The decisions have started
After months of silence, ECAA decisions are now coming through. That is the good news. But this is the very beginning of the process, not the end of it. Thousands of applications remain undecided, and the wait goes on for many people. The less welcome news, for those who have heard back, is the volume of refusals.
We are judging this in part by the number of people contacting us. The pattern of enquiries tells its own story, and it suggests there are more refusals out there than anyone expected. Some of these refusals are sound. A meaningful number are not.
What we are seeing in the refusals
The refusals are not random. They cluster around a small number of recurring issues. If your business or your file has any of these features, address them before you apply, add additional documents whilst you wait for the decision or be ready to address them if you have already been refused.
1. Invoices that do not follow HMRC rules
This is the single most common attack point. Caseworkers are going through invoices line by line and refusing where they fall short of HMRC’s requirements: a missing VAT number, no VAT rate stated, a broken or duplicated number sequence, vague service descriptions, totals that do not add up, or missing customer details. Individually, these look minor. Cumulatively, UKVI uses them to brand the whole bundle unreliable.
We set out the full invoice checklist in our earlier post on the first wave of refusals, and the reference point is HMRC’s own guidance:
https://www.gov.uk/invoicing-and-taking-payment-from-customers/invoices-what-they-must-include
Check every invoice against it before you submit.
2. Invoicing businesses owned by the same people
UKVI runs Companies House director searches on the businesses that appear on your invoices. Where your customers turn out to be companies owned by the same people who own your business, the income is flagged as not being at arm’s length, and the genuineness of the trading is questioned.
This can be challenged. Related parties may trade with each other, and there is nothing unlawful about it. What matters is whether the work was genuinely done. If it was, you need to be able to prove it: contracts, deliverables, correspondence, and a clear commercial reason for the arrangement. Keep that evidence ready.
3. More than 180 days outside the UK, even by two days
For ILR, continuous residence applies, and the threshold is strictly enforced. We have seen refusals where the applicant was over the 180-day limit by as little as two days, with no explanation given. A short overrun will not necessarily sink you, but only if you explain it and back it up with evidence. An unexplained overrun, however small, is being treated as a breach. There is more on how to handle this below.
4. A website that is not working properly
UKVI is checking business websites. If your site is down, broken, half-built, or clearly inactive, that is taken as a signal that the business is not genuinely trading. A non-functioning website can undermine an otherwise solid file.
Before you apply, make sure your website is live, works properly, and reflects what your business is actually doing now.
5. No explanation of how you win your business
Caseworkers want to understand how your business actually generates work. If the file contains nothing showing how clients find you or how you secure contracts, UKVI questions whether the business is real. Having invoices is not enough on its own if the story of how that work came in is missing.
Set out your route to market clearly: referrals, repeat clients, platforms, marketing, networking, whatever it genuinely is, with evidence to back it up.
The 180-day problem: your two routes
Of all the technical refusals, the 180-day point is the one we are asked about most, so it is worth taking on its own. Your route depends on where you are in the process.
If you have NOT yet received a decision and you know you were over the 180-day limit:
Make representations now. Write to the Home Office and explain, clearly and with evidence, why you spent more than 180 days outside the UK. Medical evidence, or documentation of whatever genuinely kept you abroad, should go in before the decision is made, not after.
If you HAVE received a refusal, and your original application did not explain the excess absence or include the supporting evidence:
In most cases, our advice is to reapply with the correct evidence. A fresh, properly evidenced application addresses the gap head-on. It is often the cleaner and faster fix.
Why re-application often beats Administrative Review
Administrative Review (AR) is a genuinely powerful tool. We have seen it succeed, and where it is the right mechanism, we will use it.
But you need to go in with your eyes open on timing. AR is currently running at around 24 months or more, and there is no sign at all that this is about to speed up. For a technical point that can be cured by a clean re-application, waiting two years for a review you might have resolved far sooner is rarely the right call. We will always tell you which route fits your case, but timing is now a central part of that decision.
What we are doing to fight this
We are not standing still while these decisions come through. Here is where things currently stand, both in our own work and across the wider ECAA practitioner working group.
We appear to have stopped the flow of ‘‘AI-driven’’1decisions and minded-to-refuse (MTR) letters. That was a significant concern, and curbing it is a meaningful win for applicants. The working group is still preparing a formal report challenging the mechanics of how these decisions are made, and it will go out as soon as it is ready.
The stubborn problem is “non-genuine business” refusals. Occasionally, the Home Office still refuses on the grounds that a business is not genuine. Where it does this, it cannot simply refuse out of nowhere. A genuineness concern must be put to the applicant first, through a mind-to-refuse letter, giving you the chance to respond. That procedural safeguard is not optional.
We have a live example. We have written to the Home Office asking them to withdraw an erroneous ECAA decision of exactly this kind. They have confirmed they are looking into it, and we expect an answer within a few weeks. Their position, in short, is this:
The points we raised need to be reviewed by stakeholders before any decision is made. Annual leave across the team is slowing down that review. The refusals we have flagged as erroneous remain in place for now, but the ECAA team will review them and potentially withdraw them if the stakeholders accept that our points are valid.
We will keep you updated as that develops, and the working group’s report will follow as soon as it is possible to send it.
A word of caution on expedite requests
One more thing to flag, and we flag it carefully, because we cannot yet stand it up. We have heard, verbally and from more than one direction, that where the Home Office discovers a fraudulent expedite request, it may refuse the whole application under the provisions that deal with deception, not simply turn down the request to speed things along.
We have not seen this confirmed in writing, and we cannot vouch for its accuracy. But it is consistent with the way the Rules treat dishonesty. A false representation made to the Home Office can taint an entire application, regardless of the merits of the underlying case. Until we know more, treat it as a serious risk.
What this means for you
Read your decision properly. Note every error, every misstatement of fact, every point where the caseworker has misapplied the law or ignored evidence you provided.
Do not assume a refusal is the end. A technical refusal can often be cured. An erroneous refusal can be challenged.
Challenge it. Whether you do that with our help, through your own legal representative, or by yourself, the evidence needs to be challenged wherever the decision is wrong.
This last point matters beyond your individual case. There is now a 67-strong caseworking team handling ECAA decisions. The only way the team learns to apply the law correctly is if poor decisions are challenged and corrected. Every well-founded challenge is, in effect, training. Letting a wrong decision stand helps no one, least of all the next applicant.
Strategic advice
For applicants awaiting a decision
Run every invoice against the HMRC checklist before you submit.
Check your absence record. If you were over 180 days, get your explanation and evidence in now.
Make sure your website is live and working.
Put in a clear, evidence-based account of how your business wins work.
For applicants who have been refused,
Identify whether the refusal is technical (curable by re-application) or substantive (a candidate for challenge).
If it turns on related-party invoicing, gather proof that the work was genuinely done.
Weigh re-application against AR with current timescales firmly in mind.
If the refusal alleges non-genuine business with no prior MTR letter, flag it. That is a procedural problem in itself.
The decisions are finally moving. So the work now shifts from waiting to scrutinising. A refusal letter is not a verdict. For a great many of these cases, it is the start of the conversation, not the end.
Written by William O’Neill, Immigration Expert & Founder, The Mobility Brief 🔗 Read all posts | 🟢 Join our WhatsApp Channel
The Home Office categorically denies that AI is being used; we believe we have evidence in our report to challenge this.