Household Panel Surveys typically wish to maintain cross-sectional representativeness, as well as representing longitudinal populations. To achieve this it is necessary to continuously – or at least regularly – sample new entrants to the population (Lynn 2011). Typically, immigrants to the country are an important subset of population entrants.
This paper will set out a potential method for sampling recent immigrants. The method relies for its feasibility and cost-effectiveness on the regular field work operation of a panel surveys. It also relies on certain basic properties of the sampling frame. These features, and the extent to which they might vary between countries or between time periods, will be discussed.

A number of parameters of the study population and of the survey design will determine the utility and the cost of implementing the method, and the optimum frequency with which it should be repeated. Though the design has not yet been field tested, we will present a case study for the UK of the estimation of these parameters.