Settlement for Nigerian nationals

Routes to Settlement

The routes are the same as for any other nationality. The four that come up most:

• Skilled Worker visa: After 5 years on the Skilled Worker route, you can apply for settlement. Salary must be at the higher of £41,700 a year or the standard going rate, with lower figures for some cases.
• Spouse or partner visa: If married to or in a relationship with a British citizen or settled person, the partner route to settlement takes 5 years.
• Ancestry visa: As a Commonwealth citizen, you may qualify for the UK Ancestry visa if you have a grandparent born in the UK, the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man. Settlement follows after 5 years. There is no salary threshold and no sponsor, and the visa fee is £726.
• Long residence: After 10 years of continuous lawful residence, the long residence route is available regardless of which visa categories you have held.

Dual Nationality

What the UK does is clear enough. British nationality law does not require anyone to give up another nationality in order to naturalise, so from the UK side you can hold both. After settlement you can go on to British citizenship.

What Nigeria does is Nigerian law, and Rowan is not a source for it. Section 28 of Nigeria's 1999 Constitution treats citizens by birth differently from people who became Nigerian another way, and the effect of acquiring a second nationality is not the same for both groups. This matters enough to get from the authority itself: the Nigerian High Commission in London, or the Nigeria Immigration Service. Rowan publishes UK immigration rules and will not guess at another country's constitution.

Documents

The core documents are the same whatever your nationality. See our settlement documents checklist. Four points come up more often for Nigerian applicants:

• Nigerian passport: Ensure your passport is valid. If you have renewed your Nigerian passport during your time in the UK, provide all passports covering the qualifying period.
• Translations: GOV.UK asks for a certified translation of anything not in English or Welsh. A document in Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa or another Nigerian language needs one; one already in English does not.
• Marriage certificates: if the marriage took place in Nigeria, the certificate goes in, with a certified translation if it is not in English. GOV.UK does not publish a list of which forms of Nigerian marriage it accepts, so Rowan does not state one.
• English language: Nigeria is not on the UKVI list of majority English-speaking countries. English being an official language of a country does not put it on that list. So the requirement has to be met with an approved secure English language test, or with a degree taught in English confirmed as equivalent by UK ENIC.

The UK Ancestry Route, and What It Does Not Cover

This route is worth setting out carefully, because one thing about it is very often stated wrongly. Nigeria was under British rule until 1960, and it is widely repeated that a grandparent born in colonial Nigeria therefore counts. It does not. GOV.UK gives the qualifying birthplaces, and colonial territory is not among them.

• A grandparent born in the UK, the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man; or before 31 March 1922 in what is now Ireland; or on a ship or aircraft registered in the UK or belonging to the UK government.
• A grandparent born in colonial Nigeria does not meet that, however long Nigeria was under British rule. The birthplace has to be in the UK itself.
• You must be a Commonwealth citizen. Nigeria is a member.
• You must be 17 or over.
• You must be able to work, and plan to work, in the UK.
• You must have enough money, without public funds, to support and house yourself and any dependants.

For more on the ancestry visa, see our ancestry visa guide.

Financial Considerations

What is tested depends on the route. On the Skilled Worker route it is your salary: the higher of £41,700 a year or the standard going rate, with lower figures in some cases. See our guide to the salary threshold. On the partner route it is a combined income of at least £29,000 a year for anyone who first applied on or after 11 April 2024. See our income threshold guide. The UK Ancestry and long residence routes test neither.

Settlement itself costs £3,226 for each person applying, with no fee for fingerprints and photo and no healthcare surcharge on the application. GOV.UK does not publish any rule about sending money to family abroad, and Rowan will not invent one. See our cost breakdown.

Travel and Absences

The limit, where a route has one, is 180 days outside the UK in any 12-month period, counted as a rolling window. GOV.UK states it on the settlement pages for the work routes, Innovator Founder, Scale-up Worker and long residence. It does not state one on the page for settling as a partner on a family visa. See our guide to travel and absences.

Keep records of all your travel. Your passport stamps and airline booking confirmations are useful evidence. The Home Office can also check your travel history through UK Border Force records.

After Settlement: Citizenship

Naturalisation is the step after settlement. GOV.UK asks for 12 months holding settlement or settled status, 5 years' residence in the UK, no more than 450 days outside the UK across those 5 years and no more than 90 days in the last 12, English, the Life in the UK test and the good character requirement. It costs £1,839: £1,709 to apply and £130 for the ceremony. Unlike settlement, citizenship cannot be lost by living abroad.

For the full citizenship process, see our citizenship guide for Nigerian nationals. For general citizenship requirements, visit the GOV.UK citizenship page.

For what settlement already gives you, and where it differs from citizenship, see our guide to the rights settlement brings.

Questions and answers