Common travel area

A long-standing agreement between the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies (Bailiwick of Jersey, Bailiwick of Guernsey and the Isle of Man) and the Republic Ireland, the Common Travel Area grants British and Irish citizens alike the right to move freely and reside in either jurisdiction and also grants a series of associated rights and privileges, including the right to work and study.

Established in 1923 the CTA pre-dates UK and Ireland’s EU Membership and is by no means connected to the Immigration Law of the European Union or the Schengen Area.

Story of the common travel area

The Common Travel Area is an open borders area that includes the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islands. The British Overseas Territories are not included. Based on the CTA agreements the internal borders of the Area only are subject to minimal checks and can be crossed by British and Irish citizens with only basic documents requirements. The existence of the Common Travel Area is based not only on the freedom of movement but on the co-operation on immigration matters between the British and Irish authorities alike.

In 2014, the two governments involved in the CTA began a trial system of mutual recognition of each other’s visas for additional movements within the CTA. As of summer 2022, such latter provision only applies to holders of passports from India and People’s Republic of China and is limited to certain types of visas. Citizens of other countries and those holding non-covered visas are, to this day, required to obtain separate visas in case they wish to visit both countries.

1923’s first agreement

The Irish Free State officially achieved its independence from the then United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in December 1922. At that time systematic passport and immigration controls were just becoming standard at international frontiers throughout the world. 

Before the establishment of the Irish Free State, British immigration law was enforced in Ireland as part of the UK. With the prospect of the imminent secession of most of Ireland from the United Kingdom in 1922, the British Authorities were not inclined to demand immigration controls between the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland. A systematic program of border check would have indeed meant patrolling a nearly 500 km long land border. 

The Irish Department of Home Affairs also endorsed the continuation of the former status quo and an agreement to this extent was reached between Ireland and the United Kingdom in February 1923. The agreement established that each side would enforce the other’s immigration protocols and that the Irish authorities would be provided with a record of any persona non grata in the United Kingdom. 

The historic deal was fully implemented in 1925 and remained fully effective for nearly 15 years. CTA was indeed suspended on the verge of World War II in September 1939 when travel restrictions were introduced between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland. Such suspension implied that travel restrictions were applied even to people travelling within the UK if they were moving from Northern Ireland to anywhere else in the Kingdom.

After WWII

After the war ended, Ireland re-instated the former provisions allowing free movement, but Britain declined to do so while pushing the agenda for the creation of a “similar immigration policy “in both nations. As a direct consequence, the UK maintained immigration controls between the islands of Ireland and Great Britain until 1952. 

Meanwhile, in April 1949, what had formerly been the Irish Free State left the Commonwealth of Nations to formally become the Republic of Ireland.

No agreement on a similar immigration policy was reached at the time.

In 1962 the UK’s Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962 created the basis for border controls between the United Kingdom and Commonwealth countries. In Ireland the Aliens Order 1962 replaced the state’s previous regulations exempting all British subjects from immigration checks with one exempting only those born in the United Kingdom therefore making subject to scrutiny individuals who were British citizens by descent or by birth in a British colony. This discrepancy between Britain’s and the Republic of Ireland’s definition of a British citizen was not resolved until 1999. 

2008 proposal

In July 2008, the UK Border Agency published a consultation paper on the CTA that envisaged the imposition of border controls for non-CTA nationals and new provisions for identity checks of CTA nationals.

Moreover, the proposal sponsored the introduction of an advanced passenger information system, on all air and sea crossings between the islands of Ireland and Great Britain and the creation of soft control protocol along the Ireland-UK land border.

On 1 April 2009, an amendment moved in the House of Lords defeated the British Government’s proposal and preserved the CTA. 

2011 memorandum of understanding

In 2011 the first public agreement between the British and Irish governments concerning the maintenance of the CTA was signed. Officially entitled the “Joint Statement Regarding Co-Operation on Measures to Secure the External Common Travel Area Border” it was signed in Dublin on 20 December 2011. The two countries, through their respective government officials, also signed an unpublished memorandum of understanding at the same time. 

The agreement is, like its predecessors, non-legally binding but commits the two governments to continue their co-operation through the CTA, to align their lists of visa-free visitors’ nationalities, to develop a shared “electronic border management system/s”, to engage in intelligence sharing to contrast the “abuse” of the CTA, and to work toward a “fully common short stay visit visa”. 

Brexit, EU and the common travel area

Following a referendum in 2016 the UK decided to leave the European Union and officially left the Union on 31 January 2020. This withdrawal from the EU makes the Republic of Ireland–United Kingdom land border an external border of the European Union. However, the Irish and British governments, and the President of the European Council as well, have remarked that there is no plan or intention to create a hard border in Ireland, with special regard due to the historical and social “sensitivities” that permeate the island. 

In June 2017, while drafting the resolutions on Brexit, the British Government confirmed its desire to protect the Common Travel Area arrangements, stating that “Irish citizens residing in the UK will not need to apply for ‘settled status’ to protect their entitlements.”

An additional confirmation on this aspect came on 8 May 2019 when the two nations signed a memorandum of understanding that marked a joint effort to secure the rights of Irish and British citizens post-Brexit. The document was signed before a meeting of the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference, putting the rights of both states’ citizens, already in place under the Common Travel Area, on a more secure footing.

The agreement officialized that the rights of UK and Ireland citizens alike are protected after Brexit while also ensuring that the Republic of Ireland will continue to meet its obligations under EU law. The agreement came into effect on 31 January 2020 when the United Kingdom actually left the European Union.

On 11 November 2020, the UK’s Immigration Act 1971 was amended repealing free movement rights for other EU citizens from 1 January 2021 but making an exception for Irish citizens therefore safeguarding the core of CTA. 

Common visa system

While the CTA has generally meant an open border policy, since the aftermath of World War II it has not meant that a non-CTA citizen who legally entered one part of the Area was automatically entitled to enter another part. As a matter of fact, CTA, unlike Schengen Area, currently provides no scheme for the mutual recognition of entry rights and visas. UK and the Republic of Ireland rely indeed on separate visa systems with distinct requirements and policies.

In July 2011, the Republic of Ireland introduced a limited pilot visa waiver program under which the normal requirement for seventeen nationalities to hold an Irish visa is lifted for genuine visitor who hold valid British visas and get to Ireland directly from the UK.

Following the 2011 agreements, the British and Irish governments also signed, in Autumn 2014, a memorandum paving the way for mutually recognized visas allowing visitors to travel to Britain and Ireland on a single visa. Chinese and Indian nationals are to this day the only nationalities to get the benefit of the scheme. It was proposed to conduct a review of the scheme in 2015 with the intention to expand it to all or more other countries by the end of that year, but no such review took place, and the scheme has currently not been extended to other nationalities.