The UK government has announced it will scrap the 10-year Long Residence route and replace it with a new Earned Settlement Scheme, but written immigration rules have not yet been published — so exact dates, salary thresholds and transitional arrangements remain lawyers’ predictions, not confirmed facts.
In short
- The 10-year Long Residence route is being scrapped: there will be no separate application form for it, and the only way forward will be through Skilled Worker, Appendix FM, or Appendix Family and Private Life.
- Switching between settlement categories midway resets the qualifying time already accumulated — it has to be built up again from scratch.
- The Earned Settlement Scheme shortens the path to settlement to 5 or 3 years only for applicants who can prove a sufficiently high salary; exact thresholds aren’t yet fixed in the immigration rules.
- The Home Office checks that an applicant’s salary is genuinely generated by the business, not paid to themselves out of their own funds — otherwise it won’t count toward settlement.
- FLR(FP) processing officially takes 10–12 months, but in practice a decision can still be pending after 18 months, with no way to speed up the process.
The May 2025 White Paper and the transitional dates
The government is treating the May 2025 White Paper as the dividing line: the entire logic of the Long Residence transitional arrangements is built around it. Those who entered the UK before May 2025 remain under the old transitional scheme. Those who came through skilled worker routes after May 2025 will have to go through the Earned Settlement Scheme — a new programme with separate conditions for settlement.
That boundary makes sense for people who joined a route after the new rules were introduced: they know the terms going in. The open question is different — will the new requirements also be applied to people who are already in the UK and have been waiting under the old rules for the 10-year route.
The date mentioned in the source material — November 2026 — refers to the government’s political announcement and the publication of its response to the consultation, not to the law taking effect: written immigration rules had not been published at that point, and no date for their entry into force had been named; in the source material the date itself came out garbled, with a hedge and a self-correction from November to May regarding the start of the period. If the law ends up covering people who entered in the gap between May 2025 and November 2026, applying the new, stricter conditions to them retroactively, that transitional cohort is exactly the group for whom legal action against the government becomes possible.
Until the law is formally passed, it’s risky to treat exact figures and wording as final: the source itself flags that clarity on these dates is still pending and promises to revisit them once policy becomes law.
Scrapping the 10-year Long Residence route: what’s known
The policy announcement is clear on one point: the Long Residence route will cease to exist. There will be no separate application form for that status — anyone who was counting on it will have to switch into other settlement routes: Skilled Worker, Appendix FM, or Appendix Family and Private Life.
Until the new law takes effect, the old rule formally still applies: if 10 years of continuous residence is completed this week or next, the applicant still falls under the old regime. The exact date after which Long Residence applications can no longer be filed will only become clear once the new law is introduced — the government hasn’t named it yet.
The key test is the moment the applicant actually reaches 10 years. If that happens before the law takes effect, the period counts and the application can still be filed under the old rules. If the 10 years are only completed after the new law is in force, filing a Long Residence application will be impossible, because the form itself will no longer exist.
This directly affects anyone who was counting on time spent on a student visa and a Graduate route visa toward the ten-year period: without a Long Residence application form, there will simply be nothing to count those periods toward — they don’t carry over automatically into the new settlement categories. The qualifying period will have to be built up again from scratch, strictly within a single category: switching categories midway resets the accumulated time.
switching categories midway resets the accumulated time
The policy text and the May 2025 White Paper contain no transitional provision for people completing their 10 years close to the rules’ introduction date. The wording includes neither a grace period nor the right to backdate an application — even if only a month remains before the ten-year mark is reached. If future immigration rules add such a carve-out separately, that will only become clear once they’re published.
Neither the policy nor the White Paper provides a grace period, even for applicants just a month away from completing 10 years — a backdated application won’t be possible.
Earned Settlement Scheme: salary thresholds for the 5-year route
The Earned Settlement Scheme is the route for those who entered the UK on a Skilled Worker visa after May 2025: it’s the proposed mechanism for shortening the path to permanent residence from ten years to five. The condition is a salary above roughly 50,000 (the White Paper doesn’t name an exact figure, and the commentator admits not remembering it precisely) over the last three years. A third, even shorter route is also mentioned — three years, with a threshold somewhere around a hundred thousand pounds, though the commentator acknowledges uncertainty about the exact number — “something along those lines.”
If the salary doesn’t reach either threshold, the migrant stays on the general 10-year path — the five-year route isn’t an alternative in that case, it’s an exception reserved for those who can prove the income.
What counts toward the salary
An open question is whether bonuses, commissions and overtime count toward the threshold. The official position at the time of the discussion: a guaranteed bonus counts, but the interpretation depends on the overall structure of the compensation package. Officials’ informal remarks suggest overtime and bonuses may be included in the calculation, but the final definition of salary will only appear in the text of the immigration rules — until then, any interpretation is a guess, not a rule.
Over what period income must be proven
According to the commentator, the threshold must be met over a set number of years preceding the application, and the policy, in their reading, doesn’t allow for simple averaging of income over the period. However, the exact counting mechanism — how many years out of what period must meet the threshold — wasn’t clear even to the commentator at the time, so it shouldn’t be treated as final.
