Chefs and Hospitality Workers on the 10-Year ILR Route: What Earned Settlement Means for You and Your Restaurant

Key Takeaways

• Most sponsored chefs and hospitality workers will face a 10-year wait for ILR under the new policy. The government response to the earned settlement consultation (CP 1707), published on 2 November 2026, puts workers in roles below RQF level 6 on the standard 10-year pathway. Unlike care workers who joined the care route before May 2025, hospitality workers get no five-year arrangement.
• None of this is law yet, so the current five-year rules still apply today. No Statement of Changes has been laid since HC 584 on 3 September 2026. The Home Secretary told MPs on 2 November 2026 that the changes will begin to be laid from the December immigration rules and be implemented over the course of 2027, but no start date has been fixed.
• Earning at least £50,271 in three of the five years before applying keeps a five-year route. On a 37.5-hour week that is about £25.78 an hour, and you must also meet the mandatory requirements with no recent public funds or immigration breach. CP 1707 lets couples combine income only for the £12,571 minimum (as a £25,142 household threshold) and says nothing about combining income to reach £50,271.
• If you can apply for ILR under the current rules, apply on your earliest valid date. Appendix Continuous Residence lets you apply up to 28 days before you complete five years. CP 1707 says settlement applications are ordinarily decided under the rules in force on the date of decision unless transitional provisions say otherwise, so applying early improves your position but guarantees nothing.
• Chefs first granted Skilled Worker permission before 4 April 2024 would keep their lower salary terms until 2035. The law today lets this group, if they have held Skilled Worker permission continuously since, extend at £31,300 rather than £41,700 only if they apply before 4 April 2030. CP 1707 says this will run to 2035, but that extension is policy and is not yet in the Rules.
• No hospitality role can be newly sponsored, and only existing workers can extend or change employer. Since 22 July 2025, chefs (5434), restaurant managers (1222), catering and bar managers (5436), hotel managers, publicans, butchers and bakers can be sponsored only if the worker was granted Skilled Worker permission under the rules in place before that date and has held it continuously since. Cooks (5435), waiters, bar staff and receptionists are not eligible at all.
• Every applicant must also meet the new mandatory requirements. Under CP 1707 any adult UK criminal record means refusal, any unpaid NHS, tax, National Insurance or Home Office litigation debt blocks settlement, and B2 English and the Life in the UK test are required. B2 English is already law for Skilled Worker ILR applications made on or after 26 March 2027.
• Five more years of sponsorship can cost a small restaurant £2,925 per chef, and the chef's family a further £21,248. On GOV.UK fees checked on 4 November 2026, one five-year extension for a chef, partner and child with a small sponsor costs £24,173 in total. The employer must pay the £525 certificate of sponsorship and the £2,400 Immigration Skills Charge itself, although no Skills Charge is due for a worker who switched from a study visa and is extending.
• A partner who arrives with the chef settles at the same time, but a partner who joins later waits the full qualifying period. Children under 18 settle with their parents and are exempt from the income, debt, English and Life in the UK requirements, while young adults aged 18 to 24 settle with the family without the income test.
• WorkPermitCloud checks your settlement date and prepares five-year ILR applications while the current rules last. Our ILR five-year route service confirms whether you can apply now and submits the application on your earliest valid date.

Introduction

On 2 November 2026 the Home Office published A Fairer Pathway to Settlement: Government Response to the Consultation (CP 1707) and the Home Secretary set out the decisions in the House of Commons. For chefs and other hospitality workers on the Skilled Worker route, the answer is clear. The 15-year route proposed for lower-skilled roles has gone, but apart from more time on current salary terms for those who arrived before April 2024, there is no special protection. Most will need 10 years to settle unless they earn at least £50,271.

This post is for the people most affected and the businesses that depend on them: chefs in curry houses, Turkish and Chinese restaurants and hotel kitchens, restaurant and catering managers, bar managers, butchers and bakers, and the restaurant owners who sponsor them. It covers who now faces 10 years, who can still settle in five, what the current rules let you do today, what a longer route costs the business and what is still undecided.

One point governs everything else. CP 1707 is confirmed government policy, not law. The current five-year rules in Appendix Skilled Worker stay in force until a Statement of Changes to the Immigration Rules is laid before Parliament and comes into force. On 4 November 2026 none had been laid.

