Waiting times

This page sets out our service standards for processing Romanian and Bulgarian nationals' applications for registration certificates and accession worker cards.

We are making every effort to reduce processing times. Over the course of the scheme, we have introduced additional checks to maintain a robust caseworking process. This has increased the time taken to consider an application, but it has been necessary to maintain the quality of our decision-making process.

The time taken to process your application will depend on the type of application you make. For postal applications, we aim to decide 95 per cent of our applications within 6 months of receipt. If you make your application in person at Croydon public enquiry office, we will usually process your application on the same day.

Please do not contact us to check the progress of your application until we have held it for this time.

Self-employed Bulgarian and Romanian nationals do not need to hold a registration certificate before starting self-employment.

To help us provide the best possible service, we will publish each week the date of the applications we are currently considering.

This week we are working on cases that were received on 08 December 2011.

Requesting the return of your documents

We are able to return your identity documents if you need them urgently. If you ask us to return your documents we will withdraw your application. If you reapply with the same or alternative identity documents within 30 days, we will return your application to its original place in our work queue.

If you reapply more than 30 days after the application is withdrawn, your application will not be returned to its original position and you will wait longer for your application to be processed. For this reason, we strongly suggest that you only ask for your documents to be returned if you really need them.

Sometimes we may be able to consider your application urgently, but only in the following exceptional circumstances:

• bereavement
• urgent medical treatment
• urgent business travel
• urgent employment start date
  

If we are able to treat your application as urgent and have all the necessary evidence, we will always try to make a decision. However, if we need more evidence to make a decision, we will return your documents and ask you to re-submit them at a later date.

You should not make travel plans after you have made your application and submitted your travel documents, as we can not guarantee that we will be able to return documents by a specific date.

If you need to ask us to return your documents urgently, please e-mail your request, together with scanned supporting evidence, for example proof of travel (such as copies of airline tickets or ferry tickets), to BaRCUrgentReturns@UKBA.gsi.gov.uk. We will not return your documents from any of our public enquiry offices. You must use the e-mail address provided. Due to the high volume of requests we receive we cannot individually acknowledge your request, and will only fast-track your application in the exceptional circumstances detailed above.

We will make every effort to return your passport or national identity card to prevent disruption to your travel arrangements, but we cannot always guarantee this.

If you have any other enquiries relating to the Bulgarian and Romanian scheme which are not covered elsewhere on the website, you can email our BaRC enquiries inbox. We do not provide email responses to progress enquiries or requests for confirmation of receipt of applications. Any enquiries not relating to this scheme should not be sent to this inbox, but addressed to the immigration enquiry bureau.