Until the immigration rules are published, any threshold figures and bonus-counting rules remain provisional — by the commentator’s own account, the gaps in the policy description are still too wide to give precise advice.
Exact salary thresholds for the 5- and 3-year routes, along with the rules for counting bonuses and overtime, will only appear once the immigration rules are published — everything else is still a working assumption.
Routes to settlement under the Earned Settlement Scheme
Table scrolls sideways
| Parameter | 10-year (standard) | 5-year | 3-year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Condition | Available if income doesn’t reach the thresholds | Salary above the threshold over the last several years | An even higher salary threshold |
| Status of the threshold figure | — | Exact figure not named in the White Paper | Commentator isn’t certain of the exact figure |
| What counts toward salary | — | Guaranteed bonus counts for sure; bonuses/overtime — undefined | Not specified |
All threshold figures are provisional — final wording will only appear in the text of the immigration rules.
The transitional cohort and the risk of legal challenges
Judging by the White Paper, the Home Office’s position appears to be this: transitional arrangements apply to those who applied before the White Paper was published in May 2025. For everyone who entered after that date, the new Earned Settlement Scheme should apply — with no right to the old 10-year Long Residence as a separate status.
A separate problem is the group of people caught between May 2025 and the expected entry into force of the new rules (roughly November 2026). This cohort already entered on Skilled Worker visas expecting the old conditions, but by the time the rules take effect, they risk being pulled into the new scheme retroactively. That kind of retrospective application is described as particularly unfair to this group: people can’t instantly raise their own salary to meet a new threshold, and in some categories pay is already tied to the Home Office’s minimum going rate for the job, which makes negotiating a sudden raise with an employer practically unrealistic.
people can’t instantly raise their own salary to meet a new threshold
That’s exactly why the likelihood of legal challenges against the government is rated high — if the rules do end up being applied retroactively to those who entered before the new norms took effect. By the same logic, any retrospective change of conditions should also be expected to trigger legal action from the affected cohort. The precise interpretation will only become clear once the final text of the immigration rules is published — until then, the speaker advises against taking hasty steps.
How the Home Office verifies that an applicant’s and employer’s salary is genuine
The simplest way to verify salary is to request records from HMRC: the agency issues a document showing the applicant’s annual income. The P60 form, which the applicant submits alongside other documents and which states the annual salary directly, duplicates this information.
The Home Office’s key requirement is that the salary be genuine — that is, actually generated by the business, not funneled to the applicant by themselves. A telling scenario: someone pays themselves £38,000 out of their own business, effectively funding their own salary, then plans to apply for settlement on that income three years later. That kind of arrangement is unlikely to hold up — the PAYE threshold is tied to salary the company is obligated to pay, not to a sum the applicant puts into the business and then withdraws for themselves. This position isn’t written into law yet, but a similar approach was already applied under HSMP, so a lenient check shouldn’t be expected. Figures like £38,000 or £52,000 aren’t a problem on their own — what matters is that the number is genuine, backed by the company’s actual turnover.
Sponsoring employers get separate scrutiny. If the number of staff on skilled worker visas has jumped sharply, the Home Office requests the company’s bank statements for the last 2–3 months: the goal is to confirm the business’s turnover can genuinely support the salaries of all the sponsored staff. If a case goes to audit, the department is entitled to request the full payroll for all staff, PAYE data, and bank statements.
A sharply outlying salary draws separate attention. If most staff earn around £10,000 and one employee earns around £52,000, the Home Office will ask why that particular worker is paid so much more. But if the rest of the staff already earn over £101,000, the gap becomes easier to explain — the burden of proof sits with the business.
A sharp jump in one employee’s salary, in the source commentator’s view, will also raise questions: a move from £42,000 to £53,000 is too large an increase for ordinary negotiation with an employer, given that even UK nationals rarely get a raise that steep without changing jobs or gaining a new professional qualification.
even UK nationals rarely get a raise that steep without changing jobs or gaining a new professional qualification
How the Home Office verifies that a salary is genuine
Steps taken to check an applicant and a sponsoring employer when a salary looks inflated or self-funded
- Requesting HMRC records and P60 formsConfirms the applicant’s actual annual income
- Checking that the salary is generated by the business, not the applicantThe key test for a genuine salary
- Requesting bank statements from the sponsoring employerFor the last 2–3 months, if staff numbers have grown sharply
- Audit: full payroll, PAYE data, bank statements for all staffCarried out if the company is flagged for review
- Reviewing sharply outlying or sharply increased salariesThe burden of proving the difference sits with the business
The Home Office checks that the salary is actually generated by the business, not paid to the applicant out of their own funds — otherwise the income won’t count toward settlement.
Asylum claims: the new designated and protection categories
As of the discussion, the legislation covering asylum claims lodged before March 2025 had not yet been passed, so the transitional rules for that category remain undefined. Once the law is passed, asylum claims will get their own transitional provisions, just like the other routes.
