ILR Calculator: When Can You Apply to Settle in the UK?

Your qualifying period is how long you have to live in the UK before applying. There is no need to wait for the final day of it. The Home Office, the government department that deals with visas, lets you apply up to 28 days before your time is up (see the Home Office time rules).

If you apply more than 28 days early, you have not been here long enough yet, and your application may be refused. The fee is £3,226 for each person, so it is worth getting the date right.

If you applied for your visa from abroad, your years usually start on the day the visa was granted. That is true even if you arrived in the UK a few weeks later. This short gap counts, as the Home Office explains in its guidance on how to count your time.

But if more than 180 days passed before you arrived, your time starts on your arrival day. If you were already in the UK and changed to this visa from another one, your time starts when the new visa was granted.

There is also a limit on trips away from the UK: 180 days at most in any 12 months, counted from any date, not just January to December.

Visitor visa time is not counted.

Husbands, wives and partners who settle through the five-year partner route can count only their partner visa years. Time on a fiancé visa, the visa for coming to the UK to marry, does not count. The 10-year partner route has its own way of counting.

Some people first come as the partner or child of a Skilled Worker and later get a Skilled Worker visa of their own. Only the time on their own Skilled Worker visa counts. For the three-year Innovator Founder route, the years that count are those spent on an Innovator Founder visa or its older version, the Innovator visa.

Perhaps you have had several different visas and none of them gives you enough time on its own. You may still be able to settle after 10 years of living in the UK legally without a break. This is called long residence.

Check the end date on your current visa. You can only apply to settle while your visa is still valid. If it ends before you are allowed to apply, you will need to extend your visa first.

If you apply before your visa ends, you are allowed to remain in the UK until you get a decision, even if the old visa runs out in the meantime. Anyone aged 18 to 64 also needs a pass in the Life in the UK Test before applying. It is a short multiple-choice test on British history and everyday life.

The government has asked the public for views on a plan called earned settlement. Under that plan, most people would wait 10 years before they could apply, not five.

It is only a plan for now, and today's rules still apply. On 15 September 2026 the Home Secretary, the minister in charge of immigration, told members of Parliament that each application is judged by the rules in place on the day it is made. Our earned settlement page explains what is planned and what is already law.