10 Year ILR Rule: Where the UK’s Earned Settlement Plan Actually Stands After the Change of Government

If you are on a UK work visa and you have been told the road to settlement is now ten years, here is the thing almost nobody says plainly: that has not happened yet. As of late July 2026, no Immigration Rules have been laid to change the five-year qualifying period. The proposal is real, the government still intends to act on it, and the decision window is open right now — but the rule you keep reading about is not the rule you are currently on.

That distinction matters, because the next eight to ten weeks are when it gets decided.

The short answer: The 10 year ILR rule is not law. The UK government proposed raising the standard settlement qualifying period from five to ten years in November 2025, but no Immigration Rules have been laid. Only the higher B2 English requirement is confirmed, effective 26 March 2027.

What Is Actually Law Right Now

Two Statements of Changes have landed in 2026, and it is worth being precise about what each did.

HC 1691, laid 5 March 2026. This is the one that matters for settlement. It raised the English language requirement for settlement from CEFR level B1 to B2 across a long list of routes including Skilled Worker, Scale-up, Global Talent, UK Ancestry, Innovator Founder and International Sportsperson. Commencement was deliberately deferred to 26 March 2027, with the explanatory memorandum stating the delay is to give people subject to the new requirement enough time to meet it.

The same statement also made smaller work-route changes effective 26 March 2026: Global Business Mobility secondment workers now need six months of prior overseas employment rather than twelve, and sponsored workers must receive the required salary in each pay period rather than averaged across the year.

HC 259, laid 9 July 2026. This is the most recent Statement of Changes, with provisions commencing 30 July and 3 August 2026 — and it contains nothing on settlement periods, Skilled Worker salary thresholds or the shortage lists. What it does cover: UK-born children can qualify as dependants on the Graduate route, partner leave is aligned to temporary protection sponsors’ 30-month grants, the child route criteria are clarified, asylum interview omissions are widened, immigration-bail suitability is standardised, and EU Settlement Scheme travel permits drop a biometric requirement.

So the confirmed picture is narrow: a harder English test from March 2027, and nothing else on settlement timing. The five-year Skilled Worker settlement route remains open and operating on its existing requirements.

What Is Only Proposed

The ten-year plan lives in a command paper, not the rulebook. A Fairer Pathway to Settlement (CP 1448) was presented to Parliament in November 2025, and the consultation attached to it closed at 11:59pm on 12 February 2026 having drawn more than 200,000 responses — an extraordinary volume for an immigration consultation.

What it proposes:

• A standard qualifying period of ten years, up from five.
• A fifteen-year baseline for workers in roles below RQF Level 6 — which captures a large share of the sponsored care and middle-skilled workforce.
• A twenty-year baseline for refugees, with reductions only where the person is working or studying.

Against that baseline sit reductions and extensions.

Reductions proposed:

• Taxable income of £125,140+ across the prior three years — minus 7 years.
• Taxable income of £50,270+ across the prior three years — minus 5 years.
• Five or more years in specified public service occupations — minus 5 years.
• Family members of British citizens or settled persons — minus 5 years.
• Hong Kong BN(O) route holders — minus 5 years.
• Three or more years on Global Talent or Innovator Founder — minus 7 years.
• Community volunteering — minus 3 to 5 years.
• C1 English rather than B2 — minus 1 year.

Extensions proposed:

• Public funds claimed for under 12 months — plus 5 years; over 12 months — plus 10 years.
• Illegal entry, entry as a visitor, or overstaying by six months or more — up to plus 20 years.

Mandatory floor for everyone: a clean criminal record, annual earnings above £12,570 sustained over three to five years, B2 English, and no outstanding UK debt.

None of this is in the Immigration Rules. All of it is subject to a government decision that has not yet been published.

Does It Apply to People Already in the UK?

This is the question that generates the most anxiety, and the honest answer is that it has not been settled.

The government’s stated starting position, from Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood when the consultation launched, was that the changes would apply to everyone in the country who has not already received indefinite leave to remain. People who already hold ILR keep it. Everyone still partway along a five-year route was, on that reading, in scope.