For the full earned settlement model, including the care worker arrangement, refugees and the 20-year route, read our earned settlement decision explainer of 2 November 2026. This post deals only with hospitality.

Where Things Stand on 4 November 2026

The table separates what the government has decided from what is law today and what nobody yet knows.

The decision is published on the GOV.UK earned settlement consultation page, and you can follow new rules as they appear in the Statement of Changes collection. The Home Secretary's answers to MPs are in the Hansard record of the 2 November 2026 statement.

Which Hospitality Roles Are Affected

Earned settlement does not name chefs. It applies to "workers in occupations below RQF 6", meaning roles below degree level. Every hospitality role that can still be sponsored sits in that group. Appendix Skilled Occupations lists most of them in Tables 1a and 2aa, which it describes as skilled to RQF level 3 to 5 and open only to workers granted Skilled Worker permission under the rules in place before 22 July 2025 with continuous permission since. Bed and breakfast owners sit in Table 2a, reassessed as below RQF 3.

None of these codes is on the Temporary Shortage List in SW 6.1A or the Immigration Salary List, so there is no shortcut back in. The difference between a chef and a cook matters, because a cook (5435) is not eligible at all. You can check how a role is coded in the Appendix Skilled Occupations tables, or use our free sponsored job eligibility checker. The detail of the 22 July 2025 change is covered in our post on why chefs, bar managers and bakers lost Skilled Worker eligibility.

Where You Stand Under Earned Settlement

Find the row that matches you. Everything in the right-hand column describes the position once the new rules are in force, unless it says "today".

CP 1707 estimates that around 146,000 Skilled Workers and 85,000 dependants who were expected to settle between 2026 and 2030 will now be on the 10-year pathway (Annex A). That figure covers every Skilled Worker below the faster thresholds, not hospitality alone.

The comparison people keep asking about is care. Care workers who entered or switched into the care route before the May 2025 Immigration White Paper keep a five-year route if they earn £25,000 and meet their sponsorship and employment requirements. CP 1707 makes no equivalent arrangement for hospitality workers. The only other five-year arrangement for existing workers covers health and education roles below RQF 6 on national pay scales, such as nursing auxiliaries and teaching assistants.

Already Close to Five Years?

If you reach five years before the new rules start, the current rules are your best route. Use our free ILR eligibility calculator to see your date, then check it with an adviser.

The date that decides which rules apply

CP 1707 notes that the courts have recognised that, unless transitional provisions are made, applications are ordinarily decided under the Immigration Rules in force on the date of the settlement decision. The Home Secretary's statement said the same. The Home Office press release of the same day said settlement rules apply "at the point of application", and in the Commons debate she referred to "the point of application and decision" (Hansard, column 589). The official texts are worded differently, and only the Statement of Changes will settle it.

Statements of Changes say, change by change, whether applications already made are protected. HC 584 shows how that works: for some of its changes, applications made before 8 October 2026 were decided under the rules in force on 7 October 2026, while other changes took effect with no such protection. Until the earned settlement statement is published, nobody can promise that an application made now will be decided under the five-year rules. What is certain is that an application made and decided before the new rules start will be decided under the current ones.

The 28-day early application window

Under CR 1.1 of Appendix Continuous Residence, your qualifying period can be counted back from any date up to 28 days after you apply. In practice you can apply up to 28 days before you complete five years. CR 1.1(c) also lets the period be counted back from the date of decision, but relying on that is a gamble, so check your dates against your first grant and every absence.

What the current rules require of a chef applying now

Watch the hours. Going rates are set for a 37.5-hour week and are pro-rated to the hours your sponsor states, counting every hour even above 48 (SW 14.4), and each pay period must cover the going rate for every hour worked (SW 14.3B). For a chef on a long week, the going rate can be higher than the headline threshold. Salary counts only guaranteed basic gross pay, not overtime, shift pay, allowances or accommodation (SW 14.1 and SW 14.2), and only the first 48 hours a week count towards the £31,300 or £41,700 threshold (SW 14.3). Our 2026 guide to ILR salary thresholds explains how that works for each cohort. The full text is in Appendix Skilled Worker.

If you will not reach five years until after the new rules start, applying early is not an option. ILR cannot be granted before the qualifying period is complete. Your time is better spent on the steps that matter under either system: clean records, no government debt, a B2 English test booked, and payslips and P60s for every year.

