Home Office decision

ⓘ Information card

It is common to experience a significant delay in receiving a decision on your asylum claim. The Home Office may take months, or even over a year to provide you with a decision.

If the Home Office make a positive decision on your asylum claim, you will be granted leave to remain in the UK. You will be granted Refugee Status or Humanitarian Protection, or sometimes another form of leave to remain.

If your asylum application is refused by the Home Office, you are likely to have the right to appeal that decision (see next stage on the board). Many people are refused by the Home Office.

If the Home Office accepts your story and evidence and agrees that you need protection in the UK – they make a positive decision on your asylum claim – you will be granted leave to remain in the UK. You may hear this described as getting “immigration status”, “permission to stay in the UK”, or getting “papers”.

You may be granted Refugee Status or Humanitarian Protection, or sometimes another form of leave to remain.

Please note that Group 1 and Group 2 refugee categorisations have been introduced very recently (following the Nationality and Borders Act coming into law), and little is known about how they will work in practice. 

See Right to Remain Toolkit page on Home Office Asylum Decisions (grant of status/refusal) for more information.

Now read the problem card below. Discuss with a friend (or have a think if you’re doing this on your own) what you might be able to do in this situation. When you have finished discussing/thinking, click to reveal a suggested action.

⚠️ Problem card

You get a long and confusing letter from the Home Office saying that they do not believe the things you have told them, and they are refusing your asylum application.

(Many people are refused by the Home Office).

  • Click to show action…

    Go through every paragraph of the refusal letter and write comments.

    Are there mistakes such as dates or places in your story? Can you identify how these errors have occurred? For example, is the error also recorded in the written transcript of your asylum interview? If it is, you may also need to check the audio recording of your interview. Was it a mistake in interpretation?

    Can you identify areas where you now realise you did not understand the question? Challenging these areas is more likely to succeed if you managed to submit a written statement to the Home Office about any problems during the interview before you received a refusal letter. What evidence can you find to support your statement? This might be evidence specific to your case, country of origin information, expert evidence.

    Read more in the Right to Remain Toolkit (After a Refusal section).

NEXT STAGE: SUBMIT APPEAL