What indefinite leave to remain gives you
It is worth being clear about what changes, because settlement is genuinely a different status rather than a longer visa.
You can live, work and study in the UK without restriction and without a time limit. There is no expiry date and no further application to make. Conditions such as no recourse to public funds fall away, so you can access benefits and housing assistance on the same basis as other residents. You can sponsor family members more easily. And after twelve months you can normally apply to naturalise as a British citizen — sooner if you are the spouse of a British citizen.
Two things to know. Settlement can be lost through absence: if you spend more than two continuous years outside the UK, ILR generally lapses. And it can be revoked in limited circumstances, principally where it was obtained by deception or where someone is liable to deportation.
The requirements every route shares
Whichever route you are on, settlement requires the same four things at the end of it.
- Continuous residence The right length of time on a qualifying route, without breaking continuity. How absences are counted differs by route and is where applications most often fail.
- English at B1 CEFR Speaking and listening, from a Home Office approved provider — higher than the A1 and A2 required earlier on the family routes. Exemptions apply for some nationalities, degree holders and on age or medical grounds.
- The Life in the UK Test Passed before you apply. Book it early; slots and retakes both take time, and a pass has no expiry so there is no advantage in leaving it late.
- Suitability and good character Criminal convictions, immigration breaches and deception all matter. Declare everything — an undeclared caution found later is far more damaging than a declared one.
The mistake that costs people years
If you take one thing from this page, take this.
Being in the UK lawfully for ten years does not automatically mean you qualify for settlement after ten years, and being on "the ten-year route" does not mean the same thing to everyone using the phrase.
Someone granted leave on the ten-year family and private life route is on a route where settlement comes after ten years on that route. Time spent here lawfully before joining it — on a student visa, say, or a work visa — does not count towards it. People who assume otherwise apply years early, pay the fee, and are refused.
Someone with ten years of continuous lawful residence may qualify under long residence, which is an entirely separate provision now governed by Appendix Long Residence. That has its own rules on what counts, and since 11 April 2024 time spent on immigration bail or as a visitor does not.
And there is a route that runs the other way. Where someone's circumstances improve — most often where a financial requirement can now be met — it may be possible to switch from a ten-year route to a five-year route, cutting years off the wait. Almost nobody is told this, because nobody reviews it. We look at it at every extension.
Absences: the requirement people trip over
Continuous residence is not the same as having held a visa for the whole period.
On most work routes, absences of more than 180 days in any rolling twelve-month period break continuity. That is a rolling window, not a calendar year, and people who count by calendar year get caught out.
On partner routes, the test is different: absences must be consistent with an intention to live together permanently in the UK, which is assessed on the facts rather than against a fixed number of days.
Under long residence, both individual and total absence limits apply, and time in certain categories does not count at all.
The practical advice is the same for all of them: keep a record of every trip as you go — dates out, dates in, and the reason for anything long. Reconstructing five or ten years of travel from old passport stamps at the point of application is miserable, and gaps in that reconstruction cause refusals.