Supporting Documentation Required for Self-Employed Apps

[EUsmileWEallsmile]

People are complaining that their self-employed applications are being ignored? Why?

Does anyone have practical experience of successfully applying for residence documentation as a self-employed person?

There have been a number of posters whose applications have been returned for lack of evidence. I'm interested to hear from those who've got practical experience of success.

The guidance from UKBA says this (page 26):

http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitec ... iew=Binary

This page tells you what information to consider if a European Economic Area (EEA) national wants to show they are a qualified person exercising free movement rights in the UK as a self-employed person.
An EEA national may exercise free movement rights in the UK as a qualified person if they work for themselves in a self-employed capacity. Anyone who claims to be exercising free movement rights as a qualified person in this category must be self-employed and registered for income tax and national insurance purposes as a self-employed person with HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC).

If an EEA national claims to be exercising free movement rights as a qualified person in this category, you must check that there is reasonable evidence to support this. For example, proof of registration with HMRC, invoices for work done, a copy of business accounts, an accountant’s letter or other similar documents.

Page 11 of the EEA1 form request for self-employed evidence either:

Invoices / receipts or an accountant's letter or business bank statements.

Additionally, the applicant can provide:

A lease on a business premises (if applicable); inland revenue self-assessment forms (if applicable); evidence of national insurance contributions paid.

On page 15 or the form (documentation checklist it says)

If section 6 (self-employment) has been completed: this can include evidence to show you are self-employed, e.g. a lease on business premises, Inland Revenue self-assessment forms, business bank statements, invoices or receipts or National Insurance contributions.

There is further information on HMRC's website.

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/selfemployed/

[EUsmileWEallsmile]

Some recent examples of people who've experienced difficulties.

http://www.immigrationboards.com/viewtopic.php?t=104772

and

http://www.immigrationboards.com/viewtopic.php?t=105739

[mcovet]

I assisted in an EEA3 application (in December 2010) where the EEA citizen was first a worker for 3.5 years and then a self-employed for the rest.

She provided accountant's letter, ni contribution payment record, bank statements showing money going in, invoices to clients and that was it. Depends who you get as a caseworker really. She wasn't leasing any premises, working from home, advertising for companies in Poland etc.

The list is self-explanatory and anything goes, if they have doubts, they are free to refuse the application.

[EUsmileWEallsmile]

...She provided accountant's letter...

If I were to hazard a guess, I think this is the "golden ticket". It is only a guess or course.

[EUsmileWEallsmile]

...if they have doubts, they are free to refuse the application.

...and as you know, some people's applications are not being rejected and appear to be returned without proper explanation as to what's missing.

[Amarula]

I sent just husband's invoices and (personal) bank statements showing money from customers coming in (covering about a year of self-employment), nothing else.

[jumpingzombie]

I found this topic last night, and I've started being aware of a case of my husband who's an EEA national going to apply for the permanent residence document by EEA3 next year.

At first, I'm surprised self-employed applicants tend to have a difficulty to apply for a residence document, although I've recognised it wouldn't be as straight forward as employed applicants.

My husband who's from one of the A8 countries moved to the UK in February 2008. He's been keeping his employment status as self-employed since then, while he is employed as well. I joined him on the EEA FP in December 2009, and was granted the 5years residence card by EEA 2 application together with the resident certificate for my husband by EEA 1 application in August 2010.
His employment status was self-employed in both periods, when I applied for the EEA FP and when we made a joint application by EEA1+2. He was employed for 6 month between 2008-2009, but kept his self employed status as well.

The documents we submitted to prove my husband had exercised the treaty rights for my EEA FP, EEA1+2 joint application are;

#Payslips and P45 for the period he was employed for 6month.
#Invoices
#Bankstatements
#NI contribution paid receipts
#HM Revenue tax return documents prepared by accountant
#Accountant's letter

To be honest, we aren't exactly willing to hire any accountants because it costs, but we did it because we weren't really familiar with doing self assesment, and thought that it would be more reliable to submit a letter provided by accountant for UKBA. Actually his income as a self-employed isn't such sufficient as we pay for the accountant, so we're thinking to do tax return for his income as a self-employed by ourself for his EEA3 next year.

However, as long as I read some topics in this forum, is it better to submit the tax return documents for a self-employed prepared by accountant, together with his/her letter? My husband has been employed since a couple of month ago, still keeping his self-employment status as well, paying NI for both employment status.

[EUsmileWEallsmile]

@jamoman, you are not the only one to have experienced this problem.

[bessenjust]

Has anyone else had any further success with self employment applications. Perhaps if anyone has a good cover letter to share that would be great.

[EUsmileWEallsmile]

I am going to make this topic a sticky for a short period of time to see if it flushes out more answers. People tend to post when they've had problems, but maybe not so much if they've been successful.

