Two Months Short of ILR and Your Skilled Worker Visa Is Expiring: Extend or Apply Early?

Key Takeaways

• The Rules let your five years be counted to the date of decision, so an early ILR application can succeed. Paragraph CR 1.1 of Appendix Continuous Residence counts your qualifying period back from whichever date is most beneficial to you: the date of application, any date up to 28 days after it, or the date of decision. The Home Office's own Continuous residence guidance (version 10.0, 8 October 2026) tells caseworkers to do exactly this and contains no instruction to refuse an application for being made early.
• It is a risk, not a right, because GOV.UK warns that an early application may be refused. The Skilled Worker ILR guide says the earliest you can apply is 28 days before you complete five years, and "Your application may be refused if you apply earlier." If the Home Office decides your case before your five-year point, you fail the qualifying period and lose the £3,226 fee for each person.
• For most people the best answer is a short extension followed by a variation, not a gamble. Apply in time for a short Skilled Worker extension, then submit your ILR application once you are inside the 28-day window while the extension is still undecided. Under paragraph 34BB of Part 1 the ILR application replaces the extension, and Home Office caseworker guidance (version 12.0, 14 October 2026) says the fee for the first application must be refunded.
• The extension does not have to be for another year. A Skilled Worker grant runs to 14 days after the end date on your certificate of sponsorship (SW 18.1), so a short certificate gives a short grant. Where the grant is six months or less, the in-UK Immigration Health Surcharge is half the yearly rate: £517.50 for an adult and £388 for a child.
• A short extension costs a single worker £1,460.50, and the sponsor £1,845 or £1,005. You pay the £943 visa fee (8 October 2026 fees table) and £517.50 surcharge. Your sponsor pays the £525 certificate fee and an Immigration Skills Charge of £1,320 (medium or large sponsor) or £480 (small or charitable), which is charged for a full 12 months even on a short certificate.
• A refused early application costs more than the extension it was meant to save. For one person the worst case is £7,912.50 in Home Office fees against £4,686.50 for the safe route. For a family of four it is £31,391 against £18,487, because the ILR fee is not refunded on refusal.
• Never pay for priority or super priority on an early application. A decision within 5 working days, or by the next working day, is the one outcome certain to land before your five-year point. The standard service usually decides within 6 months of biometrics, but GOV.UK gives no minimum time.
• An in-time application keeps you lawful and working while you wait. Section 3C of the Immigration Act 1971 extends your permission, on the same conditions, until the application and any administrative review are decided, and your employer confirms your right to work through an online check or the Employer Checking Service. Leave the UK, Ireland, the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man and the application is withdrawn.
• Your partner needs their own five years, and your children normally settle only with both parents. A partner must have a continuous five years in the UK as your dependant (SW 42.1). A child can normally settle only if both parents are settling at the same time or are already settled, and every person pays £3,226, so the family that saves most by applying early also risks most.
• We check your dates, absences and sponsor position before you choose a route. Our ILR 5-year route service works out whether you should extend, vary or apply early, and prepares the application so it is valid and made at the right moment.

Introduction

Your Skilled Worker visa ends a few weeks, or a couple of months, before you complete five years. The obvious answer is to extend and then apply for indefinite leave to remain (ILR) as soon as you can. That means paying for an extension you will use for a matter of weeks, and then paying £3,226 for ILR straight after.

There is another argument doing the rounds. Paragraph CR 1.1 of Appendix Continuous Residence allows your five years to be counted back from the date the Home Office decides your application. So, the argument goes, you can apply for ILR early, wait for biometrics and a decision, and complete your five years while the application is pending. Our founder put it simply in a recent video: before you spend thousands of pounds extending your visa for just two months, check whether you have another legal option.

This post is the full version of that advice. It quotes what CR 1.1 actually says, compares the real costs of extending, applying early and a third route most people have not heard of, sets out what happens if an early application is refused, and tells you which option fits your dates. Everything here is confirmed law in force on 16 October 2026. The Immigration Rules relied on (Part 1, Part Suitability, Appendix Skilled Worker and Appendix Continuous Residence) were all last updated on 8 October 2026. Earned settlement is still a proposal and is not used anywhere in this post as a reason to apply early.

