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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?

Crazydre
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Akash
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2 Answers2

19

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.

Crazydre
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12

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

xngtng
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