Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR): Ukrainian Police Certificate

How to get a Ukrainian police clearance certificate for an ILR application from the UK: online via UIS, consulate, trusted person, apostille and translation.

What the certificate is and why the Home Office asks for it

A Ukrainian police clearance certificate, known in Ukraine as «довідка про відсутність судимості», is an official document that confirms whether any criminal record is registered against you in Ukrainian state records. For an Indefinite Leave to Remain application it plays one role: it is the piece of evidence the Home Office may use to check your history outside the UK. The certificate is issued by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, not by the police force of your region and not by any UK body.

Two clarifications save applicants a lot of confusion. First, the National Police of Ukraine does not issue this document: the police contribute data, but the certificate itself is produced by the Ministry of Internal Affairs based on records held in the Information and Analytical System (IAS). Second, a UK police certificate does not substitute for it. Certificates for visa and immigration purposes in the UK are issued by ACRO, the Association of Chief Police Officers Criminal Record Office, and ACRO certificates are the standard requirement for visas of Australia, Belgium, Canada, the Cayman Islands, New Zealand, South Africa and the USA. That system covers UK records only. If your ILR guidance asks for a certificate from Ukraine, it must come from the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Looking at how other countries organise the same document shows why the source matters. In Israel, the criminal record certificate is issued by the Israel Police, and it is requested in a bilingual format through the police website. In Austria, the criminal records office at the Vienna state police department adds data from the registries of other EU countries to its certificates. A Ukrainian certificate works differently on both counts: it is issued by the Ministry of Internal Affairs rather than the police, and it reflects Ukrainian records only, which is exactly why the Home Office may ask for certificates from each country where you lived rather than one document covering everything.

One more UK document is worth naming so you do not order the wrong thing: the International Child Protection Certificate (ICPC), required for some work with children, is also issued by ACRO. It is not a substitute for a Ukrainian police clearance certificate in an ILR bundle.

The practical consequence: you cannot walk into a police station in Kyiv or a UK visa centre and get this paper. You either order it electronically, go through a consulate, or hand the task to someone in Ukraine acting on your behalf. The rest of this article walks through each option.

Who needs it and when

Whether an ILR applicant needs a Ukrainian police certificate depends on the route and on the Home Office guidance in force at the moment of application. In practice, three groups of Ukrainians in the UK most often face this requirement.

Ukraine Scheme visa holders who arrived under the humanitarian pathways and are now moving towards settlement. Their time in Ukraine before arrival is exactly the period a police certificate may need to cover.

HU visa holders in the same position: several years of residence in Ukraine fall inside the window the Home Office can ask about.

Applicants switching status, for example from a temporary route into a work or family route and then onwards to ILR. Here the certificate may be requested both at the switching stage and at the settlement stage, and the periods it must cover can differ.

One boundary worth fixing early: the State Migration Service of Ukraine has no role in a UK ILR application. It deals with Ukrainian residence documents. The only Ukrainian body relevant here is the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which issues the certificate. And because requirements shift between routes and years, treat the guidance for your specific category as the final word on whether you need the document at all, and for which dates.

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Three ways to get the certificate from the UK

From the United Kingdom you have three realistic routes. They differ in the amount of paperwork, so the comparison below helps you choose.

Online through the Unified Information System (UIS)

The electronic service runs on the Unified Information System (UIS), operated for the Ministry of Internal Affairs by the state enterprise «INFOTECH». You register a Personal Account, fill in the request, pay online and receive the result in electronic form. For most Ukrainians in the UK, nothing depends on embassy queues or on relatives being free to visit an office.

The catch is access: logging into the Personal Account requires a qualified electronic signature (KEP). The next section covers how to get one from abroad.

Through Ukrainian consular offices

Ukrainian consular offices in the United Kingdom accept applications for the certificate as part of their consular services. You book a slot, bring your passport and the application, and the request is forwarded to Ukraine. The finished document is then issued to you through the consulate. This route suits people who never set up a KEP and do not want to, or who prefer dealing with an official in person. The trade-off is calendar dependence: appointment availability differs between consular offices.

