Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) and Settlement

Key Takeaways

• Most work routes lead to indefinite leave to remain after 5 years of continuous residence. Innovator Founder, and Global Talent holders other than those endorsed under the exceptional promise criteria, can settle after 3 years, and the Long Residence route takes 10.
• You can combine time on the qualifying work routes, but your most recent permission must be on the route you are settling on, and time as someone else's dependant never counts towards your own work route five years.
• Your qualifying period starts on the start date of your visa, not the day you land. Every day between that start date and your first arrival counts as a day outside the UK. If your visa started two months before you arrived, you have already used about 60 of the 180 days allowed in that first 12 months.
• You must not spend more than 180 days outside the UK in any 12-month period. Business trips and parental leave abroad count towards that limit. Only the reasons listed in the Rules are disregarded.
• A Skilled Worker's sponsor must still hold its licence on the day the application is decided, and must confirm that it needs you and will pay you the settlement salary for the foreseeable future.
• A partner who joined you later should keep extending as your dependant after you settle, not switch to a family visa. Their dependant time counts towards their own five years. A family visa starts the clock again and brings in a £29,000 income test.
• The fee is £3,226 for each person, and you can apply up to 28 days before your qualifying period ends.
• WorkPermitCloud's ILR 5 year route service checks your dates, absences, salary and family position before you apply, and prepares the application with you.

Introduction

This page is for people on a UK work route who want to settle permanently, and for their partners and children. It explains which routes lead to indefinite leave to remain, how the qualifying period and absences are counted, what else you must meet, and what happens after you are granted. Family routes are covered in Dependants and Family, and English at settlement in English Language Requirements.

What Indefinite Leave to Remain Gives You

Indefinite leave to remain, usually shortened to ILR and also called settlement, is permission to stay in the UK with no time limit. You can live, work, study and run a business without the conditions attached to a visa, you no longer pay the Immigration Health Surcharge, and you can apply for public funds and pensions if you are eligible. It is also the usual step before British citizenship.

ILR is not citizenship. You remain a national of your own country, you travel on your own passport, and your status can be lost in the ways set out under After You Get ILR below.

Which Routes Lead to Settlement

Each route to settlement has its own qualifying period, set out in its own appendix of the Immigration Rules. The table covers the work and business routes, Long Residence and the dependants who settle with them.

The Scale-up earnings test and the Innovator Founder criteria are set out in Self-Sponsorship and Founder Routes, and the Health and Care Worker visa in Care Worker and Health Routes.

Combining Time on Different Routes

On the Skilled Worker, T2 Minister of Religion, International Sportsperson, Scale-up and Global Talent routes, your qualifying period can be made up of time on any combination of these routes: Skilled Worker, Global Talent, Innovator Founder, T2 Minister of Religion, International Sportsperson, Representative of an Overseas Business, Scale-up, and any Tier 1 category except Tier 1 (Graduate Entrepreneur). Tier 2 (General) counts as Skilled Worker. Two years on Global Talent followed by three on Skilled Worker is five years.

Three rules limit this. Your most recent permission must be on the route you are applying to settle on. Innovator Founder, Representative of an Overseas Business and UK Ancestry settlement only count time on that route. And time as someone else's dependant does not count towards your own five years, however long it was.

Routes That Do Not Count

Time on the Graduate, Student, High Potential Individual, Visitor, Youth Mobility and Global Business Mobility routes does not count towards settlement on a work route. Moving from the Graduate route to Skilled Worker starts your five years on the day your Skilled Worker permission begins. Graduate and Student Switching explains the switch. The Long Residence route is different: time on most routes counts towards its ten years, though not time as a Visitor.

The Qualifying Period

The five years must be continuous, lawful and on the right routes. You can check the date you are likely to qualify with our ILR eligibility calculator, and our guide to when you will be eligible for ILR as a Skilled Worker walks through the timing.

When Your Qualifying Period Starts

If you came to the UK with a visa granted overseas, your qualifying period runs from the date your entry clearance took effect, which is the start date on your visa or eVisa. You do not lose the days before you travelled. But the Home Office's continuous residence guidance is explicit that the time between the grant of entry clearance and the day you entered the UK counts towards your absences. Those days count towards your five years and towards your 180-day limit at the same time.

This is the half of the rule that is usually left out, and it causes refusals. A worked example:

The applicant has broken continuous residence without ever spending more than four months away in one go. Had the pre-arrival days not been counted, the total would have been 125 days and there would be no problem. If your visa start date and your arrival date were weeks apart, count those days before you book any long trip in your first year.

