CAS, Visa & Arrival Information

The following timescales will be in effect for CAS issuance:

• Student Immigration Services will begin issuing CAS from Monday 1^st April 2024.

You will only be eligible to receive your CAS when the following criteria have been met:

• Course fee is paid in full. This includes your deposit and final balance payments.
• You are outside the 14-day cancellation period.

Please note it may take up to 2 weeks to issue a CAS. Please be patient while waiting for your CAS issuance. Please do not email Student Immigration Services asking for your CAS to be issued earlier, or for updates on the progress of your CAS. They will not be able to issue the CAS any faster or respond to emails.

Combined CAS will only be issued to eligible students. For a combined CAS, the only condition allowed on your offer is your English language condition.

You cannot have a combined CAS if:

• Your offer letter says that your English score requirement is 7.0
• There are any other conditions on your offer. This includes passing your undergraduate degree, and supplying documents to the admissions team. 

If you meet an additional requirement on your offer, we may consider updating your CAS only if your offer letter is updated to show this. The deadline for updating a single CAS to a combined CAS will be 1st June, 2024.   

You must check your own draft CAS; your agent is not allowed to do this for you.

You must check the draft carefully, especially the spelling of your name, your date of birth, your passport number and the start and end dates of your course before you confirm the details are correct. You must let us know if there are any errors.

If you return your draft CAS asking if you can have a combined CAS this will result in a delay of up to a week in your CAS being re-issued. The immigration team will deal with all other outstanding CAS before they return to check yours. This will affect the time you have for your visa application.

You must check your own draft CAS; your agent is not allowed to do this for you.

You must let us know of any errors on your draft CAS.

If you confirm your CAS is correct and then notice an error after your CAS number has been issued this will result in a delay of up to 2 weeks while your CAS is reissued.

You cannot apply for your visa until all the details on your CAS are correct. Delays due to errors not noted before confirming the CAS as correct will affect the time you have for your visa application.

The immigration team is aware that you may make further fee payments and need to have your fees updated after the CAS has been issued. They will deal with these queries as quickly as they can. They cannot update your fees once you have used the CAS in a visa application.

The university have no control over the time it will take to process your visa and it cannot ask for this to be done more quickly. You should not book your flights until your visa has been granted.

You must check the dates on your entry clearance visa before you travel. The earliest you can travel is the start date on your visa.

You must check very carefully the end date on your visa. For a single CAS, this date should be one month from the end of your pre-sessional programme - 23 September 2024. You will not get a BRP (Biometric Residence Permit) if you have a single CAS so the dates on your entry clearance visa must cover the full length of your programme and one additional month.

If the end date is incorrect then you must contact the visa application centre that issued your visa before you travel. If your visa ends too early, this will cause problems when you apply for your next visa for your postgraduate programme – it is therefore very important that you get any errors corrected as soon as possible.

If you have a combined CAS, then your entry clearance visa will be valid for 90 days only – the full dates of your visa will be noted on your decision letter and will be on the BRP which you must collect on arrival (see the international check in section below).

If you think you may be late in arriving for your studies, then you must contact the Centre for Open Learning (COL) immediately. It will not be possible to study remotely.

All students are required by law to complete international check in. Check in must be completed in person once you arrive in the UK, and is an essential part of the matriculation process. You will be provided with details regarding check in nearer your arrival time. You will not be able to open a bank account until you have completed check in. 

Once you are in the UK, your visa conditions mean that you must attend all classes and complete your studies in full. If you do not complete your studies successfully you cannot progress to your master's degree programme.    

If you stop studying for any reason you will be in breach of your visa conditions, and we will withdraw sponsorship by notifying UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI). This applies even if you take another English language test which meets the requirements of your Master’s degree programme – your CAS will no longer be valid, and you would not be able to apply from within the UK for a new visa.

In all circumstances, you MUST do this before your current visa expires. You will be provided with more information regarding this once you have started your Pre-Sessional programme.

If your CAS or visa query has not been answered above, you can get in touch with the Student Immigration Service using this online form.  If your question is answered above, the Student Immigration Service will refer you back to the information on this website.