We do not explain how to work out your five-year date here. If you are not sure when you reach it, read when you become eligible for ILR as a Skilled Worker and what counts towards your 5-year ILR qualifying period, or run your dates through our free ILR eligibility calculator.

The Short Answer

An early ILR application is lawful under the Rules and can succeed, but it is not the safest choice for most people. The Rules count the five years to whichever date helps you most, including the date of decision. The danger is not the law. It is timing you cannot control: if the decision arrives before your five-year point, the application fails and the fee is gone.

That leaves three realistic choices. You can pay for a short extension and apply for ILR inside the 28-day window. You can pay for a short extension and, if it is still undecided when the window opens, turn it into an ILR application by variation and get the extension fee back. Or you can apply for ILR early and accept the refusal risk.

An early application can sensibly work for someone who is no more than about two months short, has absences comfortably inside the limits, has a sponsor whose licence and confirmation letter are not in doubt, is paid well above the settlement salary threshold, uses the standard service, will not travel outside the Common Travel Area while waiting, and has taken advice first. It is the wrong choice for anyone three months or more short, anyone who needs a fast decision, anyone with a partner who has not yet built their own five years, anyone close to the absence limit, and anyone whose sponsor might not still be licensed on the day of decision.

What CR 1.1 Actually Says

CR 1.1 of Appendix Continuous Residence reads in full:

"CR 1.1. The qualifying period for continuous residence will be calculated by counting back from whichever of the following dates is the most beneficial to the applicant, taking periods of absence into account:

(a) the date of application; or

(b) any date up to 28 days after the date of application; or

(c) the date of decision; or

(d) if the applicant is applying for settlement on the UK Ancestry route, and their last grant of permission was not as a person with UK Ancestry, the date their most recent permission as a person with UK Ancestry expired."

Limb (a) is the ordinary case: you already have five years on the day you apply. Limb (b) is where the familiar 28-day rule comes from. If you apply 28 days before your five-year point, the Home Office can count back from day 28 after your application, so you qualify whatever the decision date. Limb (c) is the one the early-application argument relies on. If the decision is made on or after your five-year point, the Home Office can count back from that date instead, so an application made earlier than 28 days can still meet the qualifying period. Limb (d) applies only to the UK Ancestry route and has no bearing on Skilled Workers.

Two words in the paragraph matter. "Most beneficial" means the Home Office must use whichever date works for you, not whichever it prefers. "Taking periods of absence into account" means the absence test moves with the date. If your five years are counted back from a decision in February, the 180-day limit in any 12-month period (CR 3.1) is tested across the five years ending in February, including any trips you took while the application was pending.

The Skilled Worker settlement rules point straight to this test. SW 21.1 of Appendix Skilled Worker requires a continuous period of 5 years in the UK, and SW 22.1 requires you to meet the continuous residence requirement in Appendix Continuous Residence during that period. Nothing in the validity requirements for settlement (SW 19.1 to SW 19.4) says an application made more than 28 days early is invalid.

Rules, GOV.UK guidance and caseworker guidance: which one counts

These three sources carry different weight, and on this point they do not say the same thing.

The Immigration Rules are laid before Parliament in statements of changes and are what a decision maker must apply. CR 1.1 is in the Rules. The GOV.UK guide for applicants is plain-English customer information, not law. It says: "The earliest you can apply is 28 days before you've been in the UK for 5 years on a qualifying visa. Check which visas count towards your time in the UK. Your application may be refused if you apply earlier." It also says: "If your visa expires before you can apply for indefinite leave to remain, you'll need to renew it first." That is sound practical advice, but it describes the safe position, not the legal limit.

