Short Term Business Visa:

A visitor intending to travel to the United Kingdom for business purposes must be a one who:

• intends to transact business directly linked to his or her employment in India
• normally lives and works hereand has no intention of transferring the base to the UK, even temporarily;
• receives a salary from in India (but may get reasonable expenses to cover travel and subsistence during the visit).

Business visitors are

• those going to attend meetings, conferences, trade fairs, seminars etc including guest speakers provided
• the conference or seminar is a single event, i.e. not part of a commercial venture;
• those going to purchase, check details of or examine goods; those going to negotiate or sign trade agreements, contracts, etc;
• those attending interviews including sports persons going for "trials", entertainers going for auditions (see separate section below);
• those coming to undertake fact-finding missions, e.g. journalists on a short assignment to cover a story;
• advisers, consultants, trainers, trouble shooters etc, provided that they are employed abroad, either directly or under contract, by the same company (or group or companies) to which the UK client firm belongs, but,
  • the involvement of such advisers must not extend to actual project management or providing consultancy services direct to clients of the UK company
  • raining should be for a specific, one-off purpose, should not go beyond classroom instruction, and should not be otherwise readily available here
• tour group carriers contracted to a firm outside the UK, who are seeking entry to carry out short term duties and are not seeking to base themselves in the UK;
• interpreters or translators who are existing employees of an overseas company and who are accompanying and solely providing a service for business visitors from the company;
• representatives of computer software companies coming to install, debug or enhance their products. A trip to be briefed on the requirements of a UK customer is also acceptable. However if representatives are to provide a detailed assessment of a potential customer’s needs, this is regarded as consultancy for which a work permit is required;
• representatives of foreign companies coming to erect, dismantle, install, service or repair their company’s products;
• those coming for training in techniques and work practices employed in the UK, provided that the training is confined to observation, familiarisation and classroom instruction only.
• discretion may also be exercised where an applicant proposes a visit for business purposes which might be seen as the provision of a service such as taking instructions or giving professional advice. In such cases a short visit may be authorised.

Conversely, the following should not be treated as business visitors:

• employees of overseas firms whose involvement with a United Kingdom subsidiary amounts to employment here;
• consultants who are self employed, other than those contracted abroad by an overseas firm with a UK subsidiary;
• those who are undertaking productive work which could be undertaken by someone recruited from the local or EEA labour force;
• those offering training, unless such training involves products manufactured overseas, or is specific to the operation of a group of companies of which the UK firm is a member.

DOCUMENTS REQUIRED FOR UK BUSINESS VISITOR VISA (PDF)

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