E-petitions on increasing the qualifying period for indefinite leave to remain

The e-petitions Keep the 5-Year ILR pathway for existing Skilled Worker visa holders and Keep 5-year ILR terms to Hong Kong British National (Overseas) visas are being debated in Westminster Hall on 8 September 2025. The debate will be opened by Ben Goldsborough MP.

Background

In May 2025, the government published a white paper called Restoring control over the immigration system. It proposed some changes to reduce net migration, including making it more difficult for migrants to qualify for permanent residence (also known as settlement, indefinite leave to remain or ILR). This status gives people broadly the same rights as British citizens, such as to work without restrictions and claim benefits if necessary.

At present, the standard qualifying period for indefinite leave to remain is five years. The white paper proposes changing this to ten years, but allowing some people to qualify more quickly. Under this “earned settlement” proposal, there will be a shorter pathway than ten years for people who have made “Points-Based contributions to the UK economy and society” (paragraph 266 of the white paper).

The white paper does not say how these points will be earned or how much of a reduction on the ten-year qualifying period will be available. No changes to the rules have been made yet.

Which visa categories will be affected by the longer qualifying period?

There are explicit exemptions for partners of British citizens, who will continue to qualify for settlement after five years, and for victims of domestic abuse (see paragraph 265). In addition, people with post-Brexit residence rights under the EU Settlement Scheme have the right to permanent residence after five years under Article 15 of the UK-EU Withdrawal Agreement.

The government has not confirmed whether other immigration routes with a five-year pathway to permanent residence will be exempt. Asked whether people with a Hong Kong British National (Overseas) visa would be affected, the Minister for Migration and Citizenship stated “we will be consulting on the earned settlement scheme later this year and will provide details of how the scheme will work after that, including which immigration routes it will apply to”. The consultation has not begun yet.

Will people already in the UK be affected by the longer qualifying period?

The government has not confirmed whether people already in the immigration routes affected will have to wait longer for settlement, as opposed to the change only applying to those arriving after the implementation date.

The white paper’s technical annex suggests that the Home Office does envisage that the change will affect those already here: “a number of those currently in the UK are likely to leave due to it taking longer to gain settled status” (PDF, paragraph 11). Similarly, the BBC and Financial Times have reported (citing unattributed government sources) that this is the government’s intention, possibly with mitigations for people who are already close to qualifying for settlement.

MPs have been asking questions on this issue but the responses so far have said that it will also be addressed as part of the consultation process: see for example HC Deb 12 May 2025 c68; HC Deb 2 June 2025 cc15-16; PQ 58441, answered on 17 June 2025.

The petitions Exemption for people already in the UK on a Skilled Worker visa

The Keep the 5-Year ILR pathway for existing Skilled Worker visa holders petition argues that the proposed increase to the qualifying period should only apply to future arrivals and that existing Skilled Worker visa holders in the UK should be exempt. Skilled Worker is the main UK work visa. It includes the Health and Care Worker subcategory for NHS staff.

The petition is open until 23 November 2025 and had received 157,000 signatures at time of writing.

In its response to the petition, given on 17 June 2025, the government stated that "as with several other measures in the Immigration White Paper, the proposals on earned settlement will be subject to a formal consultation process, and we welcome this contribution to that process".

Exemption for Hongkongers

The Keep 5-year ILR terms to Hong Kong British National (Overseas) visas petition urges the government to keep the permanent residence qualifying period for this visa at five years. The BNO visa was launched in January 2021 in response to concerns about an erosion of human rights in Hong Kong.

The petition is open until 25 December 2025 and had received 108,000 signatures by August 2025.

In its response to the petition, given on 11 July 2025, the government stated "we are firmly committed to the existing Hong Kong community in the UK and all those who will arrive in future. Further details of measures in the Immigration White Paper will be set out in due course".

Commentary and further reading

The Migration Observatory, an immigration research project based at Oxford University, has said that a ten year route to settlement would “make the UK more restrictive than most other high income countries” and that “the impact on migration numbers is likely to be limited”.

It added that a longer route to settlement would come with a “trade-off between the financial benefits of higher immigration fees for the government, and the negative effects on the integration and wellbeing of migrants”.

The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) has urged the government to provide clarity for the estimated 1.7 million people in the UK awaiting permanent residence who are now “in limbo” as they “do not know what the new rules will be, how they will be affected, or how long they will have to wait to get settlement and citizenship".

The IPPR has also argued that “lengthening the route to settlement risks holding up migrant integration and significantly expanding the group of people in the UK with insecure status.

In a letter to the Home Secretary, the charity Hong Kong Watch, stated that changing the eligibility criteria for ILR would be a “grave reneging on promises made by the UK government to the British Nationals of Hong Kong” and that the government should “ensure that the original commitment made to BNO Hong Kongers in 2020 is upheld.

Benedict Rogers, the co-founder of Hong Kong Watch, has warned of the challenges BNO Hong Kongers would face if the eligibility criteria for ILR is changed:

Now is not the time for the UK to back away from its promises to Hong Kongers. Extending the waiting time for ILR to ten years would pull the rug from under those who have sacrificed so much to build a new life here. It would leave them unprotected by British consulates when travelling abroad, unable to withdraw their retirement savings from Hong Kong, and ineligible for home fee status at UK universities, pricing many out of higher education.

The Social Market Foundation has argued that the government is partly motivated by the fiscal cost of "the access to welfare entitlements which ILR provides". It points to reported observations by Angela Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister, that “migrants who have spent 5-10 years in the UK generally receive access to a broad range of welfare entitlements” and “those who arrived in the UK during the period of very high immigration in the past few years will become eligible for indefinite leave to remain over the course of this Parliament”.

Other resources

Commons Library research briefing CBP-10267 covers Changes to UK visa and settlement rules after the 2025 immigration white paper.

Recent parliamentary questions about the qualifying period for indefinite leave to remain are available on the Parliamentary database.