[dayana173]

My father is self-employed and his application for pr was successful. The documents he send are:

- invoices
- self-assessment/ tax returns for 5 years
- bank statements for 5 years
- the only thing the accountant prepare was profit and loss accounts for 5 years
- NI contributions for 5 years

[EUsmileWEallsmile]

My father is self-employed and his application for pr was successful. The documents he send are:

- invoices
- self-assessment/ tax returns for 5 years
- bank statements for 5 years
- the only thing the accountant prepare was profit and loss accounts for 5 years
- NI contributions for 5 years

Thanks for posting this.

[nedelcu]

My father is self-employed and his application for pr was successful. The documents he send are:

- invoices
- self-assessment/ tax returns for 5 years
- bank statements for 5 years
- the only thing the accountant prepare was profit and loss accounts for 5 years
- NI contributions for 5 years

Hi, thanks for useful information, i have provided every thing as self employed but i could not provide bank statement cos i have account with bank due to their service i am not satisfied and i have some arguement with bank manager after that i am not using that account from last 8 month,my passport is already with home office i don't have any id for open new account.i have provided ni contribution receipts, tax paying receipts, my contact and invoices.would they decide on the basis of these documents.please give your valuable comments on it.

[dayana173]

I am not entirely sure but I don't think they will make a problem. I will advise you to ask your accountant to prepare for you profit and loss accounts based on tax returns for 5 years. The other thing is that I don't think a bank can refuse to send bank statements copies for the period you have been with them, despite the argument you have with them.

[nedelcu]

[quote="dayana173"]I am not entirely sure but I don't think they will make a problem. I will advise you to ask your accountant to prepare for you profit and loss accounts based on tax returns for 5 years. The other thing is that I don't think a bank can refuse to send bank statements copies for the period you have been with them, despite the argument you have with th



Thanks for your reply and give me beautiful advice, actually i am not applying for permanent residence.sorry i could not explain you before.i am EU national and my husband is non visa national.he has applied for residence card in March 2012.we received leeter from ukba in january 20 ,2013 they asked some question regarding our marriage and some more documents.we have provided every thing only could not provide bank statemet,i need your advice and guidance about our this situation.

[nidaulhaque]

do i need to show profit to qualify for qualified person for self employment?

[EUsmileWEallsmile]

do i need to show profit to qualify for qualified person for self employment?

This thread is meant to about people who have made a successful application. If yours is accepted, it would be great if you could post back.

[webbie1902]

This link might help and be a guide for you guys applying as self employed.
http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitec ... employ.pdf

[sunfly211]

Hi guys,

I just want to share my story here as I applied for an EEA2 RC using the self-employed route and I successfully got it today.

Here is my timeline:

App sent: 26/02/2013
App received: 27/02/2013
COA issued: 19/03/2013
COA received: 23/03/2013
RC issued: 02/05/2013
RC received: 09/05/2013

Proof of self-employment sent initially included:

- An accountant's letter clearly stating the commencing date of self-employment, the trading activity, the address of the business, how much money the business had generated to date and how much was projected as income for the financial year coming.

- Independent business bank account statements for the last 4 months since my husband started his business

- A reference letter written by a regular customer

- 2 receipts my husband received from his suppliers (my husband didn't feel comfortable about sending the invoices he issued to customers so we sent those instead)

At the time we submitted the application, my husband was still waiting on HMRC to issue a Self Assessment tax reference for his business. Therefore we didn't include any documents related to tax or NI contributions. But the situation was clearly explained in the accountant's letter as well as in a covering letter written by my husband himself.

One month after sending the application, my husband received a letter from HMRC confirming that his Self Assessment registration had been completed. We sent that paper to UKBA the next day with a covering letter explaining it was an additional supporting document for my application.

I used recorded signed for service to post that extra document so I am pretty sure UKBA received it. The weird thing is that among the bunch of documents they returned back to us today together with the RC, I coudn't find that HMRC letter that we sent later, only the documents I sent first time. So I guess it probably could not reach the caseworker eventually and they approved my application without that evidence...

Also I wanna add that even we applied as a married couple, we did include some evidence of our genuine relationship such as photos of us with family and friends, tenancy contract, council tax bills, utility bills and joint bank account - all with both names. We did this in order to prevent them from thinking our case is a marriage of convenience (thanks to reading many posts on this forum regarding refusals on this ground!).

I hope this is helpful for those who are planning to apply on the basis of being self-employed.

Best of luck everyone!

[captcha]

Hi there,

I'm delighted to report successfully obtaining my RC via the self-employed route. The timeline is as follows:

* UKBA received my app 28/11/2012
* Received COA (with right to work) 20/12/2012
* Passports requested and received 07/01/2013 -- 13/02/2013
* RC: 14/05/2013 (dated 09/05/2013)

The complete list of documents sent with the application was:

* Both passports
* Marriage certificate
* An invoice issued by my wife
* Two bank statements showing payments received from clients (the amounts don't match the one in the invoice, it's from a different month). One statement also shows direct debit payments to HMRC. The bank account is personal, not business.
* Letter from HMRC issuing her a Unique Taxpayer Reference number
* Letter and printout confirming arrangements to pay HMRC by direct debit
* Letter from HMRC saying that it's time to complete the tax return
* A statement from a joint bank account showing some savings

We did not include documents from an accountant (we don't have any, she does her own tax self-assessment). We didn't even include a cover letter. My wife's self-employment in the UK started about 1 and a half years before submitting the application.