Through a trusted person with a notarised power of attorney

A relative, friend or representative in Ukraine can apply on your behalf if you give them a notarised power of attorney. They can submit the request at a Main service center of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, through the Single Window for Citizens principle at combined service offices, or electronically on your behalf. This is also the only route that naturally ends with a paper original in Ukraine, which someone can then courier to you in the UK. The power of attorney is the critical document: it must explicitly authorise requesting and receiving the certificate, and if it is issued outside Ukraine it will typically need legalisation or an apostille to work in Ukraine.

Step by step: from application to the document in your hands

First, the qualified electronic signature

The electronic route stands or falls on the KEP. A qualified electronic signature is issued by accredited Ukrainian qualified providers, and since you are in the UK you need a provider that offers remote identification, for example via video verification or through the Diia app, where identity confirmation for electronic services is available to Ukrainian citizens abroad. If you already use Diia or have a KEP from before you left, check that it has not expired: an expired key is the single most common reason the first login attempt fails. If you have neither, arrange remote identification before you start the certificate application.

Documents to prepare

Prepare this set before you open the request form, whether you apply online, at a consulate or through a representative:

• Passport of a citizen of Ukraine (or the document you travel on), with correct transliteration matching your UK documents.

• Previous passports or name-change documents if your surname or other details changed, so the request covers all your records.

• Full list of previous addresses in Ukraine with approximate dates of residence, since the request asks where you lived.

• Purpose of the request: state that the certificate is for submission to the UK Home Office for an immigration application.

• Notarised power of attorney, if a trusted person applies for you.

• A payment card that works for Ukrainian online payments.

• Contact details that you actually check, because notifications about the ready certificate arrive there.

Payment from abroad

The electronic service is paid online, and the payment details belong to the operator of the system, the state enterprise «INFOTECH». In practice a card issued by a Ukrainian bank works without friction; foreign cards may or may not go through depending on current processing rules, so if your UK card is declined, use a Ukrainian card or ask someone in Ukraine for help.

Paper original or extract with a QR code

The result can arrive in two forms. The first is the classic paper original with a signature and stamp, issued through service channels in Ukraine or forwarded via a consulate. The second is an electronic extract, which you download from your Personal Account and which carries a QR code allowing any verifier to check its authenticity against the state register. For a Home Office application the extract with the QR code is generally the more practical format: you can print it, attach it to your online application and re-download it any time. If your guidance or a caseworker specifically asks for an original, order the paper version through a consulate or your trusted person instead.

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Apostille, translation and validity: preparing the certificate for the Home Office

Three separate questions come up here, and mixing them up causes most of the rework.

Translation. The Home Office works in English. A Ukrainian-language certificate needs a certified translation into English. The translation should cover the whole document, including stamps and any annotations, and the translator’s certification should be visible. Order the translation after you have the final version of the certificate, not before, so nothing has to be redone.

Apostille. An apostille confirms the authenticity of a Ukrainian official document for use abroad, and it is placed by the authorised Ukrainian state bodies designated for legalisation. From the UK you can arrange it by sending the document to Ukraine through your trusted person or a courier service, or by checking whether the electronic extract you received supports electronic legalisation. One useful reference point from the UK side: electronic apostilles have limits even in the British system, where an e-apostille is not available for documents such as ACRO police certificates and DBS certificates. The lesson generalises: never assume an electronic document is automatically apostillable, verify the rules for the exact format you are holding.

Validity. The Home Office expects police certificates to be recent at the date you file your ILR application, and the accepted age of the certificate is defined in the guidance for your route. The safe strategy is to work backwards from your planned filing date: find out the validity window in your guidance, add time for apostille and translation, add the issuing time of the certificate, and only then place the order. A certificate ordered too early means the whole chain may need repeating.

Case: surname change and several regions of residence

A typical situation: an applicant was born in Lviv, studied in Kharkiv, worked in Kyiv, and took her husband’s surname after marriage, which is now the name on her UK biometric residence permit.

