From the end of this year, EU citizens will lose the right to live, study, and work in the UK visa-free — and the visas will now be doled out under a different regime, according to a multilingual campaign rolled out across Europe by the UK government.
The Europe-wide campaign is aimed at preparing European citizens for the UK’s new immigration system coming into effect from January 1, 2021, under which a new points-based system will prioritize talent over the country of origin when issuing visas, Essential Business reports.
Portuguese citizens are feeling the bite: almost 8000 applications from the country’s citizens for UK residency have already failed under the post-Brexit system, according to Macau Business. That said, only a little over 10% of those were actually refused, with the remainder being invalid, withdrawn, or annulled. And, these represent less than 3% of all Portuguese applications, the publication writes.
The UK’s immigration campaign is running across various channels from November to December, with a second phase in early 2021, and encourages EU citizens to seek further information on the UK government website.
And while the UK government focuses on EU citizens immigrating to the UK, there’s been a surge in interest among British nationals to obtain residence in Portugal. Since the Brexit referendum, the number of British citizens registered in Portugal has increased by 111%, and is expected to climb even further, Essential Business writes. As such, SEF and the British Embassy in Lisbon have their own campaigns reminding UK nationals to register for residence here, according to the publication.