Asylum claims are being split into two categories. The first is claims from people applying through the so-called designated route: most such applicants, by observation, are outside the country at the time of application. A mechanism along these lines has already been trialled for Afghan nationals: the authorities stated that this group would remain on the standard five-year route.
The second category covers people who entered the country on a different route and then try to switch to asylum status. If such a person is granted refugee status or protection, their timeline to settlement will differ from the five-year route. The exact length of that timeline will only become clear once the immigration rules are put into writing.
For people whose asylum claim has already been granted, or whose claim is still being considered, the working assumption is that they’ll stay on the old rules — the five-year timeline — but that’s an assumption, not a confirmed rule. No start date for the new immigration rules has been announced yet: all that’s known is that the policy announcement will follow shortly after the consultation closes, and that in Parliament it will take the form of a formal statement of immigration rules.
The current working position for anyone claiming asylum right now is that their case will be assessed under the old system. But if the law ends up specifying that the application date doesn’t matter, asylum decisions will be made differently — at the point the decision is made, it will be determined which of the new schemes, designated or protection, the applicant falls under, and that will decide their timeline. Retroactively applying the new rules to claims already filed only raises the risk of legal challenges discussed above further.
The 7-year route for children: why refusals have become more common
Formally, the White Paper didn’t touch the 7-year child route: there are no official changes to this rule as of the discussion. The policy text states that applicants with British ties — in particular, those whose children are British citizens — are not covered by the reform. At the same time, there’s an inconsistency in how child-based routes are described: normally an applicant follows either a 10-year or a 5-year path, but the policy wording only mentions 10 and 20 years, skipping the 5-year route. This could be a typo in the policy text, or the point may be clarified once the finished rules appear.
In practice, the Home Office has recently started refusing some — not all — applications based on a child’s seven years’ residence in the country. The department’s position: the Home Office considers it reasonable for the child to leave the United Kingdom, and refuses such applications on that basis. These refusals used to be rare — there was a period when applications on the 7-year route were almost never turned down. The refusals mostly affect cases where the child has only just turned seven, not children who already hold British citizenship. Refused applications can be challenged in court.
Two further factors can affect a decision on such applications. The first is the use of public funds (state benefits): under the conditions, the applicant must not have claimed them within the last five years. The second is a character assessment: if the applicant has previously overstayed or has a similar issue in their history, that’s also weighed in the character assessment, and the residence clock for such cases can be reset to run for 10 years from scratch.
More clarity on these points will come once the rules are set out in detail — for now, the policy wording remains broad. Until then, refused applicants are left with a court appeal as the only available way to challenge the decision.
The Home Office has started refusing more applications where a child has just turned seven, on the view that it’s reasonable for the child to leave the country. The only way to challenge this is in court.
Switching categories within Skilled Worker and FLR(FP) processing times
The processing time for an FLR(FP) (Family Life Route) application currently stands at 10–12 months — a benchmark worth keeping in mind when planning. In practice, there are cases where no decision is issued even after 18 months: in one such case, the Home Office, after 16 months, requested additional documents from the applicant instead of issuing a decision. Contacting an MP in a situation like this didn’t help — the Home Office gave the standard response that it couldn’t speed up the review.
A separate question is switching categories within Skilled Worker. If someone is already on a Skilled Worker visa and moves into another Skilled Worker category, the choice of eligible occupations is wider: tables 1A, 2A, 3 and others on the occupation list become available. For those switching to Skilled Worker for the first time — for example, from a Graduate visa — the requirement is stricter: the job must match RQF Level 6 or appear on table 1, except for a move into healthcare.
This distinction creates a concrete problem for graduates. If a graduate gets a job offer as a take away manager, they won’t be able to take that position on their first move into Skilled Worker — that role isn’t on table 1. The refusal would be based purely on the job’s level, not on the applicant’s own qualifications. For someone already on Skilled Worker who’s switching categories within it, the same take away manager role is likely available, since it sits on tables 1A or 2A. No exact date for how long this rule applies came up in the discussion.
Asked about dental nurses (the NSC category), the response was that this category isn’t covered by these restrictions — it has its own cohort and its own plan, untouched by the policy discussed here.
On naturalisation: if the applicant’s spouse is a British citizen, a citizenship application can be filed immediately after obtaining Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR), without the usual extra year’s wait — provided the three-year residence requirement is met. This applies only to those who also satisfy all other naturalisation requirements.
Frequently asked questions
What should an applicant do if they’re caught in the transitional gap between May 2025 and November 2026 and worried about being hit by the new rules retroactively?
There’s no official rule for this cohort yet — the government hasn’t set one out, which is exactly why this group is seen as the most exposed: if the new conditions are applied to them retroactively, that’s considered especially unfair and could trigger legal action against the government. Until the final text of the immigration rules is published, it’s not worth taking hasty steps.
What happens if an applicant has already filed before the new rules take effect?
The working assumption is that applications already filed will be assessed under the rules in force on the date of filing, not the new requirements introduced later. But that’s an assumption, not a rule confirmed in law — the question will only be settled once the immigration rules are published.
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