If you switched into a qualifying route from inside the UK, the qualifying period on that route runs from the date your permission on it was granted.

What Counts and What Does Not

• Changing employer. Time with different sponsors on the Skilled Worker route counts towards the same five years, provided you made a change of employment application where one was needed and there was no gap in your permission.
• Waiting for a decision. If you applied to extend before your permission expired, your permission continues by law under section 3C of the Immigration Act 1971 until the application is decided. That time counts as time with permission on your route.
• Gaps without permission. A gap breaks continuous residence unless one of the exceptions in the Rules applies. The main ones: an overstay that was disregarded because a later application met the Part Suitability exceptions for overstayers, or leaving the UK with permission and applying for entry clearance before it expired or within 14 days of its expiry, where that application succeeded. A disregarded gap does not count towards your five years.
• Crown Dependencies. Lawful time in Jersey, Guernsey or the Isle of Man on an equivalent route counts as time in the UK, provided your most recent permission was granted in the UK.
• Offshore work. Time working offshore beyond UK territorial waters, for example on a ship or oil rig, counts as time outside the UK.
• The COVID-19 concession. Time on another route while waiting for a Skilled Worker or International Sportsperson decision counts, where the application was for permission to stay, made between 24 January 2020 and 30 June 2021 (inclusive), supported by a certificate of sponsorship, and granted.

Absences and Continuous Residence

Continuous residence is the test most likely to decide an ILR application. It is set out in Appendix Continuous Residence, which applies to every work route and to Long Residence. The Home Office's continuous residence caseworker guidance explains how caseworkers apply it.

The 180-Day Rule

You must not have been outside the UK for more than 180 days in any 12-month period during your qualifying period.

• For permission granted on or after 11 January 2018, the 12 months are rolling. Any 12-month window you choose inside your qualifying period must contain 180 days or fewer outside the UK.
• For permission granted before 11 January 2018, absences during that permission are counted in consecutive 12-month periods ending on the anniversary of your application date.
• Only whole days count. A journey that leaves on one day and returns the next counts the days wholly spent outside the UK, not the travel days.
• Every day outside the UK counts, including days abroad while an application was pending and days before your first arrival once your visa had started.

Business travel is an absence like any other. So is parental leave spent abroad. An employer asking you to work overseas does not stop those days counting, unless the work falls into one of the reasons below.

Absences That Do Not Count

Days outside the UK for these reasons, and only these, are left out of the 180-day count (paragraph CR 3.4 of Appendix Continuous Residence). You should expect to provide evidence of the reason.

A partner or child can also rely on an absence where they were accompanying the main applicant who was away for one of these reasons.

The list is closed. Maternity, paternity and parental leave spent abroad, and ordinary business travel, are not on it, whatever you may have read elsewhere. Where a reason is on the list, "compelling and compassionate" is judged on the facts, and the caseworker will ask whether the absence was planned, whether it was in your control, and whether something outside your control stopped you coming back sooner.

What Breaks Continuous Residence

Continuous residence is broken, and the count starts again, if:

• you are convicted of an offence and sentenced to imprisonment (a suspended sentence does not break it), or directed to be detained in an institution other than a prison
• you are subject to a deportation order, an exclusion order or an exclusion direction, or to removal directions under section 10 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999
• you are removed or deported from the UK
• you did not have permission for a period, and no exception applies
• your absences exceed the limit and none of the reasons above covers the excess
• you leave the UK voluntarily after being refused permission, once any permission you held has expired

If your absences are close to the limit, get a copy of your travel history before you apply rather than relying on memory or passport stamps. eGates and travel through Ireland leave no stamp, and caseworkers can check Home Office records. An absence you leave off the form, which the Home Office then finds, can lead to refusal for giving false information, which is far worse than an absence you declared and explained.

Other Requirements for Settlement

Salary at Settlement

Skilled Workers must meet a settlement salary as well as the qualifying period. For most people it is at least £41,700 a year and at least the going rate for the occupation code. Lower figures apply to jobs on the Immigration Salary List, to people first sponsored before 4 April 2024 who have held Skilled Worker permission since, to health and education jobs on national pay scales, and to some former Tier 2 (General) researchers. There are no new entrant or PhD discounts at settlement, and only pay from your sponsored job counts, up to 48 hours a week. The rules on what counts as salary are the same ones that apply when you extend, and caseworkers can check 12 months of your PAYE records.

