Can my family members live and work in the United Kingdom?

This section explains how family members of a Croatian national can live and work in the United Kingdom.

If you are the Croatian national family member of a Croatian national who is exempt from work authorisation requirements, you are entitled to a blue registration certificate confirming you are also exempt from those requirements.

You can apply for a blue registration certificate using application form CR1. Please see the applying section for more information on how to do this.

If you are a non-European Economic Area (EEA) family member of a Croatian national who is exempt from work authorisation requirements, you are entitled to a residence card. You can apply for a residence card using application form CR4. Please see the applying section for information on how to do this.

If you are the Croatian family member of a Croatian national who is subject to work authorisation and has a valid work authorisation document (i.e. a purple registration certificate), then you are exempt from work authorisation and can apply for a blue registration certificate. However, in such circumstances 'family member' will mean the Croatian national spouse, civil partner, unmarried or same sex partner and descendants of the worker, or their spouse or civil partner, where they are under 21 or dependant. They will need to apply using application form CR1 which can be found in the applying section.

If you are a non-EEA family member of a Croatian national holding a work authorisation document (e.g. purple registration certificate), you may apply for a family member residence stamp using application for CR5, which can be found in the applying section.

You will not be able to obtain work authorisation as the family member of a:

• work card holder under the seasonal agricultural workers scheme; or
• a purple registration certificate holder under the sectors based scheme.

If you are the Croatian national family member of an EEA national who is not:

a) a Croatian national
b) until 31 December 2013 a Romanian or Bulgarian national who is subject to worker authorisation

you are exempt from worker authorisation and can apply for a blue registration certificate which will allow you to work without restriction in the UK. You can apply using application form CR1 which can be found in the applying section.

For further information read the Croatian guidance which you can download from the right side of this page.