Home Office proposes sweeping changes to settlement requirements

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The Home Office has proposed sweeping changes to the rules governing eligibility for Indefinite Leave to Remain in the UK.

Everyone who cares about migrant rights in the UK should respond to this consultation, and needs to read and fully understand these proposals: if implemented, their consequences will be far-reaching for individuals, for businesses, and for the country.

Note that these are proposals, not rule changes, and are currently subject to consultation until 12 February 2026.

The major change

The main proposed change is a general increase in the ‘baseline’ settlement qualification period from 5 years to 10 years.

This means that, in general, people will need to spend 10 years continuously living in the UK before they are entitled to live here on a permanent basis.

This baseline requirement can be reduced for some, while it can be increased for others, depending on certain features of the individual applicant’s case.

New mandatory requirements

Before we get to the features which can adjust the continuous period up and down there are some really important new mandatory requirements which apply to everyone:

  • No criminal record/no current litigation, NHS, tax or other government debt
  • B2 Level of English + Life in the UK test
  • Mandatory minimum salary requirement of £12,570 for a minimum of 3 to 5 years (subject to consultation), or an alternative amount of income

The increase in the English language level required (B2, up from B1) and the suitability/no criminal record requirements are not a surprise.

Mandatory minimum salary

However, the mandatory minimum salary requirement is new: this proposal would require each applicant – even if a dependant – to earn a minimum amount for a certain number of years before they can apply for settlement (either 3 or 5 years is proposed).

The consultation paper asks if ‘Those on maternity leave or long-term illness/disability’ or ‘Those in certain occupations with different pay arrangements (e.g. Ministers of Religion)’ should be exempt from this requirement.

It does not ask, however, whether a couple that has made a choice for one parent to stay at home to look after young children (or for any other reason) should be exempt.

What about a dependant who wants to start a business that is going to be pre-revenue for a few years and who would not meet the £12,570 minimum salary? What about someone who is caring for an elderly relative? Or who is taking a career break?

Visa status which reduces the qualification period

Being on a certain visa route will automatically reduce the 10-year baseline qualification period. This includes those on the following routes:

  • Appendix FM (minus 5 years) (e.g. spouse of a British citizen)
  • British National Overseas route (minus 5 years)
  • Global Talent Worker or Innovator Founder (minus 7 years)

Note that anyone who has permission under the EU Settlement Scheme will not be affected by the changes. Some other limited groups (e.g. Windrush, children in care/care leavers) are also exempt.

Other features that will reduce the qualification period

The proposal is that, for the purposes of any particular application, where more than one feature applies, only one of them (i.e. the one that causes the largest adjustment) would be applied. The main features are as follows:

  • C1 Level of English (minus 1 year)
  • Taxable income of £125,140 for 3 years immediately prior to settlement (minus 7 years)
  • Taxable income of £50,270 for 3 years immediately prior to settlement (minus 5 years)
  • Employed in a specified public service occupation for 5 years (minus 5 years)
  • Applicant has worked in the community (volunteering, etc) (minus 3–5 years)

Note that ‘specified public service occupations’ include ‘those who are working in vital public services’, but only in occupations at qualification level RQF6+. This means that care workers, for example, would not be entitled to rely on this reduction.

Features increasing the qualifying period

The Home Office has also proposed that, where the following features apply in a given case, the qualifying period would increase beyond the 10-year baseline period:

  • Receiving benefits (‘public funds’) for less than 12 months at any point during the route to settlement (plus 5 years)
  • Receiving benefits for more than 12 months at any point during the route to settlement (plus 10 years)
  • Arrived in the UK illegally e.g. via small boat/clandestinely (plus up to 20 years)
  • Applicant entered the UK on a visit visa (plus up to 20 years)
  • Applicant has overstayed a permission for 6 months or more (plus up to 20 years)

The guidance document explains that ‘Where a plus and a minus consideration apply, the adjustments would be combined (for example, where the relevant adjustments for a particular applicant are that the applicant had been in receipt of public funds for less than 12 months but meets the C1 level English consideration, there would be an upward adjustment of 5 years and a downward adjustment of 1 year, resulting in an overall upward adjustment of 4 years, making the applicant’s total qualifying period 14 years).’

Conscious uncoupling

The proposals seek to break the relationship between a main applicant and their dependant, a structure which was formalised in the Immigration Act 1971 but existed long before this:

We expect it to become the position that the qualifying period for settlement for a person granted entry and stay as the adult dependent of an economic migrant will be separately determined according to their own attributes and circumstances. This will mean that a person admitted as the dependant of an economic migrant will not necessarily enjoy the same qualifying period for settlement as their partner. It may be shorter or longer, according to their particular circumstances.

This feature of the new proposals is likely to cause very significant disruption to migrant lives.

