Home Department written question – answered at on 30 November 2009.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department with which countries the UK has a visa waiver agreement.
European Economic Area (EEA) nationals are entitled to free movement and do not require visas or other permission to enter the United Kingdom.
There are two groups subject to immigration control known as visa nationals and non-visa nationals. A visa national needs entry clearance (a visa) to enter the UK in any circumstances. A non-visa national can come to the UK for less than six months as a visitor without a visa, subject to a number of exclusions such as marriage, study or medical treatment, but does need entry clearance to come to the UK for more than six months.
At present, nationals of over 100 countries or territorial entities are visa nationals. The countries are set out in Appendix 1 to the immigration rules at:
www.bia.homeoffice.gov.uk/policyandlaw/immigrationlaw/immigrationrules/appendix1
The nationals of all other countries outside the EEA are non-visa nationals. The UK global visa regime was recently reviewed as part of the Visa Waiver Test. This is an assessment against a series of benchmarks, by which we considered whether a visa regime should be maintained, lifted or imposed. The results of the test were announced in February this year and new visa regimes were introduced on South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland and Bolivia in spring/summer. In addition the visa regime on Taiwan was lifted and a partial visa regime was introduced in Venezuela.
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