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Hello great people,

I am applying my ILR through 5 years Tier 2 visa in Oct and have a few questions related to the employee letter and the proof of my absence.

I have been absent from UK for about 35 times (in total 230 days) during the past 5 years but not exceeding the 180 days in any 12 months and not exceeding 90 days in the last year. The reasons for my absence are for 1) paid holiday 2)weekend getaway to Europe 3)business trips 4)20 days unpaid leave approved by my employer 5) 5 days sick leave when abroad. I understand that I need to provide my employer's letter for this, but have questions as below:

1. Do I need to list down my all my absence in a letter with the reasons (above 1-5) and have my employer state that they have approved all my absence? My concern is they are not in the position of knowing how I used my weekend or unpaid leave. Is there an alternative way for doing this?

2. Do I need to specifically have a paragraph from employer to explain that I have 20 days unpaid leave, and explain which of the days are for business trips? The business trips are not recorded in HR system - it is more of arranged verbally based on business requirement, so I worry the HR may not be able to say which days are related to business trips.

3. I've got sick for 5 days when I was abroad, does my employer need to explain the detail of this occasion?

4. I under stand I will need a letter from my employer to state I am still required for the employment and provide the SOC code, my current rate of pay and their employer license number. Do they need to provide this information in the same letter with the absence or they should be separate letters?

Understood it's a lot of questions, but would really appreciate if anyone could provide me advice. Thank you all in advance for helping me generously on the forum.

You will need to list details of your absences from the United Kingdom, including the reasons for those absences, on the form.

You must provide a letter from your current sponsor confirming:
• your absences from the United Kingdom (explained in more detail above).

You must also provide either:

• A letter from your Sponsor on company headed paper, confirming the start and end date of each such period of absence and the reason for it; or
• If you are unable to provide the document above, a full explanation of why the document cannot be provided, together with any other relevant documents, from an official source and which are independently verifiable, showing the duration of and reason for each such period of absence.

So add your booking confirmation/boarding passes, entry/exit stamps on passport, etc. if your employer cannot confirm your absences over the weekends.

You can get your employer to mention key details in main letter and add appendix to provide details of leaves in a table format to confirm date left, date returned and reason in each column.

Thank you very much SRSW to answering my questions. Would it be possible to provide an answer for each of my 4 questions in the post?

If it is not possible for my employer to confirm the reason for each of my leave as they said they are in no position to tell if I have used my holiday/sick leave/unpaid leave abroad. Would there be an alternative way to do this?

Thank you all very much again.

As per the checklist you need to provide Letter(s) from employer(s) detailing reasons for work-related absences including periods of paid annual leave from the UK and Crown Dependencies.

I'm not sure if employer is supposed to explicitly mention in their letter about unpaid leave or not. Having said that, did you salary go below the SOC minimum salary level due to unpaid leave? If so, they should've reported that via SMS I think.

To answer point by point,

1. Yes, but refer to my previous post for exceptions.

2. Not sure about unpaid leave as mentioned above, but yes for business trips. However, as you are within the normal absence limits, it may be OK if HR just says that all those leaves are authorised leaves.

3. UKVI is interested in your absences out of UK, so as long as you provide evidence and/or employer confirms approval for those absences then it should be fine.

4. Same or separate letters is fine.

You can always add a cover letter if you have exceptional/compelling reasons for unpaid leaves, especially when abroad (doctor's note, birth/death certificates, etc.)