How to Complete and Submit the ACRO Police Certificate Application Form

To apply for an ACRO police certificate, use the online application at acro.police.uk. You upload a passport-style photo and a colour copy of your passport, enter every address you’ve lived at for the past ten years, disclose any convictions or impending prosecutions, and pay by card. Standard processing costs £68 and takes up to 20 working days; premium processing costs £121 and takes up to two working days. The finished certificate is posted to you.¹

What to Gather Before You Start

ACRO recommends creating an account before you open the form. With an account you can save your progress and come back; without one, you have to finish the entire multi-page form in a single sitting. Either way, have everything ready before you begin.

A recent colour passport-style photo of your face, as a JPG or PNG file up to 3MB. This photo prints on the finished certificate, so quality matters.
Colour copies of your passport or travel document, also JPG or PNG, up to 3MB per file. If you don’t hold a passport, ACRO will accept another photographic ID such as a driving licence.
Every address you have lived at over the past ten years, with dates. If you can’t recall exact move dates, ACRO’s form help says to enter an approximate date or the first of the month.²
Details of any past convictions and impending prosecutions. The form asks you to disclose these directly rather than relying on the Police National Computer search alone.
Every legal name you have used, including previous surnames, maiden names, and aliases, so the check picks up records under any name you have held.
A working email address and a debit or credit card for the fee.

Working Through the Online Form

There is no paper form to post. Everything goes through ACRO’s website, and the sequence is the same for everyone.¹

Register an account so you can save your progress between sessions.
Upload your photograph. The portal opens a cropping tool where you centre your face and adjust the zoom, then click Crop and Accept. If you picked the wrong file, upload again to replace it.²
Upload the passport copies. Colour scans or photos only, with your details clearly visible.
Enter your names, date of birth, address history, and conviction information across the form’s pages.
Accept the terms and conditions.
Pay on the final page.

Check every field before submitting. Mismatched names, gaps in the address history, and blurry document uploads are the most common causes of delay. You’ll get a confirmation once the application is in the queue.

Fees and How Fast You Get It

Both service levels produce the same certificate. Only the turnaround differs.¹

Standard: £68, up to 20 working days.
Premium: £121, up to two working days.

Working day counts exclude the day you submit and the day the certificate is posted. Additional copies of the same certificate cost £7.50 each if you request them as part of your application. Add postal delivery time on top, especially for addresses abroad.

How the Certificate Reaches You

The application fee covers first-class post inside the UK and standard international post to addresses elsewhere. Standard post is not trackable.¹

For an extra £48, ACRO offers courier delivery to international addresses through CitySprint and partner carriers; the specific courier varies by destination. Courier delivery is not available to addresses in the UK, the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man, or PO Boxes, except for certain countries in Africa, the Middle East, and the Cayman Islands. ACRO’s terms state that they are not responsible for items lost, damaged, or delayed in the post.³ If your visa interview is close and you live overseas, the courier upgrade is usually worth it.

Timing Your Application Against the Validity Window

ACRO does not set a single expiry date for its certificates. Each embassy or authority sets its own validity window, and it’s your responsibility to check the rules of the country you’re applying to.¹

The U.S. Embassy in London, for example, treats a UK police certificate as valid for 12 months from its issue date.⁴ Work backwards from your interview date, then allow for ACRO’s processing time and postal delivery so the certificate is still current when you present it.

Reading the Result

Your certificate will either come back clear, list convictions or cautions that have not yet stepped down, or show “No Live Trace.” ACRO applies a step-down model that stops disclosing older convictions after a period based on the offence, the sentence, and the applicant’s age at the time. Impending prosecutions and active investigations are always disclosed until a final outcome is recorded.¹

“No Live Trace” does not mean you have a clean record. It means ACRO holds criminal record information about you on the Police National Computer, but the details are no longer disclosed on the certificate.⁵ Some embassies want the underlying details anyway. The U.S. Embassy in London, for instance, requires applicants whose certificates say “No Live Trace” to obtain either a Memorandum of Conviction from the relevant court or a Subject Access Statement showing the full history.⁴ If that’s your result, email customer.services@acro.police.uk to find out what was withheld and obtain the supporting records before your interview.

Applying on Someone Else’s Behalf

You can file the application for another person in a few situations: for your own child under 18 if you have parental responsibility; for another adult who has given permission; for someone you hold power of attorney for; as a legal representative; or as an organisation acting with the applicant’s permission.¹

Each route has its own upload requirement. For consenting adults, you upload a photo of the applicant holding a copy of their passport. For power of attorney, you upload the POA document. For a legal representative, a signed letter of authorisation (with content specified on ACRO’s form help page). Organisations upload both the authorisation letter and the applicant-with-passport photo. All supporting documents must be Word, PDF, JPG, or PNG, up to 3MB each. Incomplete authorisation is a common source of delay.

If the Certificate Contains an Error

Contact ACRO by email or letter to raise a dispute. ACRO will check the disclosure against what you submitted and against the police systems it draws from. If the mistake lies in the underlying police records rather than in ACRO’s processing, ACRO will refer you to the force or agency that created the record, and you’ll need to challenge it there.³ ACRO’s general contact points are customer.services@acro.police.uk and +44 (0)23 8045 1477.⁶

One Warning for U.S. Visa Applicants

U.S. immigration law does not recognise the UK’s Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. A conviction or caution can be “spent” under English law and absent from your ACRO certificate, and you are still required to declare it on the U.S. visa application.⁷ Anyone ever arrested, cautioned, or convicted anywhere in the world must disclose it. Applicants with a criminal history may be sent to a Visa Coordination Unit interview, and arrests should be disclosed when scheduling the appointment. Bring the ACRO certificate along with any court records to that interview.

1
ACRO Criminal Records Office. Police Certificates
2
ACRO Criminal Records Office. ACRO Police Certificate Application Form
3
ACRO Criminal Records Office. Police Certificate Terms and Conditions
4
U.S. Embassy and Consulates in the United Kingdom. London Immigrant Visas FAQs: Visa Processing and Documents
5
Unlock. Police Certificate
6
ACRO Criminal Records Office. Contact Us
7
U.S. Embassy and Consulates in the United Kingdom. Ineligibilities and Waivers