UK settlement: which years will count, and which will not

When the settlement reform was announced on 2 November, everyone counted the new timings: three years, five or ten. But the government response contains a section that will matter more than the timings for many people. It answers a different question: which of the years you have already spent in Britain will count at all.

Why the route matters more than the years

Because the Long Residence route is closing. Today someone who has lived lawfully in the UK for ten years, even across different visas, can apply for indefinite leave to remain (ILR) on that basis, and almost any lawful permission counts — including study.

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Under Earned Settlement that route goes. The government states the principle plainly: temporary routes should remain temporary, and time spent in the UK for a temporary purpose should not build up qualifying residence towards permanent settlement. Only time on routes intended to support long-term residence will count.

Which routes count

The government lists them. Longer-term work, talent and family routes, referred to as core permission: Skilled Worker, UK Ancestry, Global Talent, Scale Up, Innovator Founder, International Sportsperson, Tier 2 Minister of Religion, Stateless Person, and the Family partner and parent routes. Alongside them: Family and Private Life, Core Protection, Core Protection Work and Study, and Safe and Legal routes.

One caveat matters. Not every route qualifies for every pathway. Permission granted under Family and Private Life, for example, will not qualify a person for the three or five-year pathways; those applicants go through the ten or twenty-year route instead.

Which routes do not count

The list is equally explicit: Visit, Student, Graduate and High Potential Individual, Youth Mobility, Seasonal Worker, Overseas Domestic Worker, Global Business Mobility, Temporary Worker routes, and Leave Outside the Rules.

The Ukraine schemes are on that list too — Homes for Ukraine, the Ukraine Family Scheme, the Ukraine Extension Scheme and the Ukraine Permission Extension Scheme. A footnote explains this reflects the government's commitment to the Government of Ukraine: the schemes remain temporary protection rather than a path to permanent status.

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I studied here and now I work — do my student years disappear?

For the new clock, yes. Today those years could be carried towards ten years of long residence. Under the reform they will not build qualifying residence. The clock starts when a person moves onto a route from the first list — Skilled Worker, for instance.

Can time on different routes be combined?

Within the same family of routes, yes: an applicant completes the qualifying period on a route, or combination of routes, that lead to settlement. But protection and human-rights routes cannot be combined with work or family routes. The document's own example: someone who comes on a work visa and later claims asylum cannot count the work-route years towards settlement through the protection system; the clock restarts on the move.

Who keeps their existing terms

Several commitments are untouched. Hong Kong BN(O): settlement after five years. Afghan schemes: immediate settlement. Windrush: existing citizenship or settled status confirmed, no qualifying period. HM Armed Forces: settlement after at least four years' reckonable service, with partners and children after five years' continuous residence.

Protective arrangements continue as well. Bereaved partners can apply immediately where the partner their status depended on has died, and so can victims of domestic abuse where that relationship has broken down because of the abuse. Existing arrangements remain for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, children in local authority care, and young adults who grew up in the UK with insecure status.

All of these groups still have to meet the strengthened general requirements on criminality and B2 English, unless an exemption applies.

What to do now

Check which visa you hold and find it in one of the two lists above. If it is on the second list, it is worth knowing in advance which qualifying route you will move onto, and when. Everything else — English, no debt to the taxpayer, a clean record — applies to everyone regardless.

What nobody knows yet

The dates. The framework has been announced; the detailed rules and transition arrangements are still to be written, with technical guidance and a full impact assessment promised before implementation. Until then the current rules stand and each application is decided under the rules in force at the date of decision.