Caseworker guidance is the published instruction to Home Office staff, and a failure to follow it is a ground for administrative review under AR 3.1(b) of Appendix Administrative Review. The Continuous residence guidance (version 10.0, published for Home Office staff on 8 October 2026) tells caseworkers: "You must count backwards from whichever of the following is most beneficial to the applicant to see whether they meet the qualifying period", and lists the date of application, any date up to 28 days after it, and the date of decision. It contains no instruction to refuse an application for being made too early. The Skilled Worker caseworker guidance (version 20.0, 3 August 2026) does not mention the 28-day rule at all in its settlement section and refers caseworkers to the Continuous residence guidance on residence and absences.

So the legal position favours you. The practical risk is that the decision comes before your five-year point, which no rule can fix, or that a caseworker applies the GOV.UK 28-day line instead of CR 1.1(c). The second would be a caseworking error you could challenge. The first would not.

How this fits with our earned settlement advice

In our earned settlement update of 6 October 2026 we said: "Apply on the earliest valid date, and never before it", and answered "No" to the question of applying early to get in before the rules change. That advice stands. Applying early to beat a rumoured rule change is a gamble on timing with nothing in the Rules behind it. Applying early because your permission runs out shortly before your five-year point, when the decision is almost certain to fall after it, is a different position, and CR 1.1(c) is written for it. Earned settlement itself remains a proposal: the consultation closed on 12 February 2026, no outcome has been published and nothing has been laid before Parliament, so the five-year rules quoted in this post are the rules in force.

The Real Cost of Each Route

The figures below come from the Home Office immigration and nationality fees table of 8 October 2026 and the GOV.UK pages on the Immigration Health Surcharge and the Immigration Skills Charge. They assume a standard Skilled Worker extension applied for inside the UK with a certificate of sponsorship (CoS) of three years or less, where the fee is £943 per person. The family is you, an adult partner and two children under 18, all eligible to settle together.

It matters who pays. You (or your employer, if it chooses to) pay the visa fee, the surcharge and the ILR fee for yourself and your family. Your sponsor pays the £525 CoS fee and the Immigration Skills Charge, and the sponsor guidance forbids it to recover the skills charge from you. The skills charge is payable on every in-UK application "for any length of time", and the sponsor guidance (Part 2, version 10/26, 8 October 2026, paragraphs S5.3 and S5.4) sets it at £1,320 (or £480 for small or charitable sponsors) "for any stated period of employment up to 12 months". There is no half-rate charge for a short certificate.

On the best case, an early application saves a single worker £1,460.50 and the sponsor £1,845 against a short extension. On the worst case, it costs the worker £3,226 more than the short extension would have, and a family of four £12,904 more. The variation route, when the timing allows it, gets you close to the early-application saving without the refusal risk.

If you are on the Health and Care Worker visa the arithmetic changes. The in-UK fee is £324 per person, and you and your family do not pay the surcharge at all, so a short extension is far cheaper and an early application is even harder to justify. If your job is on the Immigration Salary List, the in-UK fee is £628. Our IHS and visa fee calculator works out your own figures.

Correcting the "another year" assumption

You do not have to extend for another year. Under SW 18.1 you are granted permission "until 14 days after the end date of their certificate of sponsorship", so the length of your extension is set by the CoS your sponsor assigns. A CoS that ends a few weeks after your five-year point, with a margin for delay, is enough.

The length drives the surcharge. Inside the UK, permission of 6 months or less costs half the yearly rate (£517.50 for an adult, £388 for a child under 18). Permission of more than 6 months but less than a year costs a full year (£1,035 or £776), and permission of more than a year but no more than 18 months costs a year and a half (£1,552.50 or £1,164). A 12-month CoS gives a grant of 12 months and 14 days, which falls in the 18-month band. Keeping the grant to six months or less saves a single applicant £1,035 on the surcharge alone.

The extension must still meet the Skilled Worker rules in force on the date you apply, including the current salary rules. For the documents, CoS and timings, read our Skilled Worker visa extension guide and our guide to extending your Skilled Worker visa: documents, CoS allocations and timelines.