But transitional arrangements were one of the specific things the consultation asked about, and ministers have repeatedly confirmed no decision has been taken. In a Westminster Hall debate on 2 February 2026, the position was again that transitional protection remains subject to the consultation. One narrow group has been carved out already: refugees granted five years’ leave before 1 March 2026 keep five-year settlement eligibility.

For everyone else, “will my five-year route be honoured?” is genuinely open. Plan for both outcomes rather than either.

Two Committees Have Now Told the Government to Slow Down

This is the part that has been missing from most guides, and it is the reason the policy is less locked-in than it looks.

The Home Affairs Committee, in its Sixth Report of Session 2024–26 published 13 March 2026, warned that the change would make the UK an outlier among high-income countries and risk undermining integration — a stated objective of the policy itself. Its central procedural point was that the Home Office needs to set out clear mitigations and suitable transitional arrangements for people already in the UK, and that it is more important to get the changes right than to implement them quickly. It also recommended a realistic published implementation timeline so people can make informed decisions, reasonable exceptions to the income requirement, assessment of contribution at household rather than individual level, and settled status for children who grew up in the UK by age 18.

The House of Lords Justice and Home Affairs Committee went considerably further. Its report Settlement, Citizenship and Integration, published 23 June 2026, urged the government to abandon the extension to ten years outright and keep the five-year baseline. It opposed retrospective application to people already in the UK, recommended that dependants qualify for ILR alongside the main applicant where household income is sufficient, called for reform of the Life in the UK Test, urged urgent simplification of the Immigration Rules, and proposed a Triennial Migration Plan.

The government is expected to respond to a Lords committee report within roughly 60 days — which puts the response due around late August 2026. It is not obliged to accept the recommendations.

And Then the Government Changed

On 22 June 2026 — one day before the Lords report landed — Keir Starmer announced his resignation as prime minister. Andy Burnham took office on 20 July 2026.

Nothing about that appointment amended the Immigration Rules. Sponsor licences stayed valid, existing Skilled Worker conditions were unchanged, and no immigration-specific policy change accompanied the handover. The five-year settlement route was still there the following morning.

What changed is the political question mark. A policy proposed by one administration in November 2025, consulted on through February 2026, criticised by two parliamentary committees in March and June 2026, and then handed to a new prime minister in July 2026 with an autumn implementation target — that is a policy whose final shape is genuinely uncertain. Immigration advisers have been careful to note that a new administration is more likely to adjust the reform than to scrap it, and reporting before the handover suggested the incoming prime minister would maintain a restrictive line on immigration overall. Adjustment, not reversal, is the reasonable base case.

The practical read: do not assume it is dead, and do not assume the November 2025 version is what arrives.

When Would the New Rules Start?

The Home Secretary said in March 2026 that the government intended to enact the finalised policy later that year, and the working assumption across the profession has been autumn 2026, with some analyses pointing to possible implementation from October 2026. The Commons Library has noted implementation could instead slip into 2027, following the same pattern as the B2 English requirement, which was legislated in March 2026 but deferred a full year to March 2027.

Two structural points are worth holding onto. First, UK immigration rule changes conventionally cluster around April and the autumn. Second, and more uncomfortably, there is no guarantee of a long runway: rules can be laid and commenced within weeks, which is exactly why the Home Affairs Committee asked for a published timeline.

The Detail That Will Catch Most Families: Dependants

Here is the exposure that almost no guide spells out.

The proposed mandatory floor requires earnings above £12,570 sustained over three to five years — assessed on the individual. Now set that against the Migration Observatory’s analysis, published 10 February 2026 by Mihnea Cuibus, of who is actually on a settlement path.

Roughly 2.2 million people held temporary visas with a route to settlement at the end of 2024, out of about 4.2 million temporary visa holders in total. Of those:

• 645,000 were dependants of worker visa holders — and around half of Skilled Worker dependants are not in employment.
• 352,000 were family visa holders, with about a third of adults not in work by year five.
• 230,000 held refugee or humanitarian protection status, with roughly 45% not working by year five.
• 189,000 were BN(O) route holders, with 30% not in employment.
• Between 430,000 and 520,000 were children on temporary visas with a settlement pathway.

