For those who are visiting the UK, how long is the time to clear immigration?
I have a flight from Copenhagen arriving at Heathrow in a few weeks. I'd like to ask if anyone here has flown into Heathrow lately and what is their experience in terms of time clearing immigration for non-UK citizens and questions asked by the border police.
Thanks!
Best Answer
I landed in T5 at Heathrow earlier this month and have a non EU passport. The queue in front of me was fairly short (4-5 people) and there were just two immigration officers. It took a bit longer than usual for a queue of that size because the officers were checking the passenger locator forms, and in my case it took about 10 minutes.
After they moved many non-EU nationalities to e-gates (June 2019) but before the pandemic, I used to get through in less than 2 minutes because there were more officers back then.
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Answer 2
My wait time was longer than SgrA. Last time I was at Heathrow was before COVID19, and was traveling with non EU passport. Line had at least 150 people, but some those people travelled together. For them, more than one person cleared each time.
6 separate immigration counters (one officer at each counter) were running, but I waited at least one hour in that queue before seeing officer.
Next to line is waiting area or penalty box. I saw immigration officers asking people seat there and wait. Then officers went to back and went to some door and disappeared, probably to investigate things? After they are done, they come back and fetch you in waiting area. Thus if you have to wait in penalty box, you will wait even longer!
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