Instead of the visa process being a periodic (albeit stressful and very expensive) pain in the backside every few years, it will now loom over discussions about how lives are lived: about starting a family, about taking that job, about starting that business, about taking time out of work for whatever reason.

Will this apply to partners of British citizens?

At the time of writing (24 November 2025), we do not know the answer to this question.

It is clear from the proposals that EU Settlement Scheme grantees are exempt from the proposed reforms.

And in her introduction, the Secretary of State says that 'settlement will be quicker for those who have a uniquely strong attachment to this country, including the spouses and dependants of British citizens', which suggests that the reforms will not be applied to those in Appendix FM routes.

But if neither EUSS grantees nor family members of British citizens are going to be affected by these proposals, then why are the latter included within the proposed 'Adjustment to baseline qualifying periods' (see below), but the former are not?

I guess it would also make sense for those on the Appendix FM routes to be able to reduce their qualifying period by e.g. earning £125K+ per year: it would likely be difficult to defend if a high-earning spouse of a
British citizen was not able to reduce their qualifying period in this way, whilst someone on a work route was.

But the whole way that Appendix FM works is that a couple is treated as one economic entity for earnings purposes and they already have a (recently increased) Minimum Income Requirement which they need to meet. It would be bizarre to layer this requirement on top.

And it is difficult to see how the principle of de-coupling applicants – where they must meet requirements on their own – emerging from the proposals could possibly be reconciled with the functioning of Appendix FM which treats people in marriages, as you know, like they are in life: a joint venture.

So logic (mostly) suggests that these new rules – and particularly this pernicious, absolutely bonkers mandatory minimum income requirement – will not be applied to Appendix FM visa holders.

But I don’t think we will know the answer to this question until the new rules are tabled after the consultation process has concluded.

Is there transitional protection?

Will these new rules apply only to people arriving in the UK at some point in the future, or will they apply to people who are already here?

The Home Office has confirmed that these new rules will not apply to those who already have settled status.

It is not yet clear whether there will be ‘transitional protection’ for individuals already in the UK/on a pathway to settlement: whether there should be is a question that is explicitly asked in the consultation.

Given that one of the main policy objectives here is to try to prevent the so-called ‘Boriswave’ of increased migration that took place in 2022–2024 from being entitled to apply for settlement, it is difficult to imagine that there won’t be at least some retrospectivity.

Other important proposals

In amongst all of this, it appears that the standalone 10-year Long Residence route is to be abolished, with an applicant needing to have spent time in routes which specifically lead to settlement.

There is also a proposal to increase the time required to settlement for Skilled Workers who are employed in non-high-skilled roles (deemed as below RQF 6) to up to 15 years.

And finally, there is a proposal to prevent access to public funds for those who have obtained settled status.

What will be the impact?

It is not possible at this stage to answer this question with any degree of certainty.

However, a very likely impact of the proposed ‘earned settlement’ framework will be an increase in complexity for applicants.

Why is this likely? The proposals envisage that almost everyone who applies to settle will need to meet a minimum ‘taxable income’ threshold.

An example of an immigration route in which applicants must demonstrate a certain level of income is Appendix FM (the family migration route).

The guidance for caseworkers considering the Minimum Income Requirement (by itself) in these applications runs to 80 pages.

And we know that when the requirement to show earnings was first introduced to the family visa route in July 2012, the refusal rate in entry clearance applications jumped from around 19% in Q1 2012, to around 46% in Q4.

The average refusal rate in entry clearance applications for the next 4 years was around 25% before reducing over time to its current refusal rate of around 5%, where it has hovered for several years.

We also know that the time taken for decisions to be made after the introduction of this requirement trebled in partner applications (both in-country and entry clearance).

Perhaps the proposed scheme, focussing on ‘taxable income’, will be simpler to administer than Appendix FM (which enables applicants to meet the threshold in a variety of ways (e.g. cash savings, rental income etc), and which can be combined). We don’t know.

But even if it is simpler, the numbers applying for settlement are likely to be in the hundreds of thousands a year, rather than in the low tens of thousands currently applying within Appendix FM: that’s a lot resource that the Home Office doesn’t have.

And we haven’t even talked about the mountain of additional work that will be created by the requirement for migrants to make repeated applications, sometimes over decades, before they qualify for settlement.

The gradual reduction in the refusal rate in the family route shows that a lot of mistakes are made initially, whilst everyone – applicants and caseworkers – get used to the system.

But the consequences of a refusal today are far greater: in 2012, the fee you would lose was around £850, and you could get an appeal heard before an independent judge in around 14 weeks.

Refusal of your settlement application today would result in loss of a £3,029 fee. If there is a right of appeal before a judge, it will likely take over a year to be decided. The Home Office internal review process is currently also taking over a year (my last one took two years).

One hopes the Home Office have factored all of this in. Although somehow I doubt it.

You can read the proposals and respond to the consultation here.