The government plans to keep visa-free travel to the UK for EU visitors after Brexit, the BBC understands.
The Home Office proposals would mean visitors from countries within the EU would only need permission to work, study or settle in the UK.
Plans for the UK’s immigration system are due to be outlined in the autumn.
The government said current immigration controls were managed through access to jobs and welfare, not just the ability to control entry at a physical border.
One of the “huge challenges”, the BBC’s political correspondent Eleanor Garnier said, will be how the system tracks whether an EU traveller’s visit changes into a longer-term trip that would require a visa.
On Wednesday, the government said there should be no hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland after Brexit.
A paper detailing its proposals stressed there should be no physical infrastructure – such as customs posts – at the border which has almost 300 crossing points.
Critics said the proposals lacked credible detail, with Labour deriding the plans for the border as a “fantasy frontier”.
