Moving to the UK — your first 30 days, in the right order

Set up your UKVI account and access your eVisa. Physical biometric residence permits have been replaced by digital immigration status, and you prove your rights — to work, to rent, to travel — by generating a share code from your UKVI account. Test that you can log in before you travel, because sorting out account access from abroad is far easier than from a queue at a letting agent.

Consider opening a UK bank account before arrival. Several UK banks and licensed electronic money institutions allow account opening from overseas with a passport and proof of address in your home country. Digital banks in particular have straightforward remote onboarding. This removes the worst dependency in the chain.

Gather documents. Bring originals of your passport, birth certificate, marriage or name-change certificates, driving licence, academic transcripts and qualification certificates, employment references, and medical and vaccination records. Certified translations are far easier to obtain before you leave.

Check whether you paid the Immigration Health Surcharge as part of your visa application. If you did, you have full NHS access from the date your visa starts.

An address, even a temporary one, unblocks most things. A short-term rental, serviced flat or friend's address will do for the initial paperwork.

Get a UK SIM on day one. Pay-as-you-go SIMs are available at airports, supermarkets and phone shops with no identity check and no contract. The four network operators are EE, O2, Vodafone and Three, and dozens of smaller providers run on their networks at lower prices. Coverage differs meaningfully in rural areas — check the Ofcom coverage checker for where you will actually live.

Open or activate the bank account. High street banks generally want proof of identity and proof of address, and the second is where new arrivals get stuck. Digital banks — Monzo, Starling, Revolut and similar — commonly accept a wider range of evidence and can verify identity from a passport and a selfie in minutes. Opening a digital account first, then using its statements as proof of address for a high street bank, is a well-worn route.

Ask specifically about accounts designed for new arrivals; several banks operate them with reduced documentation requirements.

Register with a GP early, even if you feel well. It is the gateway to specialist referrals, prescriptions, sick notes and mental health services, and the waiting list to be seen starts when you register, not when you fall ill.

Crucially, you do not need proof of address, photo identification, an NHS number or immigration status to register. NHS guidance is explicit that a practice cannot refuse registration on those grounds, and this is the single most common thing new arrivals are wrongly turned away for.

Apply for a National Insurance number as soon as you are in the UK. It is free, it comes from HMRC, and it takes up to eight weeks. You can legally start work before it arrives — the legal requirement for employment is a right-to-work check, not a National Insurance number.

On your first day of work, give your employer a P45 if you have one or complete the HMRC starter checklist if you do not. This is what prevents an emergency tax code, and getting it right on day one saves months of overpayment.

Set up GOV.UK One Login, the single sign-on gradually replacing separate logins across government services. It handles identity verification once and reuses it, which saves repeated document checks later.

Deal with your driving licence. You can generally drive on a valid foreign licence for 12 months from becoming resident. What happens next depends on where the licence was issued: licences from designated countries can be exchanged for a UK one without a test, while others require you to apply for a provisional licence and pass both the theory and practical tests. Northern Ireland has its own licensing authority.

Start the rental search properly. Letting agents want photographic identification, proof of income (usually three months of payslips or an employment contract), previous landlord references, and a right-to-rent check in England — which is done by generating a share code from your UKVI account. Assemble the pack once and reuse it.

Register to vote if eligible. British, Irish, qualifying Commonwealth and some other citizens can register, and registration also builds a credit footprint, which matters for phone contracts, mobile plans and eventually a mortgage.

Set up council tax at your new address. It is your responsibility to tell the council you have moved in, and failing to do so does not avoid the bill — it just produces a backdated one. Single occupants get a 25 per cent discount and full-time students are exempt.