The Safer Middle Route: Extend, Then Vary Into ILR

This is the option missing from most discussions, and for many readers it is the best answer. You apply in time for a short extension, and if it is still undecided when your 28-day window opens, you submit your ILR application, which replaces the extension.

The rule is paragraph 34BB(1) of Part 1 of the Immigration Rules: "Where an applicant has an outstanding application for entry clearance or permission to stay which has not been decided ('the previous application'), any further application for entry clearance or permission to stay will be treated as an application to vary the previous application and only the most recent application will be considered." The Act allows it too. While your permission is extended by section 3C of the Immigration Act 1971 you cannot make a fresh application to vary your leave (section 3C(4)), but "subsection (4) does not prevent the variation of the application mentioned in subsection (1)(a)" (section 3C(5)). Your pending extension is that application.

The Home Office's Application validation, variation and withdrawal guidance (version 12.0, published for staff on 14 October 2026) confirms three things. A later application made after your visa has expired and while the first is undecided "is automatically considered as a variation". Your date of application stays the date of the original application for section 3C purposes, so you remain lawful throughout, while "for the purposes of assessment against the rules, the relevant date is the date the variation application is made". And on fees: "When the original and variation applications are made online, the applicant will have paid 2 fees. You must refund the fee for the first application." The Immigration and nationality refunds policy (version 13.0, 8 April 2026) says the same.

Because your ILR application is made inside the 28-day window, CR 1.1(b) already covers you. You do not need to rely on the date of decision at all.

Three conditions decide whether this works.

• The extension must be valid, in time and still undecided on the day you submit the ILR application. In-UK Skilled Worker decisions are usually made within 8 weeks, and many are faster. If the extension is granted first, nothing is lost except the saving: you hold new permission and apply for ILR inside the window in the normal way.
• Biometrics follow the first application's deadline. Paragraph 34BB(2A) says you "must still comply with the requirement to submit biometrics within the period stated for the previous application for the application to be valid". Plan the timing with your adviser before you submit either application.
• The ILR application is assessed under the Rules in force on the day you vary (34BB(3)). For most people this changes nothing, but it matters if your dates fall either side of 26 March 2027, when the B2 English requirement starts for Skilled Worker settlement applications (SW 22A.1).

What Makes an Early Application Fail

An early application succeeds only if every requirement is met on whichever date the Home Office counts from, and the decision does not come too soon. These are the points that sink it.

Staying Lawful: Section 3C, Administrative Review and the 14-Day Rule

If you apply before your visa expires, you stay lawful until the application is decided. Section 3C(1) applies where a person with limited leave applies to vary it before it expires and the leave expires before a decision. Section 3C(2) then extends the leave while the application "is neither decided nor withdrawn" and while "an administrative review of the decision on the application for variation (i) could be sought, or (ii) is pending". Time on 3C leave counts as time with permission on your route for continuous residence, according to the Continuous residence guidance.

If an early application is refused after your visa has expired, the sequence is strict.

Administrative review costs £80 and must be made within 14 calendar days of receiving the refusal (AR 2.6(c)). It checks whether the original decision was wrong on the facts and law at the time (AR 3.1 and AR 3.2). A refusal made because you had not yet reached five years on the date of decision was correct, so a review will not rescue it. A refusal made after your five-year point that ignored CR 1.1(c) is exactly the kind of error a review is for. Our administrative review service can tell you which you have, and our post on why winning an administrative review is not the finish line explains what happens next.

Be careful about making a new application while a review window is open. Under AR 2.16, a later application makes any review of the earlier decision invalid, and the validation guidance says such an application "brings the administrative review period and therefore any period of 3C leave, where applicable, to an end".

Paragraph 39E no longer exists

Much of the advice online still cites paragraph 39E for the 14-day overstaying exception. Paragraph 39E of Part 1 is now marked "DELETED". The rule lives in the "Exceptions for overstayers" section of Part Suitability at SUI 13.1. Under SUI 13.1(b) you are not treated as an overstayer if your new application was made following the refusal of an in-time application and within 14 days of the refusal, the expiry of any section 3C leave, the expiry of the time limit for administrative review, or the review being concluded or withdrawn.

