If you have breached UK immigration law, a future application for entry clearance or permission to enter can be refused for a set period. These are usually called re-entry bans. The period depends on how you left and whether deception was involved.

The periods

12 months: you overstayed or breached conditions and left voluntarily at your own expense.
2 years: you left voluntarily at public expense within six months of being told to leave or of the end of your leave.
5 years: you left voluntarily at public expense more than six months after that point.
10 years: you were removed or deported at public expense, or you used deception in an application for entry clearance.

Deception in an in-country application can lead to refusal of later applications for ten years too. A deportation order is not a re-entry ban in this sense; it lasts until revoked.

Exceptions

The bans do not apply to applications under Appendix FM as a partner or parent, or to some other family applications, and overstaying of a short period before voluntary departure is disregarded in defined circumstances. Children, victims of trafficking and some others are protected. Even where a ban applies, a human rights claim can still be made and considered.

Checking your position

Many people do not know whether they left at public expense or whether a removal was recorded. We obtain your Home Office file by subject access request and tell you exactly what is recorded and when any ban ends.

What we do

We advise before you apply so that you do not pay for an application that will be refused, make human rights applications where the ban does not bar them, and challenge refusals that misapply the rules.