Student Visa Holders

As a Student visa holder (formerly Tier 4 visa, prior to 5th October 2020), there are certain responsibilities that you have, and that the University has. For example, you must make sure that your information is up-to-date on the Student Self-Service, and inform the University any time you get an updated passport. 
 

The Faculty must monitor your attendance and make sure that you are engaged with your studies. The easiest way for us to this is for you to complete a termly report on the Student Self Service reporting system. If we have not heard from you all term, you may be contacted by the Graduate Office, to check in and see what you have been up to. The University must report any unapproved absences to the Home Office, which can affect the status of your visa, so it's good to always keep us in the loop.
 

You can find further details about your obligations on the University page, here. 
 

You can contact the Student Immigration Team by emailing student.immigration@admin.ox.ac.uk 

The Home Office page about the Student visa is available here. 

Graduate Route

If you are interested in staying in the UK to work after your course you will need to apply for the right type of visa permission to do so. 

Graduate Route

The Graduate Route opened for applications on 1 July 2021, is an opportunity to apply for a visa to remain in the UK to work or look for work for two years if you have completed an undergraduate degree, PGCE or masters degree, or three years if you have completed a DPhil. You do not need a job offer and you do not need to be sponsored by the University or an employer.  

You will need to have successfully completed your qualification before you apply i.e. received your official results/leave to supplicate. The Home Office also requires the University to report online when all visa holders have successfully completed their studies, in case you wish to apply for this visa, and the Student Immigration team will run a report every Friday throughout the year for this purpose. You will receive an email on the Friday of the week you have received your results/leave to supplicate, to confirm this has been reported to the Home Office. You should wait until you have received this email confirmation before you apply for the Graduate Route. Remember that you can only apply from within the UK and you need to still have a valid Tier 4 or Student visa.  

There is more information on the University website, here. 

You can also contact the Student Immigration Team by emailing student.immigration@admin.ox.ac.uk

Suspension and Withdrawal

Suspension of status

While normally a suspension would mean that your visa is cut short and you need to return home, for DPhil students there is a bit more flexibility. It is possible to suspend for 1 term and remain in the country. Please contact the Graduate Office or the Visa Compliance team before applying for a suspension to discuss the ramifications this will have in your particular case. 

 

Withdrawal

If you withdraw from the DPhil and there are more than six months remaining on your current visa, the Home Office will normally cancel your visa. 

If you have less than six months remaining on your visa it may not be cancelled. 

In both cases, you will need to return home and as your 'working entitlement' as part of your student visa is no longer valid, so you should stop working immediately.