A care worker or senior care worker employed by an eligible employer, such as a provider registered with the Care Quality Commission, is in a Health and Care ASHE salary job on the Immigration Salary List, so the settlement salary is at least £25,000 and the Table 2aa going rate, which is also £25,000. The test is the job and the employer, not the name of the visa.

Every row of the settlement salary table, and how to work out which one applies to you, is in Skilled Worker: Eligibility and Salary. Our guide to UK ILR salary thresholds covers the traps that catch people at the last minute.

Your Sponsor at Settlement

A Skilled Worker cannot settle on the strength of five years alone. On the date the application is decided, the sponsor from your most recent permission must still be licensed to sponsor Skilled Workers, and must confirm that it needs you to keep working for it for the foreseeable future and will pay you at least the settlement salary for the foreseeable future. A letter or email is enough. No new certificate of sponsorship is needed. The same applies on the T2 Minister of Religion and International Sportsperson routes.

This is the point at which a sponsor's problems become yours:

• If the sponsor's licence is suspended when you apply, the Home Office will not decide your application until the suspension is resolved.
• If the licence is revoked before your application is decided, the application is refused, however long you have been in the UK.

If your sponsor's licence is at risk, a change of employment to a new licensed sponsor, made while your permission is still valid, protects your five years, because time with different sponsors counts towards the same qualifying period. Sponsor Licence: Suspension and Revocation explains what happens to a licence, and Skilled Worker: Job Loss and Second Jobs covers your options if your job ends close to five years.

English Language

What you need depends on your route and your date of application, not on when your five years end.

• Skilled Worker and Scale-up main applicants: no English requirement at settlement where the application is made before 26 March 2027. Where it is made on or after 26 March 2027, English at level B2 in speaking and listening, unless an exemption applies.
• Global Talent, International Sportsperson, Representative of an Overseas Business and UK Ancestry main applicants, and partners and adult children settling with a Skilled Worker or another work route: B1 in speaking and listening where the application is made before 26 March 2027, and B2 in speaking and listening where it is made on or after that date.
• T2 Minister of Religion and Innovator Founder main applicants: their appendices set no English requirement at the settlement stage.
• Hong Kong BN(O): B1 in speaking and listening.
• Under 18 or aged 65 or over: exempt.

The Skilled Worker caseworker guidance says B2 must be shown in all four skills, which goes further than the Rules. Every approved test at B2 covers all four anyway. English Language Requirements explains this conflict, the tests and the exemptions in full.

The Life in the UK Test

You must pass the Life in the UK test if you are 18 or over and under 65, unless a disability prevents you from meeting the requirement. The test costs £50 and must be booked online at least 3 days ahead. It lasts 45 minutes, has 24 questions, and the pass mark is 75%. A pass does not expire, so you will not need to take it again when you apply for citizenship. Book it well before your 28-day window opens, because you need the reference number when you apply. The details are on GOV.UK's Life in the UK Test page.

Suitability

You must not fall for refusal under Part Suitability of the Immigration Rules, which covers criminality, deception, false information and failing to attend an interview. On the date of application you must not be in breach of immigration laws, other than a period of overstaying that is disregarded under the exceptions for overstayers, and you must not be on immigration bail. A settlement application is a full check of your history, not only the last five years.

Applying for ILR

When You Can Apply

The earliest you can apply is 28 days before your qualifying period ends. The Rules count your continuous residence back from whichever date is best for you: the date of application, any date up to 28 days after it, or the date of decision. If your five years are completed on 10 June, the earliest date you can apply is 13 May. An application made earlier than that may be refused.

Do not let your current permission run out while you wait. If it expires before your five years are complete, extend it first, then apply for settlement when you qualify. Skilled Worker: Apply, Switch and Extend covers extensions, and our ILR 5 year route service handles the settlement application itself.

You apply online on form SET(O) (Innovator Founder and Long Residence have their own settlement forms) and you must be in the UK when you apply. You then book an appointment to give your fingerprints and photo, and children aged 6 or over give them too.

Documents

The online form tells you what to provide for your circumstances. For a Skilled Worker, expect:

• your passport or travel document
• your sponsor's letter or email confirming it still needs you for the foreseeable future and will pay at least the settlement salary
• a payslip and a bank statement for your most recent month's pay, dated no more than 31 days before you apply
• your Life in the UK test reference number
• English language evidence, where the English requirement applies to you
• the dates of and reasons for every absence in your qualifying period, with evidence for any you say should not count
• for a partner or child, evidence of the relationship and, for children aged 16 or over, of where they live and that they are not living an independent life

Fees and Decision Times

Complex cases take longer, for example where documents must be verified, an interview is needed, or there is a criminal conviction. The fees for visas and the Immigration Health Surcharge are set out in Visa Fees and Sponsorship Costs.

