Most people who move to the UK on a work or family visa are working toward indefinite leave to remain (ILR), the permission to live in the country without a time limit. On most work routes the wait has been five years. On November 2, 2026, the Home Office published the government’s final plan to change that wait, under a policy it calls earned settlement.
The new system has no start date yet, so today’s settlement periods still apply. That does not protect everyone already in the UK, because an application decided after the new rules start will normally be decided under them. Once the system starts, the wait will depend on the visa a person holds, what they earn, when they arrived, and their immigration and criminal record.
Key takeaways
- Earned settlement is the UK’s new route to indefinite leave to remain, with 10 years as the default wait and three or five years for higher earners and some public service workers.
- The government confirmed the framework on November 2, 2026 but set no start date. Today’s settlement periods still apply, but an application decided after the new rules start will normally be decided under them, and the response announces transitional protection only for a few groups.
- Adult applicants will need English at B2 level, a pass in the Life in the UK Test, no criminal record, no unpaid government debt and a record of earnings, with the existing exemptions for age and health.
- Family members of British citizens and BN(O) visa holders keep a five-year path, and care workers who joined the care route before May 2025 keep five years if they meet its conditions.
What is earned settlement?
Earned settlement is the government’s new framework for indefinite leave to remain. Under it, the wait depends on a person’s contribution, integration and compliance with the rules, rather than on time in the UK alone. Indefinite leave to remain (also called settlement) gives the right to live, work and study in the UK without a time limit and to claim benefits if eligible. It is also the usual step before British citizenship.
The May 2025 Immigration White Paper committed to raising the standard wait from five to 10 years, and a public consultation on how to do it followed in November 2025. On November 2, 2026, the Home Office published A Fairer Pathway to Settlement: Government response to the consultation, which sets out the final framework.
Today’s rules still apply
The new framework is not in force, and the response gives no start date for it. Before anything changes, the government says it will turn the framework into detailed rules and publish further technical guidance and a full impact assessment. Until then, the GOV.UK settlement guides still give five years on most work routes, three years for Global Talent and Innovator Founder, and 10 years on the long residence route.
Timing still matters for people close to five years, because the response restates a long-standing principle. Unless transitional provisions (rules that protect people already on a route) say otherwise, a settlement application is decided under the Immigration Rules in force on the date of the decision. The rules in force when the person arrived do not protect them on their own. The response announces such protection only for the groups described further down, and the detailed transitional rules have not been published yet.
People who already hold indefinite leave to remain are not affected. The Home Office announcement states that settled status will never be removed from anyone who holds it.
The four pathways: 3, 5, 10 and 20 years
Under earned settlement, 10 years becomes the starting point. Earnings, public service work or family ties can shorten it, while immigration breaches or the use of public funds lengthen it.
| Pathway | Who it is for | Main condition |
|---|---|---|
| 3 years | The highest earners and top talent | Earnings of at least £125,141 a year in 3 of the last 4 years, or qualifying through the Highest Talent Group |
| 5 years | Higher earners, public service workers and people with a British connection | Earnings of at least £50,271 in 3 of the last 5 years, 5 years in an eligible public service occupation, or a British connection |
| 10 years | The starting point for everyone else | Earnings of at least £12,571 in 5 of the previous 7 years |
| 20 years | People kept off a shorter pathway by an immigration breach or the use of public funds | Earnings of at least £12,571 in 5 of the previous 7 years, where public funds or a breach rule out the shorter pathways |
Every pathway except the 20-year one also requires that the person has not used public funds in the five years before applying and has committed no qualifying immigration breach. The pathway length is the time to be spent in the UK on qualifying visas, while earnings are measured only over the last few years before applying. Refugees follow separate pathways, set out in a chapter of their own.
Where a typical Skilled Worker lands
For most Skilled Workers, pay decides the pathway. A worker paid at least £50,271 in three of the last five years would be on the five-year pathway. Without that pay, an eligible public service job or a British connection also gives five years, and otherwise the 10-year pathway applies, provided there are no public funds or breaches in the record.
