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Regulated immigration advisers

Regulated by Immigration Advice Authority (formerly OISC).

Protected title

Regulated immigration adviser

Legal basis

Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 part V; giving immigration advice while unregulated is an offence

Statutory basis

Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 part V

Register

IAA’s own register

How somebody becomes one

Registration with the Immigration Advice Authority at level 1, 2 or 3, each a wider scope than the last, assessed by examination; or exemption as a member of a designated professional body such as the SRA, BSB or CILEx Regulation.

What they may lawfully do

None of the six reserved legal activities. Regulated immigration advisers are regulated, and what is regulated is not a reserved activity — see who may do what.

What the IAA says

Figure	Source	Provenance
3,800 individual advisers and just over 200 organisations IAA annual report 2024/25, quoted via Free Movement; the primary PDF was not fetched	IAA	secondary
851 sat the competence assessment, 464 passed	IAA	secondary

“Secondary” means the figure was recorded from somewhere other than the body’s own page and has not been checked against it. It is marked because a table is exactly the format that makes an unchecked number look like a measured one.

What had to be asked for

This regulator has not published a total adviser headcount since 2008. It has handed one over on request: quarterly numbers by advice level for 2013 to 2015, with the flow in and out beside them.

The first five columns are how many were authorised at the end of the quarter; the last three are movements during it. They are not added together. Obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, which reaches this regulator and none of the others on this site — why that is.

In law, and in Parliament

182 documents on legislation.gov.uk mention this profession, 44 of them Acts, the oldest from 1967. Hansard records 257 contributions mentioning it, across 4 whole debates.

Every Act and instrument that mentions them, what was said in Parliament, and what each search phrase catches by mistake — or the same for every profession here.

What the annual reports say

Complaints about regulated advisers

Immigration complaints received, all sources

Prosecutions for unregulated immigration advice

Formal cautions administered instead of prosecution

Advisers the regulator authorises

Immigration adviser regulator's expenditure

Candidates sitting the Level 1 immigration assessment

Candidates passing the Level 1 immigration assessment

Read from the regulator’s own annual reports and core metrics. A gap in a run means the document that would carry it is not on the regulator’s site, not that the figure is zero. All 157 reports, with the sentence each figure came from.