Steps. First, she lists every surname and every address with dates before touching the request form. Second, she orders the certificate through the UIS electronic service, entering all previous names in the dedicated fields so the search in the Information and Analytical System covers records under each name. Third, she makes sure the marriage certificate confirming the name change is part of her ILR bundle, so the Home Office can trace the link between the certificate and her current passport. Fourth, she requests the apostille and the certified translation only after checking that the certificate reflects all declared periods.

Result. The certificate comes back covering her under both surnames, the translation matches the transliteration in her UK documents, and the application goes in with no gaps between the names. Compare this with the common failure mode: a certificate issued only under the current surname, which the caseworker cannot match to older Ukrainian records, triggering a request for further information.

The same logic applies to multiple regions: you do not need separate certificates per city. The certificate is issued against central state records, but the request must honestly declare where and when you lived, because that is what the record search is run against.

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Contacts and what to do if the certificate is delayed or refused

Delays happen, and refusals are typically technical: a mismatch in transliteration, an incomplete address history, an expired KEP, or a payment that did not register. None of these are fatal.

Your escalation path looks like this:

• For the electronic service, use the support channels published on the official Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine pages. The Department of Informatization of the Ministry of Internal Affairs is the structural unit behind the electronic service and its Registration point No. 062, so service questions about the electronic extract ultimately land there. Current contact details, including the service email, are published on the official MVS pages, and they change more often than any other detail in this process, so take them from the source rather than from forums.

• For consular applications, follow up with the consular office where you filed, quoting your submission reference.

• For applications through a trusted person, the person can visit the issuing office in Ukraine with their power of attorney and ask for the status directly.

If the delay becomes a problem for your application, document everything: screenshots of the submitted request, payment confirmation, correspondence with support. The Home Office accepts explanations backed by evidence that you ordered the certificate in good time far more readily than a bare gap in the document pack. And if the certificate comes back showing a record you believe is wrong, the correction runs through Ukrainian courts and the Ministry of Internal Affairs records, which is a separate and much longer process, so check your own record early rather than discovering a problem mid-application.

This page is for general information only and is not legal advice. Apostilles for UK public documents are issued exclusively by the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) Legalisation Office; this site is not affiliated with any government body. Please consult a qualified professional before making decisions.

FAQ

It is an official document issued by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine that confirms the presence or absence of a criminal record recorded against you in Ukrainian registers. For a UK ILR application it is the Ukrainian equivalent of a police certificate.

When the Home Office guidance for your specific route asks for police certificates covering periods of residence outside the UK. Requirements differ between routes, so check the guidance for your own category before ordering the document.

You can apply yourself, or the request can be submitted by a trusted person acting under a notarised power of attorney. Ukrainian consular offices in the UK also accept applications from citizens abroad, and the electronic service allows a fully remote application with a qualified electronic signature.

Register a Personal Account in the Unified Information System of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, log in with a qualified electronic signature, fill in the request form, pay online and track the status from your account. The finished document is downloaded from the same Personal Account.

Your Ukrainian passport details, any previous passports or name-change documents, a full list of previous addresses in Ukraine with dates, the stated purpose of the request, and a notarised power of attorney if someone applies on your behalf. A working payment card is needed for the online service.

Yes, the paper original with a signature and stamp is issued through service channels in Ukraine, including the main service center network of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and combined offices working on the Single Window for Citizens principle. From the UK, a trusted person or a consular office is the practical way to obtain it.

The Home Office expects documents in English or with a certified translation. Whether an apostille is required for a Ukrainian certificate depends on the current guidance for your route, so confirm it before you legalise the document.

The Home Office expects police certificates to be recent at the date of application. Check the current validity rules in the guidance for your route and time your request so the certificate is still fresh when you file.

Helpful guides

Which UK documents can be apostilled: certificates, degrees, company and court papers, e-Apostille rules, FCDO rejections and embassy attestation explained.

Which countries accept a UK apostille, which require embassy attestation, and country-by-country guides for UK documents used abroad.

Apostille meaning explained for UK documents: what the FCDO certificate looks like, which documents qualify, e-Apostille and when embassy legalisation.

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