After finding out through this forum all the difficulties people were facing when applying as self-employed, I sent additional letters (quoting the case ID from my COA) which included cover letters detailing my situation and how my wife's business works. I also included printouts from her professional webpage and from paid-for profiles in specialised portals. This additional evidence was not returned with the rest of the documents submitted with the original application, so I have no way of knowing whether it was taken into account when making the decision or if it even reached the caseworker.

All the best for those still waiting!

[Brigid from Ireland]

I have translated various documents for a few people who were self employed in Ireland. It is all about filing the correct paperwork and having paperwork to support all claims and being HONEST.

Eg EU citizen comes to Ireland - they need their identity documents (passport and also preferably birth cert) and also their insurance number from their own country (NI from UK, PESEL from Poland and so on). Then they get Irish PPS number.

Step 1. Get Irish pps number using passport and insurance number from own country, for EU citizen, passport for non EU spouse and all children. Do this in first three months.

Step 2. Contact Revenue and register as self employed - this basically just means complete a form with simple questions such as date of birth. Then you get the first critical piece of paperwork - a letter saying you are registered as self employed. (If you have children living with you then you send a copy of this to child benefit section to claim 130 euro per month per child, with completed application form for child benefit).

Step 2a Get long term stamp EU FAM for non EU spouse using the letter from Revenue.

Step 3. Keep records of work done, income earned costs incurred and profit. This obviously depends on what you do, but say you sell art - you will have cost of paint/canvas, income from sale of painting, then profit. So good records, preferably deposit income into bank acccount when you get it, as proof you were paid, then take out a set amount each week (drawing income for yourself each week). Be HONEST -if you lie it is trouble. Better to say honestly you earned 50 euro this week cutting lawns for neighbours and have proof of this than to lie and have no proof.

Step 4. Can be done any time after 1 January - in other words start work in say September 2013, this step can't be done until January 2014. It is to calcuate and pay the tax due to the Irish taxman. Then six weeks later he sends a form to say tax/prsi paid in Ireland. Then you have proof you were self employed from Sept to Dec 2013 and that taxman accepted this and took the tax on your income. This is the final piece of paperwork and you need to do this each year you are self employed.

That is it - basically very easy if you are good at paperwork.

One point is that I think in Ireland you need to declare drawings/income of five thousand per year for a single person. Otherwise I think income too low and causes problems. If your spouse is with you and is not working elsewhere then I would double this to showing an income of five thousand for EACH spouse, and would declare both husband and wife as both being self employed, following the above steps for each spouse. Reason first is that they need to show they earn enough to live, and one hundred euro per spouse per week is bare minimum needed for survival here in Ireland. Second reason is long term that both spouses begin to gain rights to old age pension when old.

Note also that I would recommend that if work as an employee is available it should be taken as the prsi paid as an employee has better rights associated with it.

Note also that self employed EU citizens who do not earn sufficient to support family may apply for social welfare assistance - this is usually a long and interesting process requiring an extensive knowledge of rights under EU law.

[too old]

following are the documents we sent with our application for eea2 and eea1 and we were successful. keep it simple and be honest

HMRC letter about selp employment
bank statement showing transactions
buisness details
accountant letter stating details of self employment and date and stuff
invoices towards customers they were relly rough but so what we just sent them
pumplets, buisness cards

[Asikk]

Hey guys,
I have a question about being self-employed. When my husband was on studies in the UK two years back and was allowed to work there, the employers were asking him "are you self-employed?" Once he answered that he is a worker, and then the British friend from the same company asked him " do you have a contract with the company? if not, you are not a worker, you are self-employed". My husband of course didn''t have a contract because he was employed through some agency.

Is being self-employed you have to own your own business and have all those invoices and so on? Can you be employed through some agency and work for an employer without a proper contract?

What does it exactly mean to be self-employed?

[wiggsy]

Hey guys,
I have a question about being self-employed. When my husband was on studies in the UK two years back and was allowed to work there, the employers were asking him "are you self-employed?" Once he answered that he is a worker, and then the British friend from the same company asked him " do you have a contract with the company? if not, you are not a worker, you are self-employed". My husband of course didn''t have a contract because he was employed through some agency.

Is being self-employed you have to own your own business and have all those invoices and so on? Can you be employed through some agency and work for an employer without a proper contract?

What does it exactly mean to be self-employed?

did he get pay slips from the agency. if so he was employed by the agency - regardless of if he had a written contract. (some employers dont give you a "written contract" but have an employee handbook which forms the contract.

To be self employed, if you go next door and cut their grass, and she gives you a fiver for it... you have worked as a self employed person...

you don't necessarily need to give invoices, but you need to document your income etc... and DECLARE IT to HMRC.

the best bet would be to get a break down of employment history from HMRC. (just call them and ask for one).

[Asikk]

Thanks very much. Is being self-employed a hard nail in the UK? Do normally companies prefer to employ someone on the basis of being self-employed or rather as a worker?