UK ILR continuous-residence rules explained
Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) — also called settlement — is the immigration status that lets you live, work, and study in the UK without time limits. To qualify, you must complete a continuous residence period on an eligible visa route, and you must not have broken that continuity through excessive absences or immigration breaches.
Qualifying periods by route
- 5-year route — Skilled Worker, Scale-up, Global Talent, Innovator Founder, most family routes. Total absences cannot exceed 180 days in any rolling 12-month window within the 5 years.
- 3-year route — Spouse, civil partner, or unmarried partner of a British citizen or person with settled status. The 180-day rule does not apply, but absences should still be reasonable.
- 10-year long residence — Combines time on any combination of lawful UK visas. Total absences cannot exceed 540 days, and no single absence may exceed 6 months.
- 2-year route — Tier 1 (Investor) entrants who entered on or after 6 November 2014 and invested £10 million.
The 180-day rolling rule
For the 5-year and 10-year routes, the Home Office examines any 12-month period within your qualifying residence. If you spent more than 180 days outside the UK during any such window, your continuous residence is broken — and the clock typically restarts.
"Rolling" means the window is not aligned to calendar years or visa anniversaries. The caseworker can pick any start date that produces the worst-case absence count. Planning ahead requires tracking absences month by month, not just annually.
Exceptions to the absence limits
Certain absences can be disregarded when computing the 180-day limit:
- Compelling or compassionate reasons — serious illness of the applicant or a close family member, death of a close family member, or other significant compassionate circumstances.
- Pandemic-related disruption — the Home Office published guidance allowing travel disruption caused by COVID-19 to be treated as a permitted exception, particularly during 2020–2022.
- Work-related travel — for Skilled Worker applicants, business trips for the sponsor do not count toward the 180-day total, provided the applicant remained employed by the UK sponsor.
For the complete picture — including Life in the UK test requirements, English language standards, and the application form (Form SET(M), SET(O), or SET(LR)) — see our UK ILR eligibility guide.