While You Wait

Do not travel outside the UK, Ireland, the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man until you have a decision. If you do, your application is treated as withdrawn. Provided you applied before your permission expired, your permission and its conditions continue by law until the decision, and you can keep working. Your right to work and your status are held digitally, as explained in eVisa and Digital Status.

If Your Application Is Refused

You can apply for administrative review if you think the decision contains a caseworking error. It costs £80 and has a deadline, so act as soon as the decision arrives. Some applications that fall short for settlement can be varied by the Home Office into an application for further permission instead: the Innovator Founder, Hong Kong BN(O) and Long Residence routes all provide for this.

Settlement for Partners and Children

Partners and children usually settle on the same route as the person they came with. They can be included on the same application form, or apply later when they qualify. Our comprehensive guide to ILR for dependants covers their application in more detail.

Partners

A partner of a Skilled Worker (and of a Global Talent, Innovator Founder, T2 Minister of Religion, International Sportsperson or Scale-up worker) can settle once they have spent 5 continuous years in the UK with permission as that person's dependant. The partner's five years are counted on their own. Time the partner spent on their own visa, not as the main applicant's dependant, does not count towards this.

The partner must also meet the relationship requirements (unmarried partners need to have lived together for at least two years), the continuous residence rules above, the English requirement and the Life in the UK test. The main applicant must be settling at the same time, or already be settled or British, having settled on the route.

If Your Partner Joined You Later

The right answer: your partner keeps extending as your dependant on the same route after you settle, and applies for ILR when they reach their own five years.

The Rules allow this in terms. A partner can be granted further permission as the dependant of a Skilled Worker who has settled or become British, provided the partner held permission as their partner when they settled, and each such grant is for 3 years. Every day of it counts towards the partner's own five years. A worked example:

Switching the partner to the family route, as the partner of a settled person under Appendix FM, can look attractive because it feels like the natural next step once you hold ILR. It is not: time as a Skilled Worker dependant does not count towards the family route's five years, so the clock starts again from zero, and the family route brings in a £29,000 minimum income requirement that the dependant route does not have.

If you have read advice telling you to switch a partner to the family route once you settle, do not follow it. The main applicant should still apply as soon as they qualify: waiting for a partner gains nothing, and your own permission may expire in the meantime. Dependants and Family covers the family route and its income requirement.

Children

A child has no qualifying period. A child can settle with a parent, or after them, if all of the following apply:

• the child was last granted permission as that parent's dependant, or was born in the UK to them
• the other parent is settling at the same time, or is already settled or British, unless the parent applying is the sole surviving parent, has sole responsibility for the child, or there are serious and compelling reasons
• the child meets the care and independent life requirements: a child aged 18 or over must have first come as a dependant while under 18 and must not be living an independent life, for example by marrying or having children of their own

Children aged 18 or over must also meet the English requirement and pass the Life in the UK test. A child born in the UK before the parent settled can settle with them.

Long Residence: Settlement After Ten Years

The Long Residence route lets you settle after 10 years of continuous lawful residence in the UK, whichever routes that time was on. Our ILR 10 year route service covers these applications.

• What counts: time with permission on almost any route, time exempt from immigration control, time as an EEA national or family member exercising rights before the end of 2020 (and until 30 June 2021 or the final decision on an EU Settlement Scheme application made by then), and time as a British citizen. Permission as a Visitor, Short-term Student (English language), Seasonal Worker or under the Ukraine Scheme does not count.
• What does not count: immigration bail, temporary admission or release, and any period of overstaying between grants, even if it was later disregarded.
• Current route: if your current permission was granted on or after 11 April 2024, you must have held it for at least 12 months when you apply.
• Absences: for absences that began on or after 11 April 2024, the 180-day rule above. For absences that began before 11 April 2024, no single absence of more than 184 days, and no more than 548 days in total in that part of the qualifying period.
• English and Life in the UK: B1 in speaking and listening (B2 where the application is made on or after 26 March 2027), and the Life in the UK test, unless exempt.

If you do not qualify for settlement, the Home Office can grant further permission on the route or consider you under the family or private life rules instead. The rules are in Appendix Long Residence.