A gap covered by SUI 13.1 protects your continuous residence, but it does not count towards it. CR 4.1(d)(i) says residence is not broken where you are later granted permission following an application to which the exceptions for overstayers applied, and CR 4.2 says that "any period of time where the applicant did not have permission will not be included in any calculation of the qualifying period". In practice, every day of the gap pushes your five-year point back by a day.

Your Position, Your Best Option

The right choice depends mainly on how far your visa expiry falls before your five-year point.

Partners and Children

Your family members do not simply ride on your dates.

A partner must have "spent a continuous period of 5 years in the UK with permission as a dependent partner" of you (SW 42.1), and must meet the continuous residence rules over that period (SW 43.1). If your partner joined you later, their five years end later than yours, and an early application for them carries its own, separate timing risk. Partners also need English at B1 in speaking and listening (B2 for applications made on or after 26 March 2027) and, if aged 18 or over, the Life in the UK Test (SW 44.1 and SW 45.1). Our post on completing 5 years when your partner joined later covers that situation.

A child does not need their own five years. Instead, the relationship requirement in Appendix Children normally means a child can settle only if both parents are being granted settlement at the same time or are already settled. If your partner cannot settle with you, your children usually wait too, as explained in our post on child ILR when your spouse cannot settle.

A dependant's settlement application is valid only if you have made a valid settlement application that is still undecided, or you are already settled (SW 37.2(e)). Family members who are not ready can apply later, and GOV.UK confirms they "can continue to extend their visa as your Skilled Worker, Health and Care Worker or T2 dependant, even after you get indefinite leave to remain".

Each person pays £3,226. That is why the family figures in the cost table swing so far: a family of four saves £5,583 on a short extension if an early application works, and loses £12,904 if it does not. For the wider rules, see our guide to ILR for dependants.

A Worked Timeline

Take Amira, a Skilled Worker since 20 January 2022. Her permission ends on 20 November 2026. She completes five years on 20 January 2027, so her 28-day window opens on 23 December 2026. The dates below are illustrative; real appointment and decision times vary.

Route A works only if the Home Office takes about eight weeks or more from her biometrics. Route B works whatever the decision speed. That is the whole difference between them.

A Word of Warning Before You Decide

Before you spend thousands of pounds extending your Skilled Worker visa for just a couple of months, check whether you have another legal option. You may well have one. But before you apply for ILR early, remember that applying more than 28 days early is risky. The Home Office could refuse your application, and a refusal costs more than the extension it was meant to save. This is not something to do without proper legal advice.

How Can WorkPermitCloud Help?

WorkPermitCloud is an IAA-regulated immigration adviser (F202100311) that advises Skilled Workers on whether to extend, vary or apply early for ILR and prepares the application at the right time. Through our ILR 5-year route service we check your five-year date, your absences against CR 3.1, your salary and your sponsor's position, and then tell you which route fits your dates. If you need a short extension first, our Skilled Worker visa team works with your sponsor on the CoS length, so the grant stays at six months or less where that suits you.

If an application has already been refused, our administrative review service can review the decision against CR 1.1 and the caseworker guidance inside the 14-day deadline. For the wider settlement picture, read our ILR and settlement guidance.

Conclusion

CR 1.1(c) is real, and it does what the early-application argument says: your five years can be counted back from the date the Home Office decides. The Home Office's own caseworker guidance agrees and does not tell caseworkers to refuse early applications. But the rule cannot control when the decision arrives, and a decision before your five-year point means a refusal and a lost fee for every person on the application.

For most people two months short, the better answer is a short extension, kept to six months or less, followed by an ILR application inside the 28-day window, ideally made while the extension is still undecided so that it varies the extension and the extension fee comes back. An early application can still make sense for a single applicant a few weeks short with clean absences and a secure sponsor, on the standard service, after advice. Whatever you choose, apply before your visa expires and do not leave the Common Travel Area until you have a decision.

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