With barely a week to go before physical BRP cards are de-activated, the UKVI online account system suffered a technical wobble on 16 March 2026, locking some users out of their digital immigration status. Posts on r/ukvisa show applicants receiving an error message reading “We cannot display your eVisa at this time” after entering a date of birth in the wrong format and then being unable to re-access the page even after correcting the entry. Although the issue appears cosmetic—status information held in the back-end database is unaffected—it prevents travellers from generating the share-code now required by airlines at check-in. One poster said British Airways staff at Heathrow Terminal 5 refused boarding until the code could be produced, forcing the passenger to pay for a same-day flight change. UKVI’s contact centre advised affected users to clear cookies and try again later, but offered no SLA for restoring access.
![e-Visa roll-out stumbles as UKVI portal rejects log-ins after data-entry glitch]()
Travellers looking for a safety net in such situations may find it helpful to work with VisaHQ, which can retrieve e-Visa records, generate share-codes ahead of time, and store a downloadable copy for offline use. The service’s UK portal (https://www.visahq.com/united-kingdom/) also gives corporate travel teams a single dashboard for monitoring employees’ visa status, reducing the risk of last-minute airport surprises.
Immigration advisers say the incident underlines the fragility of the digital-only model, which becomes mandatory for almost all foreign nationals from 25 February 2026. Business-travel managers are urged to download share-codes well in advance of departure and carry proof of the download in case of real-time outages. The glitch also raises questions about contingency planning: unlike BRP cards, an e-Visa cannot be shown to a border officer if the system is offline. Stakeholders are calling for UKVI to issue an official ‘fallback’ procedure—such as a printable QR code or offline PDF—that employers and carriers can accept when the portal is down.
Travellers looking for a safety net in such situations may find it helpful to work with VisaHQ, which can retrieve e-Visa records, generate share-codes ahead of time, and store a downloadable copy for offline use. The service’s UK portal (https://www.visahq.com/united-kingdom/) also gives corporate travel teams a single dashboard for monitoring employees’ visa status, reducing the risk of last-minute airport surprises.
Immigration advisers say the incident underlines the fragility of the digital-only model, which becomes mandatory for almost all foreign nationals from 25 February 2026. Business-travel managers are urged to download share-codes well in advance of departure and carry proof of the download in case of real-time outages. The glitch also raises questions about contingency planning: unlike BRP cards, an e-Visa cannot be shown to a border officer if the system is offline. Stakeholders are calling for UKVI to issue an official ‘fallback’ procedure—such as a printable QR code or offline PDF—that employers and carriers can accept when the portal is down.
