What is proposed, and what is in force
A longer qualifying period for settlement has been proposed and consulted on, and is not law. This guide sets out what the government actually published, where the process has got to, and what is still in force.
- Section
- ILR & Settlement
- Reading time
- 9 min
- Last checked
- 18 February 2026
- Source
- The published Immigration Rules and GOV.UK guidance, linked throughout this guide.
- Rowan does not
- Look at your own case, tell you which route to choose, or say what the Home Office will decide. This guide shows the published rules and where to read them.
In short
- Nothing has changed: the current qualifying periods are still in force.
- The consultation ran from 20 November 2025 to 12 February 2026.
- GOV.UK says the responses are being analysed and the outcome will be published there.
- GOV.UK does not publish a route-by-route list of who would be affected, so Rowan does not either.
- A separate, real 10-year route already exists: long residence.
This is a proposal, not a rule. The 2025 immigration white paper proposed a longer qualifying period for settlement, and the government consulted on it between 20 November 2025 and 12 February 2026 under the title 'A Fairer Pathway to Settlement'. GOV.UK says the responses are being analysed. Nothing has changed in the Immigration Rules: the qualifying periods in force are still 5 years on most routes, 3 on Global Talent for exceptional talent and on Innovator Founder, and 10 for long residence.
What Has Been Proposed
The 2025 Immigration White Paper included a proposal to increase the qualifying period for indefinite leave to remain from 5 years to 10 years. The government then consulted on it.
The consultation was published on 20 November 2025 as A Fairer Pathway to Settlement, and closed at 11:59pm on 12 February 2026. GOV.UK's page for it now reads "We are analysing your feedback", and says the outcome will be published there.
The principle the government put out for consultation was this: "Settlement will no longer be granted automatically after a fixed period. Instead, migrants will need to earn it by demonstrating sustained good conduct, contribution and integration." The white paper it came from is Restoring Control over the Immigration System.
What Is Actually In Force
GOV.UK's consultation page does not publish a route-by-route list of who a change would reach, and Rowan does not supply one. Every list of "likely affected" routes you find online is somebody's reading of a document that has not produced a rule yet.
What is in force, today, is unchanged:
- Skilled Worker, Health and Care Worker, Scale-up Worker, UK Ancestry, Minister of Religion, International Sportsperson: 5 years.
- Partner on a family visa, and British National (Overseas): 5 years.
- Global Talent: 3 years for an exceptional talent endorsement or an eligible prize, 5 for exceptional promise. Innovator Founder: 3 years.
- Long residence: 10 years.
- Refugee or humanitarian protection status: 5 years.
For changes that have actually been made, see our guide to recent settlement changes.
Implications
The shape of the consequences is easy enough to describe without predicting the rule. A longer qualifying period means more extensions before settlement, and each extension carries an application fee and the healthcare surcharge, currently £1,035 a year for most people and £776 a year for students, their dependants, Youth Mobility and under-18s. Settlement itself carries no healthcare surcharge, so reaching it later means paying it longer. On a sponsored route it also means being tied to a sponsor for longer. And because naturalisation asks for 12 months holding settlement, a later settlement date moves the citizenship date with it.
How much any of that would come to depends on rules that do not exist yet, so Rowan puts no total on it.
Transitional Arrangements
None have been published. Whether people already part-way through a qualifying period would stay on the current rules, and on what terms, is not something GOV.UK has stated, and it is not something Rowan will guess at. The outcome of the consultation will be published on its GOV.UK page, and any rule change would appear in a statement of changes to the Immigration Rules.
The Requirements That Have Actually Changed
One settlement change is already in the rules, and it is worth not confusing with the proposal. The English requirement at settlement rises from CEFR B1 to B2 for applications made on or after 26 March 2027. That was laid in HC 1691 on 5 March 2026 and appears in Appendix Long Residence at LR 13.1 and Appendix Settlement Family Life at SETF 5.1, among others. Preparing for the Life in the UK test and the English language requirement is about a rule that exists; the 10-year proposal is not.
On timing, GOV.UK does publish one fixed point: on the routes with a 5-year qualifying period, the earliest you can apply is 28 days before the 5 years is up, and applying earlier than that risks refusal. See our guide to the 28-day rule and our settlement requirements guide.
The Existing 10-Year Route
A 10-year route to settlement already exists, and it has nothing to do with the proposal. The long residence route reaches settlement after 10 years of continuous lawful residence on any combination of permissions. It has been in Appendix Long Residence since 11 April 2024. Search results run the two together constantly; they are different things, and only one of them is law.
Questions and answers
Will ILR take 10 years instead of 5?
Not as things stand. A longer qualifying period was proposed in the 2025 immigration white paper and then consulted on. The consultation, 'A Fairer Pathway to Settlement', ran from 20 November 2025 to 12 February 2026, and GOV.UK says the responses are being analysed. No change has been made to the Immigration Rules, and the qualifying period on the routes that have one is still 5 years.
When will the 10-year ILR rule come into effect?
There is no date. The consultation closed on 12 February 2026 and GOV.UK's page for it says the government is analysing the responses; the outcome will be published there. Any change would then need a statement of changes to the Immigration Rules. Rowan cannot say whether or when that will happen.
Which routes would the change apply to?
GOV.UK's consultation page does not set out a route-by-route list, and Rowan will not invent one. What it does publish is the principle the government consulted on: 'Settlement will no longer be granted automatically after a fixed period. Instead, migrants will need to earn it by demonstrating sustained good conduct, contribution and integration.' Until the outcome is published, the current qualifying periods are the ones in force.
This guide is general information about published immigration rules. It is not advice about an individual application under s.82 Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, and Rowan is not regulated by the Immigration Advice Authority. Immigration rules change several times a year. For advice on a particular situation, contact an adviser authorised by the Immigration Advice Authority or an immigration solicitor. Always check GOV.UK for the authoritative current rules.