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 Swansea 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 Swansea 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
Read the nationality requirement in public-sector adverts, not just the visa requirement
The DVLA, the Land Registry office, Welsh Government posts and much of the rest of Swansea's large public-sector employment are civil service or civil-service-adjacent, and recruitment runs on the Civil Service Nationality Rules. Those limit most posts to UK nationals, Irish nationals, Commonwealth citizens and EU, EEA and Swiss nationals with the relevant status, plus certain family members. It is a separate gate from your right to work and the employer cannot waive it.
OnlineWho: YouBefore applying
4
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
5
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 Swansea the practice sits under Swansea Bay 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
6
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

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 Swansea address
Evidence of Immigration Health Surcharge payment, included in the visa grant

Things most newcomers don’t know

The largest employer in Swansea probably cannot hire you, and it is nothing to do with your visa.

The DVLA is headquartered here and dominates the local employment picture, but as a civil service agency it recruits under the Civil Service Nationality Rules — a nationality and status test entirely separate from the right to work a Skilled Worker visa confers. The same logic covers a large slice of Swansea's public-sector jobs. The sponsored roles are concentrated in the university, the health board and the private engineering, digital and shared-service employers around the bay; aim there first.

Source: GOV.UK — Civil Service nationality rules

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 Swansea. 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.WALES — the Welsh devolution settlement

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

Common mistakes to avoid

Applying for civil service roles without checking the Civil Service Nationality Rules.
Travelling without having logged into and checked the UKVI account.
Generating a right-to-work code and offering it for a right-to-rent check.
Following English housing or NHS guidance because it says 'UK' at the top.
Budgeting the visa fee but not the Immigration Health Surcharge.

Some of this may be out of date. Spotted something inaccurate? Help us keep it right for the next newcomer.