Immigration to UK

The UK business visitor visa is a fast and effective visa service for those who wish to travel to the UK in order to conduct a range of business activities including visiting conferences and attending meetings. A successful applicant may stay for a maximum of six months, however, the UK business visit visa can be issued for multiple entries, and this period of six months may be divided over the permit’s validity of up to two years. Business visit visas are particularly beneficial, as they do not impose any of the formal requirements, job offers, or points based assessments involved in other forms of UK business visa.

The following types of people can be treated as Business visitors:-

• Film crews (including actors, producers, directors and technicians) on locations shoots only, provided they are employed or paid by an overseas company or programme;
• Representatives of overseas news media provided they are employed or paid by an overseas company and are gathering information for an overseas publication and provided they will not be in the UK for more than 6 months;
• Academic visitors (see below)
• Visiting professors accompanying students on study abroad programmes (see below)
• Seconded from overseas companies who have a contract with a UK company, provided they are being paid by the overseas company – some seconded will need to qualify under points-based system Tier 2 or Tier 5 - see our Visa application guides for visa applicants;
• Religious workers  undertaking preaching or pastoral work during a business visit (for example, to attend a conference), provided their base is abroad and they are not taking up office, post or appointment (see below), some religious workers need to qualify under points-based system Tier 2 or Tier 5  - see our Visa application guides for visa applicants;
• Advisers, consultants, trainers or trouble shooters employed abroad by the same company to which the client firm in the UK belongs, provided this does not amount to employment paid or unpaid for the UK branch;
• Persons undertaking specific, one-off training provided by their own company, or a branch of it in the UK, in techniques and work practices used in the UK, provided this is not on-the job training.

In addition, those intending to carry out any of the following permissible activities are considered business visitors:

• attending meetings or conferences;
• arranging deals, negotiating or signing trade agreements, contracts, and so on;
• undertaking fact-finding missions, for example, journalists on a short assignment to cover a story;
• conducting site visits;
• purchasing, checking details of or examining goods;
• delivering goods from abroad, such as lorry drivers and coach drivers provided they are genuinely working an international route;
• attending interviews, where prior arrangements for interview have been made;
• tour group couriers contracted to a firm outside the UK seeking entry to accompany a tour group and who intend to leave with that group;
• speaking at a conference where this is not run as a commercial concern and it is a 'one-off' event;
• interpreters or translators who are existing employees of an overseas company and who are accompanying and solely providing a service for business visitors from that company;
• Representatives of computer software companies coming to install, debug or enhance their products. Representatives coming to be briefed on a UK customer’s requirements are also acceptable. But representatives who intend to provide a detailed assessment of a potential customer’s needs should enter under the points-based system Tier 2 because this is regarded as consultancy;
• representatives of foreign manufacturers coming to service or repair their company’s products within their initial period of guarantee;
• representatives of foreign machine manufacturers coming to erect and install machinery too heavy to be delivered in one piece, as part of the contract of purchase and supply;
• monitors – representatives of foreign companies coming to erect, dismantle, install, service, repair or advise on the development of foreign-made machinery;
• Board level directors attending board meetings in the UK, provided that they are not employed by a UK company, although there may be a fee for attending the meetings.