Help I’m confused and don’t know what to do / expert help needed

I came for first time to the UK in October 2000, I submitted my asylum seekers application to the home office in Croydon straight away the same year due to my circumstances escaping the civil war back home in Somalia. After one year of waiting for the HO interview, my landlord kicked me out of the house and I had no further communication with him so then the HO invited me for the interview but he didn’t tell me about any letter. Cut the story short I become homeless and got into troubles with bad people until 2019 I was stateless and my community people donated me money to pay a smuggler to go to Canada but I got caught in the airport, so the immigration police returned me to London again.
I then made a fresh asylum claim in November 2019, and my interview was 2021 and my claim was finally accepted and I was granted 5 years limited leave to remain in 2024

My question is
- does the 24 ish years counts and I can apply for the citizenship now or even the indefinite now or I should wait the five years limited leave to remain to pass and then apply for the indefinite leave and then the citizenship?

Thank you

You need Indefinite leave to remain first before you can apply for citizenship.

You can only apply for indefinite leave to remain shortly before you reach 5 years on your current visa.

You need 5 years of legal stay for indefinite leave to remain.

Thank you so much for your input indeed.
I used to know that if you stay in the country illegally for more than 10 years or so you can apply for indefinite or naturalisation

Could you please provide any information about this


Thanks in advance

This thread should be in the ILR section as you can't apply for citizenship before you have ILR.

Abdinasir77 wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 10, 2025 6:25 pm

Thank you so much for your input indeed.
I used to know that if you stay in the country illegally for more than 10 years or so you can apply for indefinite or naturalisation

Could you please provide any information about this


Thanks in advance

No, there is no such rule. There used to be a 14 year ilr route if you didn't have legal stay, but that was withdrawn many years ago and is no longer relevant. Even 10 year route ilr requires you to have 10 years of legal stay.

Citizenship has always required you to have ilr first, for any visa route.

There is no shortcut route for either ilr or citizenship.

As much as your situation sounds really difficult and something to heal from, your refugee status has finally been approved and now you have 5 years of lawful stay ahead of you. With that, you'll be able to get your ILR. Not the answer you hoped for, but reuglarising your stay is a great result in and of itself.