Expired BRP and eVisa Right to Rent Checks: What Landlords Need to Know

A tenant hands you a plastic Biometric Residence Permit with a printed expiry date of 31 December 2024. They insist their immigration status is still valid. They're probably right — but that card is no longer usable for a Right to Rent check, and accepting it as proof would leave you without a statutory excuse.

Why Physical BRPs No Longer Work

The UK government's transition to digital immigration status means that physical Biometric Residence Permits (BRPs) and Biometric Residence Cards (BRCs) have been phased out as valid documents for manual Right to Rent checks. The printed expiry dates on these cards — many showing 31 December 2024 — were administrative end dates for the physical document programme, not expiry dates for the holder's immigration permission.

This creates a specific trap: a tenant's underlying immigration status may be perfectly valid (they may hold indefinite leave to remain or a current visa), but their physical BRP card cannot be used to prove it. If you conduct a manual check based on an expired BRP and record it as your statutory compliance evidence, you have no statutory excuse. The Home Office would treat the check as non-compliant.

How to Check a Tenant with an eVisa

Tenants whose immigration status has migrated to the eVisa system — which includes everyone previously issued a BRP or BRC — must verify their Right to Rent through the GOV.UK online share code service.

The process for the tenant:

1. Log into their UKVI (UK Visas and Immigration) online account
2. Select "Prove your Right to Rent" (not Right to Work)
3. Generate a 9-character share code beginning with R
4. Provide the code and their date of birth to you

Your verification steps:

1. Enter the share code and date of birth into the GOV.UK landlord portal
2. Review the digital profile — photograph, name, immigration status, conditions
3. Compare the photograph against the tenant (in person or live video)
4. Save the complete profile page as PDF or printout
5. Endorse it with "Date of check: [DD/MM/YYYY]"

The entire exchange happens through official GOV.UK systems. Never accept screenshots of the tenant's own account page, and never ask for their login credentials.

When the eVisa System Causes Problems

The digital transition hasn't been seamless. Common issues landlords encounter:

The tenant hasn't set up their UKVI account. Some BRP holders — particularly those who've held physical cards for years — haven't created their online account or migrated to the eVisa system. Direct them to the GOV.UK eVisa service to set up their account and access their digital status.

Account data doesn't match. A name change, address update, or recently granted extension may not be reflected in the digital record. The tenant needs to contact the Home Office eVisa resolution service to correct their record.

System outage at a critical moment. If the GOV.UK portal is down when you need to run the check, you cannot accept alternative evidence. If the tenant's circumstances make them eligible, submit a request to the Landlord Checking Service to verify their status while the system is unavailable.

The tenant refuses to use the online system. Some tenants — particularly older individuals or those with limited digital literacy — struggle with the online process. You're required to provide reasonable support, but you can't bypass the requirement for a valid check. If the online check still cannot be completed, use the Landlord Checking Service only where the tenant's circumstances make them eligible.

What About Tenants Who Still Have Physical Documents?

British and Irish citizens still verify through physical documents — passports, birth certificates, and supporting ID from List A. The BRP/eVisa transition specifically affects non-British, non-Irish nationals whose immigration status was previously evidenced by a physical card.

If a non-British tenant presents any physical document other than a BRP/BRC — for example, a current passport with a valid visa endorsement — that may still be acceptable under List A or List B of the manual checking framework, depending on the specific document.

The complete Right to Rent verification process — including decision maps for routing every tenant scenario to the correct check method — is in the Right to Rent Checks guide.

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