How earnings will be counted
Earnings are assessed over a longer window than the pathway itself, so a year of lower pay does not automatically push someone onto a longer route. The government calls this the “best years” approach. A person aiming for the five-year pathway needs to reach the threshold in any three of the five years before applying, and on the 10-year pathway in five of the previous seven. Those years do not have to follow one another. The thresholds follow the UK income tax bands and will move if the bands change.
Couples will be able to combine their earnings to meet the minimum contribution, with a household threshold of £25,142 (twice the individual minimum). The combined figure counts toward the minimum only, and only one partner can rely on the other’s income. For Skilled Workers, the visa’s own salary and sponsorship rules still apply while they hold it, and our guide to the Skilled Worker visa covers them.
Who reaches the shorter pathways
Doctors, nurses, teachers, social workers and other health and education professionals whose pay follows a national pay scale can reach the five-year pathway whatever they earn. The response lists the qualifying occupations in an annex. People with a British connection also keep five years if they meet their visa’s requirements and the minimum standards. That group covers partners, parents and children of British citizens, and Commonwealth citizens on the UK Ancestry route. The response’s own example is a worker earning £42,000 who is married to a British citizen. The salary alone does not reach the five-year threshold, but the British connection does.
The Highest Talent Group is the second way onto the three-year pathway. The response does not list the schemes in it, and the Home Secretary described it as the government’s highest talent schemes. Its scope will be reviewed once the Migration Advisory Committee (the independent body that advises the government on migration) reports. Our guide to the Global Talent visa explains how that talent route works today.
What leads to the 20-year pathway
Specified immigration breaches committed as an adult place a person on the 20-year pathway, whatever they earn. The Immigration Rules will list them, and the response names overstaying a visa, breaching a visa condition, using deception in an application and obstructing immigration control. Use of public funds (the benefits and housing support listed in Home Office guidance) in the five years before applying has the same effect. A person who used public funds can still reach a shorter pathway by completing five continuous years on a qualifying route without them. A criminal record works differently, because it leads to refusal rather than a longer wait, as the next section explains.
Requirements every applicant will have to meet
Whatever the pathway, adult applicants will have to meet five minimum standards, and no level of earnings or public service can make up for a missing one. They are good character (which now includes having no criminal record), no outstanding government debt, English at B2 level, a pass in the Life in the UK Test, and a record of sustained contribution through earnings.
Criminal record
The criminality rule is the largest change. Today, refusal is mandatory only after a prison or suspended sentence of 12 months or more, repeat offending, or an offence that caused serious harm. Under earned settlement, any adult with a criminal record in the UK will be refused. That includes shorter and suspended sentences, conditional cautions, court fines, community sentences and discharges. An overseas conviction counts too where the conduct would be a crime in the UK. The government says no exemptions will apply to this requirement, though caseworkers keep discretion over offences committed before the age of 18. The response does not say how old or spent convictions will be treated.
English and the Life in the UK Test
The English requirement rises from B1 (the level of a GCSE in a foreign language) to B2 (the level of an A level). Children, people aged 65 and over and people whose physical or mental condition prevents them from meeting the requirement stay exempt, and stronger English at C1 will not shorten the wait. The Life in the UK Test, which checks knowledge of British history, institutions, laws and customs, continues with the same exemptions while the government reviews its content.
For some visas, part of this rise already has a date. Under Immigration Rules laid earlier, settlement applications made on or after March 26, 2027 by Skilled Workers and their dependants, Global Talent holders and long residence applicants need B2 in speaking and listening, unless an exemption applies.
Debts
No outstanding government debt means no unpaid NHS charges, no unpaid tax or National Insurance contributions and no litigation costs owed to the Home Office. Under today’s rules, debts like these lead to refusal only at the caseworker’s discretion and only where conditions such as a minimum amount are met.
Which visas will count toward settlement
Only time on visas designed to lead to settlement will count, so the long residence route will close under the new system. Today, 10 continuous years of lawful residence can lead to settlement, and years spent as a student or graduate count toward them. Under earned settlement, time on temporary visas will no longer count. They are Visit, Student, Graduate, High Potential Individual, Youth Mobility, Seasonal Worker, Global Business Mobility, the Temporary Worker visas, Overseas Domestic Worker, the Ukraine schemes and leave outside the rules (permission granted outside the Immigration Rules), a group the government says it will look at again.
