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Travel while pending EEA Family application?

Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2018 6:25 pm
by kelceyyeager
My husband and I sent in our EEA Family application about a month ago ago. We were hoping to travel for 6 weeks over the summer to visit family. (I’m from the United States and he is Spanish). We got a letter from the Home Office stating that they received our application and it is being processed, I can legally work in the UK while the application is processing, and that we can apply to request our documents back if we’d like.

I started to apply to get the passports returned, and right before I submitted the application, there’s a part that says that if we travel outside the UK and Ireland, they have the right to cancel our application if they’d like to. It’s not clear if it will for sure be cancelled or what exactly the terms are for this. Do you think I will have problems re-entering the UK or anything that will make them cancel our application?

I am currently on a Tier 5 Religious Worker visa (multiple entry as I travel within Europe quite a lot).

Re: Travel while pending EEA Family application?

Posted: Fri Apr 06, 2018 11:22 am
by GMB
You're within your legal rights to travel outside the UK while your EEA application is pending. That warning is really only for people making applications under UK national immigration law (like your Tier 5 visa or ILR for instance). It doesn't apply to applications made under EEA law, which has an entirely different set of rules. You have the added advantage of having a valid Tier 5 visa, so there can't be any question about being re-admitted to the UK each time, because you can just show that. I travelled multiple times outside the UK while both my original residence card application and my later permanent residence application were being processed, and it was never a problem.

Re: Travel while pending EEA Family application?

Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2018 7:11 pm
by zsolti
Hi,
Can i just ask your opinion.
I'm an eea national my wife a non eea national holds a valid permanent residence card in her old, expired passport and she's got her new passport as well. She applied for her biometric residence card (7 weeks ago) and has just requested her passports back. She'd need to travel alone to Brazil (family reasons). Do you think it's ok to travel with expired passport valid permanent residence card plus new passport while her biometric residence card application is being processed? I'm just worried a bit.
Thanks.