The £50,271 Route in Practice

For most chefs who cannot settle under the current rules, the £50,271 threshold is the only way back to a five-year route. The exception is a recognised British connection, such as being the partner of a British citizen, which CP 1707 also places on a five-year pathway. The £50,271 figure is the higher rate of income tax threshold, and CP 1707 says it will move with that threshold.

What it means in pay

£50,271 a year is about £4,189 a month. On a 37.5-hour week it works out at about £25.78 an hour; on a 48-hour week, about £20.14. For comparison, the chef going rate is £33,400 in Table 1a and £25,000 in Table 2aa, both well below £50,271.

Whose income counts

CP 1707 lets eligible couples combine their earnings only to meet the minimum economic contribution requirement, through a £25,142 household threshold, and only one partner may rely on the other's income. It says nothing about combining income to reach £50,271, so plan on the basis that the chef's own earnings must reach it. CP 1707 has also not said how earnings will be evidenced, whether income from a second job or self-employment will count, or whether a "year" means a tax year. Those details are promised in technical guidance before implementation.

Three of the five years before applying

The test looks back over the five years immediately before you apply and needs three of them at £50,271 or more. Two lower years are allowed, which protects maternity leave or illness. It also means a pay rise does not work immediately. A chef who arrived in 2022 and is first paid £50,271 in 2027 would need three qualifying years, so would apply in about 2030 rather than 2027. That is still earlier than 2032 on the 10-year pathway.

Why raising pay only to hit the threshold needs care

A salary increase must be real. Under SW 5.5 the Home Office can refuse where it has reasonable grounds to believe a job is a sham or has been created mainly so the applicant can get permission. Under SW 14.2A any money a worker pays back to the sponsor is subtracted from salary. Pay has to run through payroll, be reported to HMRC through PAYE and match the job, the hours and what the business can sustain. A chef suddenly paid as much as the owner, in a kitchen whose takings have not changed, is the kind of case a compliance officer looks at. Our post on Home Office salary checks for sponsors explains what they examine.

What a 10-Year Route Costs Your Restaurant

A worker who would have settled at five years now needs five more years of sponsored permission. The worked example below prices one five-year extension made from inside the UK, on GOV.UK fees checked on 4 November 2026. Skilled Worker permission runs to 14 days after the certificate end date (SW 18.1), so we have priced the Immigration Health Surcharge at five and a half years: GOV.UK charges half the yearly amount for a part-year of six months or less when you apply from inside the UK.

Where the Skills Charge is payable, the employer's own cost is £2,925 per worker for a small sponsor and £7,125 for a medium or large one, and the applicant family's share is £21,248. The Immigration Skills Charge is £480 for the first 12 months and £240 for each further six months for small or charitable sponsors, and £1,320 and £660 for medium or large sponsors. GOV.UK states that a licence may be revoked if the sponsor asks the worker to pay it or any costs linked to sponsorship. The charge is not due at all where the worker switched to the Skilled Worker route from a visa that allows study and is now extending on it. The ILR application fee is left out because it is paid once whichever route the worker takes.

Two shorter extensions instead of one cost more, because each needs its own certificate and visa fee. Fees can change, so treat these as the figures on 4 November 2026. Our IHS and visa fee calculator prices your own case.

Changing Employer After 22 July 2025

CP 1707 does not change who can be sponsored, and the Home Secretary told MPs that workers on the 10-year path will be able to renew their temporary visas until they qualify. So the question of who can move job is still answered by the current rules.

Who can change employer

Under SW 6.1(d), a worker in a Table 1a or 2aa role can be sponsored by a new employer if they were granted Skilled Worker permission under the rules in place before 22 July 2025 and have held Skilled Worker permission continuously since. GOV.UK guidance describes this as getting your first certificate of sponsorship before 22 July 2025. The new employer must hold a licence, assign a new certificate and pay the Immigration Skills Charge, and the worker must make a new application before starting. The salary rules follow the worker's cohort: £31,300 and the going rate for the pre-April 2024 group until 4 April 2030, and £41,700 and the going rate for others, with the going rate pro-rated to the hours stated (SW 14.4).

Who cannot

Anyone whose Skilled Worker permission lapsed, even briefly, loses the continuity that SW 6.1(d) requires (the only exception is the overstayer exceptions in Part Suitability). People on other routes, such as Graduate, Student or dependant visas, cannot switch into these roles. Bed and breakfast owners (6250) can only stay with the same sponsor. Our complete guide to changing jobs or employers on a Skilled Worker visa sets out the process.

