouldn’t need to if the decision is that you are re-sitting out of attendance), then you can use the time between now and when your current immigration permission expires or is curtailed (cut short) to use these resources.

If you feel that you need to spend more time in the UK preparing your dissertation than your current Tier 4 or Student Visa immigration permission allows, contact the Student Visa Compliance Team to ask if this will be possible. They will need to contact your academic school to ask if they require you to be in the UK to prepare or submit your dissertation and it is unusual for an academic school to support this.

If your application is successful, you’ll get:

• a digital immigration status which you can view and prove online – if you used the ‘UK Immigration: ID Check’ app. If you get a digital immigration status, you will not receive a BRP card. You will be able to generate a share code to prove your right to work in the UK.

Biometric Residence Permits (BRP) will no longer be provided from December 2024 and everyone will be provided with a digital immigration status (eVisa)

Students on part-time courses with Student permission at the time of application will be eligible for the Graduate Route, provided they meet all of the other eligibility criteria.

Please note, the UKCISA information confirms that you cannot start work until your Graduate Route permission is granted.