Other Routes to Settlement

Family and Private Life Routes

Partners and parents of British citizens and settled people settle under Appendix FM after 5 years on the family route, or after 10 years under Appendix Settlement Family Life. Private life settlement usually takes 10 years, or 5 for a child or young adult who qualified under the half-life test, and a child born in the UK who has lived here continuously for 7 years may be able to settle straight away. These routes have their own absence rules and requirements, covered in Dependants and Family and our guide to the seven year and twelve year rules for children and parents.

The EU Settlement Scheme

Settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme is a separate form of indefinite leave with its own rules on qualifying residence and absences. Settled status lapses after more than 5 continuous years outside the UK (4 years for Swiss citizens and their family members). eVisa and Digital Status explains how the Home Office now converts and reviews pre-settled status, and our EU Settlement Scheme service can help with applications.

Protection routes, HM Armed Forces, and the bereaved partner and domestic abuse routes also lead to settlement, each on its own terms.

Proposals to Change Settlement

The government has consulted on an "earned settlement" model, which would change how long it takes to qualify for indefinite leave to remain on many routes and what applicants must show. None of those proposals is in the Immigration Rules. The requirements on this page apply until new rules are laid before Parliament and come into force, and this page will be updated when they are. Our explainer on the earned settlement model that was consulted on sets out what was proposed.

After You Get ILR

Proving Your Status

Your ILR is held as an eVisa in your UKVI account. You prove it to employers, landlords and at the border with that account and a share code, as explained in eVisa and Digital Status. If you were sponsored, your employer no longer needs to sponsor you, and it must tell the Home Office through its sponsorship management system that you have settled and that it has stopped sponsoring you. Sponsor Licence: Compliance and Duties covers that duty.

Losing ILR

• Living abroad. ILR lapses by law if you are outside the UK for more than 2 continuous years. It does not lapse while you accompany a partner or parent serving in HM Armed Forces or as a Crown servant overseas.
• Coming back after a lapse. You can apply from abroad for a Returning Resident visa. You must show strong ties to the UK kept up during your absence and that you intend to return to live here, and you must not have received public money towards the cost of leaving. The details are on GOV.UK's Returning Resident page.
• Revocation. The Home Office can revoke ILR if it was obtained by deception, if you are liable to deportation but cannot be deported for legal reasons, or in certain cases where refugee status ends. A deportation order also ends it.

Becoming a British Citizen

Most people can apply to naturalise once they have lived in the UK for 5 years and held ILR for 12 months. You must have been in the UK exactly 5 years before the Home Office receives your application, spent no more than 450 days outside the UK in those 5 years and no more than 90 days in the last 12 months, and not broken immigration laws in that period. You must also meet the English and Life in the UK requirements, be of good character and intend to keep living in the UK.

If you are married to, or in a civil partnership with, a British citizen, you can apply as soon as you have ILR, without waiting 12 months, after 3 years' residence with no more than 270 days outside the UK in those 3 years and 90 in the last 12 months. For a partner who settled on a work route, the practical gain is skipping the 12-month wait, since their own ILR took five years. Our British citizenship service handles naturalisation applications, and English Language Requirements sets out the English level for citizenship.

Detailed Guides on This Topic

• When you will be eligible for ILR as a Skilled Worker: the five-year window, salary rows and timing.
• Comprehensive guide to ILR for dependants: partners' and children's settlement applications.
• Guide to UK ILR salary thresholds: which salary row applies at settlement.
• The seven year and twelve year rules for children and parents: settlement for children on the private life route.
• The earned settlement model explained: what the government consulted on.

How Can WorkPermitCloud Help?

WorkPermitCloud is a Legal and HR-tech company specialising in UK business immigration. Before you apply, we work out your qualifying date from your full immigration history, audit your absences against the 180-day rule including the days before you first arrived, check which salary row applies and whether your sponsor can confirm it, and plan the order in which you and your family should apply so nobody's clock is reset. We then prepare the application with you through our ILR 5 year route service, or the ILR 10 year route service for Long Residence. For employers, we handle the sponsor confirmation and the report to the Home Office once a worker settles.

Conclusion

Settlement on a work route is mostly a question of counting correctly: the right routes, from the right start date, with every day abroad included and only the listed reasons left out. The rest follows from that: a sponsor that is still licensed, the right salary row, English and Life in the UK where they apply, and a family plan that keeps each person's clock running. Check your dates before you book long trips in your first year, keep partners on the dependant route until they qualify, and apply in the 28 days before your five years end.

Glossary