Right to Rent with an eVisa

What the eVisa is and why it matters for renting

An eVisa is the Home Office's digital record of a person's immigration status. It is held against the holder's UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) account and accessed through the gov.uk view-and-prove-your-immigration-status service. Unlike the biometric residence permit it replaces, an eVisa is not a document. There is no card, no chip, no printed page that constitutes the status. The status exists in the Home Office system, and the holder proves it by generating a share code that a third party, such as a landlord, can use to view the relevant profile online.

For right-to-rent purposes in England, this is a structural change. The Immigration Act 2014 regime was originally built around physical document inspection. The eVisa transition has moved the evidence base entirely online for most non-British and non-Irish tenants, and the landlord's compliance task has changed from "copy a document" to "run an online check and retain the profile."

The share-code workflow in practice

The tenant begins by logging into their gov.uk view-and-prove account. From the dashboard, they select "prove your right to rent." The service generates a nine-character alphanumeric share code, valid for 90 days, and offers to email or copy it. The tenant gives the share code together with their date of birth to the landlord, typically at the referencing stage. The landlord visits gov.uk/landlords-immigration-right-to-rent-checks, enters the share code and date of birth, and is shown a profile page containing the tenant's name, photograph, nationality, and either an unrestricted right to rent or a time-limited right with a specific expiry date.

The landlord must satisfy themselves that the photograph on the profile matches the person standing in front of them. This can be done in person at viewing or signing, or through a live video call. The landlord then prints or downloads the profile page and retains it for the duration of the tenancy plus one year. The retained profile, not any physical document, is the statutory record of the check.

Photo match and the discrimination boundary

The photo-match step is the only point at which the landlord makes a subjective judgement during an online check. Home Office guidance requires the landlord to be reasonably satisfied that the photograph is of the applicant, accounting for normal changes in appearance over time. A landlord who refuses to accept a photo match because of changes that any reasonable observer would treat as unremarkable, such as a different hairstyle or weight change, risks crossing into discriminatory conduct. The Equality and Human Rights Commission has historically scrutinised this stage closely in enforcement reviews.

For tenants whose appearance has changed materially since the photo was taken, the practical remedy is to update the UKVI account photograph through the gov.uk "update your UKVI account details" service before generating a new share code. The updated photograph then flows through to the next landlord check.

Timing implications of share-code expiry

A share code generated today is valid for 90 days. For a tenant who views a property in February, applies in March, and signs in April, a single share code can cover the whole sequence. For a tenant whose application stalls, perhaps due to slow guarantor referencing, the original code can expire before the landlord runs it. The landlord checking service rejects expired codes outright. In that situation the tenant generates a new code at no cost from their view-and-prove account, and the landlord re-runs the check.

Tenants should not generate a share code months ahead of an anticipated move. There is no advantage to early generation and a real disadvantage if the code expires before use. Generating the code at the point of application is the practical norm.

Tenants still holding an in-date legacy BRP

Many tenants still possess a physical BRP whose printed expiry was 31 December 2024 even though the underlying immigration leave runs longer. The card was deliberately given a short expiry as part of the eVisa transition. For right-to-rent purposes, a BRP whose printed expiry has passed is not acceptable as standalone evidence, even if the holder's leave continues. The holder must use the eVisa share-code route instead.

A tenant who has not yet set up their UKVI account should do so at gov.uk/evisa before applying for a tenancy. The setup requires the BRP details, a UK mobile number for verification, and a recent photograph. Once the account is live, the tenant can generate share codes immediately. Landlords presented with an expired BRP should not refuse the tenant outright but should ask the tenant to provide a share code instead.

What a tenant on a brand-new visa vignette should expect

A tenant who has just entered the UK on a fresh visa vignette in their passport, before any eVisa profile is created, occupies a short transitional window. The vignette itself is acceptable List B Group 1 evidence for the validity period printed on it, typically 30 or 90 days. Within that window the tenant collects their digital identity by activating the UKVI account through the gov.uk evisa service. Once the eVisa is live, share codes become available, and any follow-up right-to-rent check at lease renewal or extension will use the share-code route rather than the vignette.

Common landlord errors during the transition

The most frequent compliance error is a landlord or agent who declines to engage with the share-code process and insists on a physical document. This is a category mistake. There is no physical document for an eVisa holder, and asking for one is asking for something the Home Office does not issue. A landlord who refuses an applicant on this basis exposes themselves to a discrimination claim and may not gain any statutory excuse benefit, because the rejection is not based on a properly conducted check.

A second recurring error is failure to retain the online profile. The landlord runs the check, sees the green right-to-rent confirmation, and then closes the browser without saving the profile page. If a Home Office audit later requests evidence, the landlord has no record. The statutory excuse depends on retained evidence of a correctly conducted check, not on a verbal recollection.

A third error is failure to diary the follow-up check. The online profile shows the leave expiry date prominently. For a tenant on a five-year Skilled Worker visa, the follow-up may sit four to five years away, but it must be done before that date. Property management software increasingly automates this prompt, but smaller landlords managing one or two units sometimes miss it.

Refusal and discrimination risk for landlords

From the tenant's perspective, the eVisa transition has created a new screening filter. Some landlords, particularly in markets with high applicant volume, prefer applicants whose status is evidenced by a UK passport because it requires no follow-up. This preference, if applied as a blanket policy, is unlawful: the Equality Act 2010 prohibits indirect discrimination on the basis of nationality unless objectively justified, and operational convenience is not a sufficient justification. The Home Office statutory code of practice on avoiding unlawful discrimination, issued under the Immigration Act 2014, expressly addresses this conduct.

Tenants who encounter a refusal that appears to be based on eVisa status alone can complain to the agent's redress scheme (such as The Property Ombudsman or the Property Redress Scheme) and, in serious cases, to the Equality and Human Rights Commission. The point is not that every refusal is unlawful, but that a refusal explicitly tied to the format of the right-to-rent evidence sits in legally exposed territory for the landlord.

Disclaimer

This article is general information about UK rules and processes at the time of writing. It is not legal, immigration, tax, or financial advice. Rules and figures change. Verify the current position with the relevant authority (gov.uk, HMRC, FCA, or a regulated adviser) before acting on anything here.

FAQ

Can a landlord still accept a biometric residence permit?

Only if the BRP is in date and the landlord is content to repeat the check before the printed expiry. In practice, most BRPs printed before the eVisa transition expired on 31 December 2024 and the holder must now use a share code from their gov.uk view-and-prove account.

How does a tenant generate a right-to-rent share code?

By logging into the gov.uk view-and-prove-your-immigration-status service, selecting "prove your right to rent," and copying the nine-character code produced. The code is valid for 90 days and is given to the landlord with the tenant's date of birth.

What does a landlord do if the share code has expired?

Ask the tenant to generate a fresh one. There is no charge, the new code is issued immediately, and the landlord runs the check again through the gov.uk landlord checking service.

Is a refusal to accept share-code evidence lawful?

A blanket refusal to accept share-code evidence is at high risk of being unlawful under the Equality Act 2010 and the Home Office statutory code of practice on avoiding unlawful discrimination during right-to-rent checks.

What evidence must the landlord retain after the online check?

The profile page produced by the landlord checking service, including the unique reference number, the date of the check, and the tenant's photograph. Retention runs for the duration of the tenancy and one year after it ends.