Find out what the Home Office knows about you
If you have lived in the UK for several years, made more than one visa or immigration application, switched between immigration routes, had a visa refused, attended a Home Office interview or simply no longer have copies of old applications and decision letters, there may be information on your Home Office record that you have not seen for years.
You may remember the overall history, but not the exact dates, answers, documents or explanations previously given to UK Visas and Immigration. Perhaps an application was prepared by someone else, you cannot find an old refusal letter, you are unsure what was said in a previous application, or you want to check your immigration history before making a new visa, extension, settlement or citizenship application.
In those circumstances, obtaining your Home Office immigration records can be useful. A Home Office Data Request can help you establish what information UKVI already holds about you and give you a clearer picture of the record against which a future application may be considered.
When your previous immigration history matters
A new immigration application is not made on a blank page. Previous applications, decisions and information already provided to the Home Office can become relevant again.
You may want your records because you cannot remember the exact dates or information given in an earlier application. You may have lost a decision letter, want a copy of an old application form, need an interview record, or want to understand a complicated immigration history.
This can also be useful after a refusal, where seeing the underlying records may help establish what was previously submitted or recorded before you decide what to do next.
Obtaining the records does not answer every immigration question, but it can replace assumptions with information.
What can you ask the Home Office for?
Your Home Office record can contain information built up over many years, including details of previous immigration applications, decisions, immigration history, criminal charges and other information held about your dealings with UK Visas and Immigration.
Our service is designed to obtain a useful record of that history rather than simply asking for information without considering what you are trying to find. We will establish what you are looking for and prepare the appropriate Home Office records request on your behalf. Where a broader immigration record is required, this can include requesting electronic immigration information and, where appropriate, relevant records held on your Home Office file.
Not every request needs to ask for everything. If you are trying to locate a particular application, decision, interview record or other document, a more focused request may be more appropriate. The information ultimately provided will depend on what the Home Office holds and what falls within the scope of the request.
We manage the request for you
Our role begins by understanding what you are trying to find. We identify the appropriate request, prepare the required information, check the identification and authority documents, submit it and deal with routine correspondence. When the Home Office releases the records, we provide them to you securely.
Our £120 professional fee covers one Home Office records request and our management of that request through to disclosure.
If the information received identifies the need for a separate request for additional records or a particular document, we will explain this to you first. Any further request is separate work and we will confirm the professional fee before proceeding.
Want us to review what the Home Office has disclosed?
Receiving your Home Office records and understanding what they mean are two different things.
The information is usually provided as a raw disclosure, often in PDF format. It may contain immigration history, application records, case notes, decisions and other information held by the Home Office, but it is not normally organised or presented as a clear immigration chronology or as a document pack ready to be used for another application.
You may therefore receive a substantial amount of information without immediately knowing which parts are important, whether anything is missing, or whether there are inconsistencies between previous applications and the information you now intend to provide.
If you would like us to review the disclosure, we can do so as a separate service. This can include reviewing your immigration history, previous applications and refusals, identifying relevant inconsistencies or gaps, and considering whether anything in the records may need to be addressed before a future application.
You tell us what you are trying to understand. We review the records with that purpose in mind and explain what is relevant.
What this service does not include
A records request is not the same as an immigration advice appointment or a legal review of the material disclosed. Our service does not include analysing the disclosure for inconsistencies, assessing previous refusals or advising how the information may affect a future application. If you want us to review the records after they are received, we can agree the scope and fee separately.
A data request like this should also not be used to obtain proof of your current immigration status or to chase a decision on a pending application.
How long will it take?
The Home Office states that it will respond within one month once it has all the supporting documents required. The published timeframes are to be used as a guidance and are not set in stone. As with all Home Office applications, delays can happen when the workload increases.
We are not currently aware of any significant delays. Based on the requests we have handled over the past month, normal Home Office processing times have been met consistently. Processing times can change, and individual requests may take longer depending on the information being requested. We will update this page if we become aware of any wider delays affecting Home Office records requests.
Start with what you are trying to find
You do not need to know which type of request to make before contacting us. Tell us what you are trying to locate, whether that is an old application, a refusal, an interview record or a fuller picture of your immigration history.
We can then confirm whether the service is suitable, what we would request and what you need to provide before we begin.
