EU Voting and Candidacy Rights

This page only applies to European Union Citizens

The Elections Act 2022 introduced measures that have affected European Union citizens. These measures apply to local government and Police and Crime Commissioner elections that take place on or after 7 May 2024.

You will only be able to register, vote or stand as a candidate in these elections if:

you're a citizen of Denmark, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal and Spain who is resident in the UK, has permission to enter or stay in the UK, Channel Islands or Isle of Man, or who does not need permission

you're a citizen of any other EU country who on or before 31 December 2020 was legally resident in the UK, had permission to enter or stay in the UK, Channel Islands or Isle of Man, or who did not need permission, and this has continued without a break

If you have received a letter or email recently about your eligibility to vote, it will because either:

We know you qualify to remain registered to vote as above.

You will have received a letter headed 'Confirmation of your continued registration to vote'. We determined that you qualifiy by checking your nationality and/or when you registered to vote using data matching. You do not need to respond and the letter is for information only.
We do not know if you qualify to remain registered to vote as above.

Following a data matching exercise, we cannot determine if you qualify and we've either sent a review email or letter headed 'Changes to voting rights for EU citizens - Information needed'. You must respond to this letter or email review. The easiest way is online using the www.gov.uk/eu-voter-reply link and entering the one-time password we have sent you.

- If you do respond, we will post a letter to you to inform you of the outcome of the review.

- If you do not respond to the review letter or email, or any reminder, you will be removed from the electoral register following the end of the review.

There is more information about this process on the Electoral Commission's website.