When a student withdraws from their course, the university is required to report the withdrawal to the Home Office. This typically happens within 10 working days of the withdrawal being processed by Registry Services.
Visa curtailment
- Once reported, the Home Office will send a curtailment email and letter, confirming your visa has been curtailed and specifying the date by which you must leave the UK.
- It is essential to make immediate plans to leave the UK after our UKVI report to avoid overstaying, as missed notifications do not exempt you from complying with the Immigration Rules.
- If a student is withdrawn from their programme and subsequently reinstated after their visa has been curtailed, the University retains full discretion as to whether a new Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies (CAS) will be issued for the continuation of their studies. Where a new CAS is assigned, the student will be required to apply for a new Student visa from overseas before resuming their programme.
Reinstatement
- After curtailment, visas cannot usually be reinstated.
- Where extenuating circumstances are accepted, the university may consider sponsoring a student again, but this is at our discretion.
Students withdrawn for debt
- Students have 10 working days after withdrawal to provide evidence of extenuating circumstances to the visa team.
- For students withdrawn due to debt, the UKVI report usually marks the permanent withdrawal, and in most cases, reinstatement is not possible.
Student requesting withdrawal
Students can request to withdraw from the university due to personal reasons such as financial challenges, health reasons, or university transfer. We will report that to the Home Office within 10 working days.
If you are owing money due to financial difficulty, or not attending classes due to poor health, mental well-being, or bereavement, we advise you to request withdrawal from the course. A requested withdrawal is differently reported from a university withdrawal.
Transferring to another university
- If you withdraw from St Mary’s before finishing your whole degree to join another university in the UK, you will need to apply for another visa from overseas, not from inside the UK based on the academic progression requirement of the Immigration Rules.
- You need to request a new CAs from the university that you’re transferring to and return overseas by your current visa’s expiry date to apply for a new visa.
Transferring to another visa
If you have transferred to a different visa with continued leave to remain in the UK, your course withdrawal and our UKVI report will not directly affect your current visa, as the university is no longer your visa sponsor.
However, it is important to inform the university of your new visa type as soon as possible, as this may affect the type of report we submit to the Home Office.
Graduate visa eligibility
If your Student visa is cancelled following our withdrawal report to the Home Office, you will not be eligible for a Graduate visa.
You can only apply for a Graduate visa from inside the UK, and only if you hold a valid Student visa at the time of application and have successfully completed your course.
If you leave the university with an exit award rather than the full qualification your visa was granted for, this will not qualify you for the Graduate visa route.
Skilled worker visa eligibility
- Switching is normally only permitted if you hold a valid visa at the time of application and the job start date on your Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS) is after the course end date stated on your Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies (CAS).
- If you were withdrawn before your official course end date on your CAS and the Home Office has curtailed your Student visa, your Skilled Worker visa application from inside the UK is likely to be rejected as invalid.
Further leave to remain (outside the rules) applications
The Home Office has identified misuse of Further Leave to Remain (Outside the Rules) applications by some students whose visas are expiring. In particular, fee waiver applications are sometimes used to delay departure from the UK, with some legal advisers exploiting this to charge high fees.
We strongly advise only applying if your circumstances genuinely meet the requirements of this route.
- A fee waiver is granted based on financial need. If you receive one but do not submit an FLR(O) application—or apply under a different route—this may be perceived as deception. This can seriously damage your immigration history and affect future UK visa applications.
If your Student visa is expiring and we have advised that you are not eligible for a visa extension (for example, if you only need to resit modules without attendance and remote submissions are allowed), you should:
- Leave the UK before your Student visa expires and resit from overseas.
- If you are required by your programme to return for an in-person resit exam, viva or presentation, you can apply for a Visitor visa from overseas, as resits are permitted under this route.