Which visas count towards settlement under earned settlement

Where This Stands

On 2 November 2026 the Home Secretary announced the government's decision on earned settlement, and the Home Office published its response to the consultation, A Fairer Pathway to Settlement: Government Response to the Consultation (CP 1707). This guide covers one part of that decision: which visas will count towards the qualifying period for settlement, also called indefinite leave to remain.

Three points about status apply to everything below:

• It is a decision, not a rule. No statement of changes to the Immigration Rules has been laid to put it into effect. The latest statement of changes is HC 584 of 3 September 2026, and it does not touch any of this.
• Today's rules still apply. The routes to settlement in the current Immigration Rules, including the 10-year Long Residence route, remain in force until a statement of changes says otherwise.
• The timing comes from Parliament, not from the published documents. The Home Secretary told the House of Commons on 2 November 2026: “The changes that have been announced will begin to be laid from the December immigration rules. They will be implemented over the course of 2027.” The response itself gives no start date for the new framework.

For the whole decision (the 3, 5, 10 and 20-year paths, the requirements everyone must meet, and the arrangements for people already in the UK), see our guide to earned settlement.

The Principle: Temporary Visas Stay Temporary

The government's response explains the change in one line: “time spent in the UK on a route which is explicitly temporary should not count towards settlement” (page 18).

It describes the current position like this: “Under the current rules, temporary routes such as the Student and Graduate routes do not themselves lead directly to settlement. However, lawful time spent on these routes can count towards settlement through the separate 10-year Long Residence route” (page 20).

Under earned settlement, the government says, “time spent on temporary routes will not count towards the qualifying residence period for settlement” (page 20). The response also states that residence alone will no longer be enough: someone has to hold permission on a route that counts, and meet the contribution, integration, character and residence requirements of the pathway they apply through (page 19).

Visas That Will Count

The response lists six groups of routes that will count towards settlement (page 19).

• Core permission (longer-term work, talent and family routes): Minister of Religion (Tier 2), Skilled Worker, UK Ancestry, Global Talent, Scale-up, Innovator Founder, International Sportsperson, Family – Partner, Family – Partner/Parent (excluding Article 8 cases), and Stateless Person.
• High talent permission (specified talent and innovation routes): Skilled Worker, Global Talent, Scale-up, Innovator Founder and International Sportsperson.
• Family and Private Life: the Family and Private Life routes.
• Protection Work and Study: the new protection route for refugees in work or study.
• Core Protection: the standard protection route for refugees.
• Safe and Legal routes: the UK Resettlement Scheme and other specified resettlement and sponsorship routes.

Some notes on the list:

• Article 8 means Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the right to respect for private and family life. The response leaves partner and parent cases decided under Article 8 out of “core permission”.
• Global Talent and Innovator Founder. Where someone applies through the 3 or 5-year pathway on the basis of Global Talent or Innovator Founder permission, the response says “the most recent grant of permission must have been in the Global Talent or Innovator Founder route, as the case may be” (page 19, footnote 10).
• The “high talent” list is not a list of who gets 3 years. The response's summary table says the 3-year pathway is for people who earned £125,141 for 3 of the last 4 years, or who qualify “through the Highest Talent Group”. It does not define that group, and it marks it “Subject to review pending MAC report”: a report from the Migration Advisory Committee, the body that advises the government on migration (page 42). The footnote list above includes Skilled Worker, so it cannot be read as the list of routes that settle in 3 years.

Not every visa that counts can use every pathway

A route that counts does not give access to every pathway. The response says: “permission granted under the Family and Private Life routes will not qualify a person for the three or five-year settlement pathways. Applicants on those routes may instead qualify through the relevant 10 or 20-year pathway if they meet the applicable requirements” (pages 19 to 20).

Family and Private Life routes are different from the partner and parent routes in the “core permission” list. Partners, parents and children of British citizens are part of what the government calls a “British connection”, which it places on the 5-year pathway (page 14). See our guide to partners and children under earned settlement.

Visas That Will Not Count

The response lists the routes whose time will not count towards settlement under earned settlement (page 20):

• Visit
• Student. Time on it can count towards Long Residence today.
• Global Business Mobility
• Temporary Worker routes
• Youth Mobility
• Seasonal Worker
• Overseas Domestic Worker
• Graduate and High Potential Individual. Graduate time can count towards Long Residence today.
• Ukraine Scheme routes, including the Homes for Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme, the Ukraine Family Scheme, the Ukraine Extension Scheme and the Ukraine Permission Extension Scheme. Footnote 11 gives the reason: “Reflecting our commitment to the Government of Ukraine.”
• Leave Outside the Rules. Footnote 12 says the government “will give further consideration to the treatment of this cohort and set out our approach in due course.”

The response says these routes “were established for specific temporary purposes and were not intended to provide a pathway to permanent residence in the United Kingdom” (page 20).

For the rules on these visas as they stand today, see our guides to the Student visa, the Graduate route, the Youth Mobility Scheme and the Ukraine schemes.

