In a welcome change to the EU Settlement Scheme, the continuous residence requirement for pre-settled status and settled status has been simplified. The change takes effect on 16 July 2025.
The EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS) allows qualifying EEA nationals and their family members to live in the UK post-Brexit. Those who complete five years’ ‘continuous residence’ in the UK are eligible for settled status, also known as Indefinite Leave to Remain.
In January 2025, the Home Office began automatically switching eligible pre-settled status holders to settled status, without the need to make a further application.
When you hold pre-settled status, you must maintain ‘continuous residence’ in the UK to qualify for settled status after completing a continuous qualifying period of five years.
Old rule
Under the old rule, ‘continuous residence’ was broken when a person was absent from the UK for more than six months in any given 12-month period. Absences above this would be disregarded in only limited exceptional circumstances.
This requirement has been widely criticised as being overly complicated and because it was not being made clear to applicants when the scheme was first introduced, with many families unintentionally breaking their continuous residence in the UK.
There is no option to start a new residence period after 31 December 2020, meaning that – once broken – you could not start a new five-year residence period.
New rule
To rectify this, pre-settled status holders can now be granted settled status where they have been resident in the UK for at least 30 months in the most recent 60-month period. This means that if you can show that you have been resident in the UK for at least 2.5 years over the course of the last five years, you will be eligible for settled status.
These changes were announced on 24 June 2025 in the statement of changes to the Immigration Rules: HC 836 and rules will take effect on 16 July 2025.
How we can help
If your settled status application has been refused due to excess absences, you may now be able to reapply under the new, more generous rules on absences.
For advice and assistance about how this change could impact you, contact our friendly immigration team.