Before you start

A valid UK visa granted under the relevant route
A UKVI account linked to your immigration status
The Immigration Health Surcharge paid as part of your application
A Cardiff address, for the NI number application and most services

Step-by-step

1
Create and check your UKVI account before you travel
The eVisa is the only record of your status. Confirm the passport number, your personal details and the permissions shown all match what was granted. Errors are far easier to fix from abroad than from a Cardiff letting agency with a holding deposit already paid.
OnlineWho: YouBefore travel
2
Learn to generate a share code before you need one
Employers and landlords check your status with a code you generate from the UKVI account. Codes are time-limited and purpose-specific — a right-to-work code will not satisfy a right-to-rent check, and you will need both inside your first fortnight.
OnlineWho: You
3
Apply for a National Insurance number as soon as you arrive
There is no route to apply from abroad. Check first whether you already hold one printed in the remarks on an old BRP. Without it you can work legally, but payroll will usually apply an emergency tax code.
OnlineWho: YouWeek 1
4
Register with a GP practice in your first week
You have already paid the Immigration Health Surcharge, but access runs through a GP and nothing happens automatically. In Cardiff the practice sits under Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, which both plans and provides your care — there is no separate commissioning body to navigate as there is in England.
In personWho: YouWeek 1
5
Learn the devolution line before you take anyone's advice
Reserved to Westminster: immigration, visas, settlement, National Insurance, income tax rates in practice, driver licensing, telecoms, employment law. Devolved to Wales: housing and tenancy law, the NHS, schools, planning, most of transport, Land Transaction Tax and council tax banding. An article about 'moving to the UK' is reliable on the first list and can be actively wrong on the second.
OnlineWho: You
6
Keep the eVisa record current
It is linked to your passport, so renewing a passport without updating the UKVI account causes problems at the border. Maintaining the record is a permanent responsibility rather than a one-off task.
OnlineWho: You

Documents you’ll need

Passport with the visa granted
UKVI account credentials, including the phone and email used for two-step verification
Share codes, generated per purpose for employers and landlords
Proof of a Cardiff address
Evidence of Immigration Health Surcharge payment, included in the visa grant

Things most newcomers don’t know

Your visa is British; your tenancy, your prescriptions and your children's school are Welsh.

Immigration is reserved and identical UK-wide, so nothing about your status changes by moving to Cardiff. Everything a relocation guide spends most of its words on — renting, the NHS, schools, buying a house — is devolved and materially different. The failure mode is not confusion about visas; it is confidently applying English housing and health rules that have never applied here.

Source: GOV.UK — devolution settlement: Wales

There is no physical document any more, and that changes what can go wrong.

Vignette stickers ended for new applicants on 1 July 2026 and BRP cards before that. Your status exists only as an online record, so a locked-out account, an unchanged passport number or a mistyped detail are now the failure modes — and there is no card to show while you fix it.

Source: GOV.UK — online immigration status (eVisa)

You can only apply for a National Insurance number from inside the UK.

There is no advance route, so it is a first-week task rather than a pre-departure one. Several visa categories already have a number printed on the reverse of the old BRP — applying for a second creates a records problem that takes months to unpick.

Source: GOV.UK — apply for a National Insurance number

Welsh-language ability is an asset in a slice of the Cardiff job market, and irrelevant in the rest.

The Welsh Language Standards oblige public bodies to offer services in Welsh, so the council, the health board, the Welsh Government, the universities and Welsh-medium schools all have posts where Welsh is desirable or essential. Outside that layer — insurance, television production, semiconductors, hospitality — it is a courtesy, not a requirement. Knowing which sector you are entering tells you whether to take it seriously.

Source: Welsh Language Commissioner — Welsh Language Standards