The visas that count are the longer-term work, talent and family visas, among them Skilled Worker, Global Talent, Innovator Founder, Scale-up, UK Ancestry and the partner and parent family routes. For a graduate who switches to a Skilled Worker visa, only the Skilled Worker years count toward settlement. Time on a protection or human rights route cannot be added to time on a work or family visa either.
Partners and children
Families can still settle together, but adult children face new limits. A partner who arrived with the main applicant can settle at the same time. A partner who joined later must complete the full qualifying period from the date they joined. Children under 18 settle with their parents and are exempt from the earnings, debt, English and Life in the UK requirements, though the character rules still apply to them.
Young adults aged 18 to 24 who keep their status as a dependent child can still settle with their family. They meet the adult requirements except the earnings test. A dependant who is 25 or older when the family becomes eligible will be expected to qualify independently or move to a visa of their own.
Who keeps a shorter path or stays outside the new system
Some groups keep five years because of when they arrived, and others stay outside the new system altogether.
Care workers
Care workers who entered or switched into the care worker route before May 2025 keep the five-year path if they meet the route’s salary, sponsorship and employment requirements and the new minimum standards. Those who do not qualify after five years can apply for a further five-year Health and Care visa, restricted to genuine work in the sector, and then apply again. Care workers who joined after May 2025 go on the 10-year pathway.
One measure already has a date. From February 1, 2027, a care worker whose sponsor loses its licence will have up to 120 days to secure a new job offer. A further 60 days follow to resolve their visa and employment status, and after that the visa is cut short and the worker must leave the UK.
Health and education workers below degree level
Some health and education workers below degree level (RQF level 6, the level of a bachelor’s degree) also keep a five-year route if they came to the UK before May 2025. The arrangement covers jobs paid on a national pay scale, such as nursing auxiliaries and teaching assistants. It is a one-off arrangement for that group, and later arrivals in the same jobs go on the 10-year pathway.
Skilled Workers who arrived before April 2024
The April 2024 changes raised the Skilled Worker salary threshold and let workers already on the route extend on the old thresholds until 2030. The government will move that date to 2035, because jobs below degree level will face a 10-year wait for settlement. The extension protects the visa itself, and settlement for these workers follows the new pathways.
Routes outside the framework
Several groups stay outside the new pathways. British National (Overseas) visa holders from Hong Kong and members of the armed forces keep their current settlement arrangements. People on the Afghan resettlement schemes and those covered by the Windrush scheme keep theirs, as do bereaved partners and victims of domestic abuse. Family members of British citizens are inside the new system, but they keep five years through the British connection pathway, with the new minimum standards.
The reforms also do not affect three separate arrangements: the EU Settlement Scheme, Tier 1 (Investor) and the Ankara Agreement (ECAA) route for Turkish businesspeople and workers. The ECAA route is closed to new applicants. The response adds that people on routes outside the framework will still have to meet the stricter criminality rule and the B2 English standard unless an existing exemption or safeguard applies.
What the government has not decided yet
The response sets the framework, but several details people need for planning are still to come, starting with the date. It does not say whether a year of earnings means a tax year or another 12-month period, which kinds of pay count toward the thresholds, or what evidence applicants will need. The government says further technical and operational guidance will come before implementation.
The response names other open points itself: which public funds count and what safeguards protect vulnerable people, the Highest Talent Group review, and how people with leave outside the rules will be treated. It also does not say whether years already spent toward long residence, for example as a student or graduate, will be protected in any way.
Planning while the details are pending
For anyone on a route to settlement, the useful step now is to compare their own record with the four pathways. That means the date the qualifying period ends under today’s rules, the visas the time was spent on, and the earnings in each of the last seven years. It also means checking for anything that could bar settlement altogether, such as a conviction, an unpaid government debt or a period on public funds. Together these show which pathway is likely to apply if the new rules are in force when the application is decided. Our overview of UK visa routes shows the work and talent routes that lead to settlement.
The rules above were checked against the government response, GOV.UK guidance and the Immigration Rules as of November 2026.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Every immigration case depends on its own facts. For an assessment of your specific situation, consult an immigration attorney.
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