Settlement for Filipino nationals

The Routes

• Skilled Worker. 5 years, with a salary requirement at the settlement stage. See our Skilled Worker settlement guide.
• Partner of a British citizen or settled person. 5 years. See our partner route guide.
• Long residence. 10 years' continuous lawful residence, with no salary requirement. See our long residence guide.
• Domestic worker in a private household. GOV.UK still lists this among the settlement routes, but it is the historic version of the route rather than the 6-month visa issued today. Check the GOV.UK route list against your own permission before relying on it.

Health and Care Work: Two Rules That Changed

Both of these are commonly repeated in their old form, and both are wrong now.

• There is no shortage occupation list. It was replaced by the Immigration Salary List in April 2024, and with it went the 80% going-rate discount. The Immigration Salary List lowers the general salary figure, to £33,400 for settlement, and lowers the visa fee. The full going rate for the occupation still applies.
• Care worker sponsorship is closed from overseas. The care worker and senior care worker codes are not open to new applicants from outside the UK. An application must be to stay in the UK, and the worker must either already hold Skilled Worker permission in one of the care codes or have worked for the sponsor in that code for at least 3 months, applying before 22 July 2028. In England the sponsor must be registered with the Care Quality Commission and carrying on a regulated activity. A worker sponsored this way cannot bring a partner or children.

For nursing and many other health and education codes, the Immigration Rules take the going rate from a national pay scale rather than a single published figure, and those pay scales differ between the UK administrations. Our going rate guide explains how to read that.

Salary at the Settlement Stage

The settlement salary table is in paragraph SW 24.3 of Appendix Skilled Worker. The general row is at least £41,700 a year and at least the going rate; the Immigration Salary List row is at least £33,400 and at least the going rate; lower rows at £31,300 and £25,000 apply to defined cases including previous health and education codes.

What counts is guaranteed basic gross pay. Paragraph SW 14.2 excludes shift, overtime and bonus pay whether guaranteed or not, employer pension and national insurance, all allowances, benefits in kind and one-off payments. Unsocial-hours enhancements and bank shifts therefore do not lift a salary to the threshold. See our settlement salary guide.

English and the Life in the UK Test

The Philippines is not on GOV.UK's list of majority English-speaking countries whose nationals do not have to prove knowledge of English. That list is Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, the British overseas territories, Canada, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Malta, New Zealand, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, and the USA, with Ireland treated separately.

English at B1 in speaking and listening applies for settlement, rising to B2 from 26 March 2027 on routes including Skilled Worker and Long Residence. A degree taught or researched in English can be used as evidence instead of a test, which is often the practical answer for Philippine graduates. See our English for settlement guide.

The Life in the UK test costs £50, has 24 questions in 45 minutes, must be booked at least 3 days in advance, and can be retaken as often as needed, paying each time. People under 18 and people aged 65 or over do not take it.

Documents

• Civil registry documents. Birth and marriage certificates issued by the Philippine Statistics Authority, the successor to the National Statistics Office, are the official civil registry records.
• Translations. Documents in Filipino or another Philippine language need a certified English translation.
• Passports. Provide the passports covering the qualifying period. Philippine passport services in the UK run through the Philippine Embassy in London.
• Police certificates. A settlement application does not routinely require an overseas police certificate. Certain other applications do.

See our documents checklist. Embassy contact details are on the GOV.UK foreign embassies list.

Absences

Trips home are long, and the rule counts them. No more than 180 days outside the UK in any 12-month period, counting whole days only: the day you leave and the day you land back do not count. The exceptions are a closed list in paragraph CR 3.4 of Appendix Continuous Residence, and ordinary family travel is not on it. See our absence rules guide.

Keeping Philippine Citizenship

Two separate questions, and only one of them has a UK answer.

On the UK side, GOV.UK says: “Dual citizenship (also known as dual nationality) is allowed in the UK. This means you can be a British citizen and also a citizen of other countries.” The UK will not ask you to renounce anything.

On the Philippine side, it is Philippine law that decides, and GOV.UK's own advice is to “check with the country's consulate or embassy in the UK to find out about that country's laws on dual nationality”. Ask the Philippine Embassy in London rather than relying on any UK source, including this one. See our citizenship guide for Philippine nationals and our dual citizenship guide.

Costs and Timing

Settlement costs £3,226 for the applicant and £3,226 for each person included, with no immigration health surcharge on the application. A decision usually takes up to 6 months; priority is £500 and super priority £1,000. See our cost breakdown and our processing times guide.

Sending money to family in the Philippines has no bearing on a settlement application. What the rules test is the salary or income the route requires, not what you do with it. After settlement, see our rights and benefits guide and our settlement to citizenship journey.

Questions and answers