When a rule changes
What happens when an official page no longer matches a rule?
You are searching as your Data Scientist profile and plan to rely on the UK Skilled Worker visa. Immigration rules change, and the official pages change with them. Portage re-reads the page behind every rule each week and tells you when what it quotes is no longer there.
How Portage checks its rules
Every rule Portage tests quotes the words it was taken from on an official page. Once a week, Portage fetches each of those pages again and looks for each quote.
| What Portage finds | What happens |
|---|---|
| The quote is still on the page | Nothing changes. The route's source re-read date moves on. |
| The quote is gone | The rule is flagged as possibly out of date. The rule is still tested as it was. |
| The page could not be fetched | The rule is flagged, with (source unreachable) after its name. |
| The page has a new value, with new words that Portage can quote | Portage saves a new version of the route's rules and keeps the old one. |
A route also counts as possibly out of date once its review date has passed. Its warning then says Due for review since that date, followed by "the figures may have changed".
Portage compares the words only. A change in spacing or capital letters does not flag a rule.
Spot a flagged rule
- In the sidebar, open Countries and select the country, here United Kingdom.
- A flagged route says may be out of date under its name. Select it to expand it.
The warning names each rule whose quote Portage could not find: "The official page no longer quotes:", followed by the rules affected.
The same route on a job's Immigration tab shows the warning "The official page no longer says what these rules quote, so they may be out of date", with the same list. Under What Portage doesn't know, the country page counts the rules that no longer match their official page.
Treat a flagged rule as unconfirmed. Open its source link and read what the page says now before you rely on a Met or an outcome that depends on it.
When a new version arrives
When Portage saves a new version, the route's version number goes up, on both the country page and the job's Immigration tab. The version line shows the new verified date.
Every profile that has the country among its target countries gets a notification, Immigration rules changed: followed by the route name. Selecting it opens the country page.
These notifications are emailed weekly by default. You can change that under Email on the Notifications page.
A route your workspace added itself is not re-read. To change one, expand it and select New version.
Next
- Read an eligibility check to see what each rule means for a job
- Countries and routes for every route Portage covers
- Notifications to choose how often you hear about rule changes