Long residence: ten years of lawful stay
This route is for people who have been in the UK lawfully for ten continuous years, on any combination of visas that count.
It does not matter that the routes were different — student, then work, then partner is perfectly normal. What matters is that the residence was lawful throughout and continuous, and that the categories count.
Appendix Long Residence replaced paragraph 276B on 11 April 2024 and tightened several things. Time spent on immigration bail, as a visitor, or on short-term study does not count towards the ten years. Absences are assessed against limits both per absence and in total. And there are requirements on English at B1, the Life in the UK Test, suitability and — as always — no gaps in lawful leave.
A single gap is what usually defeats these applications. Someone whose leave expired for a fortnight eight years ago because an extension was filed late may find the clock restarted then, and be four years short of where they believed they were.
The family and private life ten-year route
This is a different thing entirely, and the name is the problem.
You are placed on it when you apply under Appendix FM or the private life provisions, do not meet the full five-year requirements, but refusing would breach your Article 8 rights. The commonest reasons are that the financial requirement cannot be met, that there are insurmountable obstacles to family life continuing abroad, or that a child is involved and it would be unreasonable to expect them to leave.
Leave is granted in blocks of 30 months. You extend repeatedly, and after ten years on this route you can apply for settlement.
Here is the part that catches people. The ten years counts time on this route. Five years spent here previously on a student visa, or a work visa, does not count towards it. Someone who has been in the UK for thirteen years but has only been on this route for six is six years in, not thirteen — and applying now means a refusal and a lost fee.
The route is also materially worse than the five-year route in other ways: more applications, more fees, and usually a no recourse to public funds condition unless it is lifted.
How to work out which one you are on
You cannot tell from how long you have been here. You tell from what you were granted.
- Look at your grant letters A grant of 30 months under Appendix FM where you did not meet the financial requirement is the ten-year family route. A grant on a work or study visa is not.
- Check whether every period was lawful Long residence needs ten continuous years of lawful leave. One gap, however short and however long ago, may have restarted the clock.
- List every visa you have held Long residence allows combinations; the family route does not count anything outside itself.
- Check for the no recourse condition Its presence is often a signal you are on a ten-year family or private life route rather than a five-year one.
- Ask whether you could switch If your circumstances have improved enough to meet Appendix FM in full, moving to the five-year route can save years.
Switching from ten years to five
This is the most valuable thing on this page and almost nobody is told about it.
If you are on a ten-year family route because a requirement could not be met at the time — most often the financial requirement — and your circumstances have since changed so that you now meet the requirements of Appendix FM in full, it may be possible to move onto the five-year route at your next application.
The difference is substantial. Five years to settlement instead of ten, fewer applications, fewer fees, and usually no recourse to public funds condition.
Nobody reviews this for you. The Home Office does not write to say your income now qualifies. It is checked only if you or your adviser think to check it — which is why we look at it at every extension rather than at the end, by which point the years have already been spent.