For employers, sponsoring a chef who already works in the UK is now the only way to hire one on this route. Our sponsor licence service helps restaurants get and keep a licence, and our Skilled Worker visa service handles the application.

Families: Partners and Children

CP 1707 moved away from making each family member earn settlement separately. Under current law, partners and children can still join a chef who was granted permission in one of these roles under the rules in place before 22 July 2025 and has held Skilled Worker permission in these occupation codes continuously since (SW 29.1A and SW 32A.2).

Every adult in the family must meet the mandatory requirements. No UK criminal record (overseas convictions also count where the conduct is a crime in the UK) and no government debt, with no exemption for criminality. B2 English and the Life in the UK test are required unless an age or disability exemption applies. A partner who works part-time while caring for children does not need to reach £12,571 personally if the household reaches £25,142. If your partner joined you after you arrived, our post on completing five years when your partner joined later explains the current rules, and our guide to ILR for dependants covers children.

What Is Still Undecided

A policy paper does not change the Immigration Rules. Before anything applies to an application, the Home Office must lay a Statement of Changes before Parliament, the statement must set out when each change takes effect and whether applications already made are protected, and those dates must arrive. CP 1707 also promises technical guidance before implementation and a full impact assessment to accompany it.

These points are open on 4 November 2026:

The start date. The Home Secretary told MPs the changes "will begin to be laid from the December immigration rules" and will be implemented over the course of 2027 (Hansard, column 594). No commencement date has been published, and the changes may arrive in stages.

Protection for pending applications. CP 1707 points to the date of decision; the press release refers to the point of application. The Statement of Changes will decide.

How contribution is measured. CP 1707 sets the 10-year test as £12,571 in five of the seven years before applying (chapter 2 and Table 1), but chapter 2 also refers to £12,571 "for at least three years" and Annex B to "a minimum of three years". The Home Secretary spoke of three years of National Insurance contributions, and the press release of a record of sustained National Insurance contributions. The Rules will fix the test.

The 2035 extension. CP 1707 ties the extension for the pre-April 2024 cohort to workers below RQF 6. For chefs that makes no difference, but the Rules will confirm who is covered and what "current terms" includes.

While the rules have not been laid, people affected can put their views to their MP or to their sector association.

What to Do Now

If you are a chef or hospitality worker

Work out your five-year date and whether you can apply before the new rules start. If you can, prepare now: your sponsor's confirmation, payslips, absences and a Life in the UK test pass. Book an English test at the level you will need, keeping in mind that B2 applies to applications made on or after 26 March 2027 (see which English tests UKVI accepts for ILR). Clear any NHS charges or tax owed. Keep every payslip and P60, because under earned settlement your earnings record is your evidence. Do not let your Skilled Worker permission lapse, even for a day.

If you own a restaurant that sponsors staff

List every sponsored worker with their first grant date, so you know who falls before 4 April 2024 and who falls before 22 July 2025. Note each worker's five-year date. Budget for the extra certificates and Immigration Skills Charge that 10-year routes will bring. Keep payroll accurate and pay only what the job genuinely pays. The HR side, worker by worker, is covered in our WPC HR guide on what sponsors must do now that earned settlement is decided.

How Can WorkPermitCloud Help?

WorkPermitCloud is an IAA-regulated immigration adviser (F202100311) that prepares and submits indefinite leave to remain and Skilled Worker extension applications for chefs, restaurant managers and other hospitality workers, and advises the restaurants that sponsor them. We check your exact qualifying date, your salary cohort and whether you can apply before the new rules start.

Our ILR five-year route service handles applications that can be made under the current rules. If you face a longer route, our ILR 10-year route service plans your extensions and earnings record. For restaurant owners, we prepare the extensions and new certificates that keep your kitchen staffed.

Conclusion

For chefs and hospitality workers, the earned settlement decision is mixed. The 15-year route has gone, but most will wait 10 years unless they earn £50,271, and there is no hospitality equivalent of the care worker arrangement. Workers granted permission before April 2024 have been promised more time on their current salary terms, to 2035.

None of it is law yet. If you can apply under the current five-year rules before the new ones start, do so on your earliest valid date. If you cannot, build the record that earned settlement will look for: steady earnings, no government debt, B2 English and an unbroken Skilled Worker history.

Glossary