The Long Residence Route Will Close

The Long Residence route lets someone apply for settlement after 10 years of continuous lawful residence in the UK. Under today's rules, time on most visas can count towards those 10 years, including routes that do not lead to settlement on their own, such as Student and Graduate.

The response says: “Under Earned Settlement, the Long Residence route will close. Time spent on temporary routes will no longer build towards settlement simply because an individual subsequently reaches 10 years of lawful residence. Only time spent on specified routes intended to support long-term residence will count towards settlement” (page 19).

What the response does not say:

• When the route closes. There is no closure date. The only timing is the Home Secretary's statement to the Commons that the changes will begin to be laid from December 2026 and be brought in over 2027.
• What happens to people part-way through. The response sets out transitional arrangements for three groups: care workers who entered or switched into the route before May 2025, health and education workers below degree level on national pay scales who came before May 2025, and Skilled Workers sponsored before April 2024. It sets out none for people building up time towards Long Residence.
• Whether time already spent on temporary visas will count for anything under the new framework.

On the general question of people already in the UK, the response states: “The courts have recognised that, unless transitional provisions are made, applications are ordinarily considered under the Immigration Rules in force at the date of settlement decision. Being in the UK does not give someone an automatic right to settle under the rules that existed when they first arrived” (page 37).

Until a statement of changes closes it, the Long Residence route is in the Immigration Rules. Our Long Residence guide sets out its current requirements, and our guide to settlement after a Graduate visa covers how Graduate time is treated today.

Adding Time Together From Different Visas

Under today's rules, time on different routes can sometimes be added together towards settlement, including through Long Residence.

Under earned settlement, the response says, “time spent on protection or human-rights routes (for example, refugee or Article 8 routes) will not be able to be combined with time spent on work or family routes to meet the qualifying residence period. Where someone moves between these routes, the qualifying period for the new settlement pathway will start when they move onto it” (page 21).

The response gives its own example: “someone who comes to the UK on a work visa and later claims asylum will not be able to count their previous work-route residence towards the qualifying period for settlement through the protection system” (page 21).

The response does not say anything specific about adding together time on two different work or talent routes, for example Skilled Worker followed by Global Talent. Both are on the “core permission” list, but the response does not address that case directly.

Refugees and the Protection Routes

The protection routes count towards settlement, but each has its own qualifying period, and time on one does not always carry over to another. The government's response says:

• Safe and Legal routes: 5 years.
• Protection Work and Study: 10 years, counted from the date someone moves onto that route. “Time previously spent on Core Protection will not count” (page 34).
• Core Protection: 20 years.
• Illegal entry: an additional 10 years, unless Article 31 of the Refugee Convention applies (pages 34 to 35).

For refugees who claimed asylum before 2 March 2026 and are not on a Safe and Legal route, the response says they “will move to Core Protection. Any time spent with refugee status will count towards settlement” (page 34, footnote 14). Our guide to settlement for refugees sets out the rules in force today.

Groups Outside the Framework

Some groups keep their own settlement arrangements and are outside the earned settlement framework (pages 21 to 23). They include:

• Hong Kong British National (Overseas) visa holders (settlement after 5 years);
• the Afghan schemes;
• the armed forces;
• Windrush;
• the EU Settlement Scheme;
• bereaved partners and victims of domestic abuse;
• unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and children who have grown up in the UK.

The response adds that people on most of these routes “will need to meet the strengthened requirements that will apply generally to settlement, including the new criminality requirements and the B2 English language standard, unless an existing exemption or safeguard applies” (page 21). The full list is in our guide to earned settlement, and the current BN(O) rules are in our Hong Kong BN(O) guide.

What Has Not Been Published

These points are not answered in the response or in the Home Secretary's statement:

• the date the Long Residence route closes;
• any arrangement for people part-way through the 10 years;
• the government's approach to leave outside the rules;
• whether time on two different work or talent routes can be added together;
• the exact date on which time on a temporary visa stops counting;
• how time already spent by refugees who receive protection before Protection Work and Study begins will apply. The response says further detail will be set out (page 34).

The response says that “before implementation, the Government will publish further guidance setting out additional technical and operational detail” (page 6).

Related Guides

• Earned settlement: what the government decided
• What changed between the 2025 proposal and the 2026 decision
• Care workers and earned settlement
• Public service jobs on the 5-year settlement path
• Partners and children under earned settlement
• The Long Residence route today
• Continuous residence for settlement

Sources

• Home Office, A Fairer Pathway to Settlement: Government Response to the Consultation (CP 1707), published 2 November 2026. Page numbers above are the printed page numbers.
• Home Secretary's statement to the House of Commons, “Immigration: Earned Settlement”, 2 November 2026, Hansard.
• Immigration Rules: statements of changes, GOV.UK.

This guide sets out published information. It does not say how the rules apply to any one person. Only a person regulated by the Immigration Advice Authority or a solicitor can advise on an individual case. See our guide to getting help with an application.

Questions and answers