An individual earnings test applied to a household where one partner works and the other raises children does not produce a delay — it can produce an indefinite bar. This is precisely why the Lords committee recommended household-level assessment and why the Home Affairs Committee asked for reasonable exceptions. Neither has been accepted.

The care sector exposure is equally stark: at least 325,000 visas have been granted in care and middle-skilled roles since 2021, and those roles sit below RQF Level 6 — the fifteen-year baseline. If you are working in UK social care on a sponsored route, the fifteen-year figure, not the ten-year one, is the number to plan against

What to Do in the Next Eight Weeks

If you are already eligible for ILR under the current five-year rules — apply. This is the closest thing to consensus advice across the UK immigration profession. Eligibility you hold today under rules that exist today is worth more than a transitional protection that has not been decided. Do not wait for clarity that may arrive after the door moves.

If you are one to two years from the five-year mark, get your continuous-residence record clean now: absences documented, no gaps in sponsored employment, salary paid correctly in every pay period under the March 2026 change, and every payslip retained.

Start the B2 English work regardless of what happens to the ten-year plan. That requirement is already law and lands 26 March 2027. It is the one deadline on this page you can act on with certainty, and the proposals also dangle a one-year reduction for C1 — so aiming above B2 is not wasted effort.

If you are a dependant not currently working, treat the £12,570 floor as a live planning problem, not a hypothetical. Even part-time employment inside the qualifying window changes your position under every version of the proposal published so far.

If you are still choosing a destination, price the settlement timeline into the decision rather than only the visa. A route that reaches permanent status in five years is a materially different proposition from one that takes ten or fifteen

Watch three specific things: the government’s formal response to the Lords report, due around late August 2026; the next Statement of Changes, expected in the autumn; and any Home Office publication of the consultation analysis and impact assessment, neither of which had appeared as of late July 2026.

Key Takeaways

• The 10 year ILR rule is not law. No Immigration Rules have been laid changing the five-year qualifying period, and the five-year Skilled Worker settlement route remains open.
• The only confirmed settlement change is the B2 English requirement, legislated by Statement of Changes HC 1691 on 5 March 2026 and commencing 26 March 2027.
• HC 259, laid 9 July 2026 with provisions from 30 July and 3 August 2026, contains no settlement-period or Skilled Worker salary changes.
• The proposals sit in CP 1448, A Fairer Pathway to Settlement, November 2025. The consultation closed 12 February 2026 with 200,000+ responses. No government response has been published.
• Two committees have pushed back: the Home Affairs Committee on 13 March 2026 (clear transitional arrangements, do not rush) and the House of Lords Justice and Home Affairs Committee on 23 June 2026 (abandon the ten-year extension, no retrospective application). A government response is due around late August 2026.
• Andy Burnham became prime minister on 20 July 2026. No immigration rule changed with the handover, but the policy’s final shape is now genuinely uncertain. Adjustment is more likely than reversal.
• Transitional protection is undecided. The government’s starting position was that the rules would apply to everyone without ILR; refugees granted five years’ leave before 1 March 2026 are the one confirmed carve-out.
• The £12,570 individual earnings floor is the sharpest risk for non-working dependants — around half of Skilled Worker dependants are not in employment.
• Care and middle-skilled workers below RQF Level 6 face a proposed fifteen-year baseline, not ten.
• If you qualify for ILR now, apply now.

FAQ

Q: Is the 10 year ILR rule confirmed? A: No. As of late July 2026 the ten-year qualifying period remains a proposal from the November 2025 command paper A Fairer Pathway to Settlement. No Immigration Rules have been laid to enact it, no government response to the February 2026 consultation has been published, and the existing five-year settlement routes are still operating normally.

Q: Does the 10 year ILR rule apply to people already in the UK? A: This has not been decided. The government’s starting position was that the changes would apply to everyone in the UK who has not already received indefinite leave to remain, but transitional arrangements were a specific consultation question and ministers have confirmed no decision has been taken. Refugees granted five years’ leave before 1 March 2026 retain five-year eligibility.

Q: When will the new UK settlement rules take effect? A: The Home Office signalled autumn 2026, with some analyses pointing to possible implementation from October 2026. The House of Commons Library has noted it could slip into 2027. The government’s response to the House of Lords committee report is due around late August 2026, which is the next realistic signal on timing.