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I am an Indian passport holder living in Republic of Ireland on a IRP (Residence permit). As per most tools, I need a UK visit to visit Northern Ireland. However this page on gov.uk seems to contradict the popular advise and states a visa is not needed.

Specifically:

If you’re not from an EEA country or Switzerland You will not pass through any immigration control when you enter the UK from Ireland across the land border, so you don’t need any documents to enter the UK on that route.

However, you may be asked by Border Force to show your passport, which should be valid for the whole of your stay, to enter Great Britain.

Does this mean Indian citizens would not need a visa to visit Northern Ireland from Ireland?

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    Great Britain is an island that contains England, Scotland and Wales. UK is the abbreviation for 'United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland'.
    – Mark Johnson
    Commented Jul 25 at 23:08
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    @MarkJohnson The wording is because the UK does spot-checks for arrivals from Ireland by air/sea (i.e. to Great Britain), but not at the land border at all
    – Crazydre
    Commented Jul 25 at 23:46
  • @JackAidley The wording is from the Common Travel Area guidance Published for Home Office staff on 09 March 2022. Complain to them.
    – Mark Johnson
    Commented Jul 26 at 13:10
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    @JackAidley you may view it as pedantic generally but the distinction is fairly relevant here — the guidance is specifically calling out the difference between entering NI from Ireland vs entering Britain from Ireland
    – anotherdave
    Commented Jul 26 at 13:36

2 Answers 2

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You need to read a little bit further:

Permission to enter requirements

If you have permission to enter or remain in the UK (for example if you have a UK visa) you do not need further permission to enter the UK from Ireland.

You only need to get permission to enter the UK when arriving from Ireland if:

[...] you’re a visa national who doesn’t have a valid UK visa, or a visa granted under the British-Irish Visa Scheme (BIVS) [...]

In these situations, you must either apply for:

  • a visa before you travel
  • permission to enter from a Border Force (immigration) Officer at the UK border

The second option (permission to enter from the immigration officer) is not practical since

You may not be able to get permission to enter the UK from a Border Force Officer if you enter the UK from the CTA. This is because there are usually no immigration controls on these journeys, and none on the land border between Ireland and Northern Ireland.

and is in any case reserved for exceptional situations where a visa national is granted permission to enter without an entry clearance (visa).

If you are a visa national and do not have a UK visa (or another document, such as a BIVS visitor's visa, entitling you to deemed leave to enter the UK), it is against the UK Immigration Rules for you to enter Northern Ireland from the Republic.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/travelling-between-the-uk-and-ireland-isle-of-man-guernsey-or-jersey#travelling-from-ireland-to-the-uk

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  • Thanks, yes I think the part which throws me off is that it earlier says you dont need any documents for Norther Ireland, but goes on to say you do need a visa for UK.. If the second one is true (need a visa) then the initial statement is incorrect since we do need a visa and passport to cross the border over land!
    – Akash
    Commented Jul 26 at 15:54
  • @Akash Yes, I agree it is badly worded. Technically the permission to enter is not a document (it is an abstract permission), but for most visa nationals the permission to enter can only be conferred by a document i.e. British visa or residence permit.
    – xngtng
    Commented Jul 26 at 16:02
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The "don't need any documents to enter the UK on that route" in practice only applies to those NOT requiring a visa for the UK. It's illegal for you to cross the land border without a visa, but because there's ZERO checks at the land border, you'd 99.9% get away with it. It's of course up to you whether you care enough about going there to break UK law.

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    Indeed there are quite a few places along the border where you can cross over without noticing, since there aren’t even any signs that notify you that you’re now in the UK. Once you start seeing UK-style street signs, you’ll know for sure, but if you’re hiking in the hills somewhere around the border area, for instance, there is a real chance that you could go back and forth between Ireland and the UK several times without ever realising it.
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Commented Jul 26 at 21:20
  • @JanusBahsJacquet Also bus 32 Dublin-Letterkenny transits NI. Legally requires a visa (emailed UKBF Belfast who confirmed no exemption exists) but the odds of being caught are nonexistent!
    – Crazydre
    Commented Jul 27 at 2:23
  • Indeed – I’ve gone on the 30 from Dublin to Donegal Town any number of times (to connect to the 490 to Glencolmcille), and I have never even seen any kind of acknowledgment that we crossed the border at any point. The different signage when you stop at Enniskillen is the only indication that you’ve changed countries.
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Commented Jul 27 at 9:13
  • Thanks, yeah definitely dont plan to break immigration law to visit NI ! The consequences are not worth it. Its just a very badly (I'd say misleadingly-as if to trap people) worded statement on their website
    – Akash
    Commented Jul 29 at 10:42

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