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So, I understand that absences consistent with paid holidays can be safely excluded from the days spent out of the country. I guess this can be proven by showing a letter from the previous employer confirming which days off I have taken.

I understand I can also exclude the days of travel in and out of the UK.

But what about public holidays, like New Year's day? Can they also be considered paid vacations, and therefore excluded? And what about weekends?

It's not about excluding those days. If you were out of the country, you were out of the country.
You must list ALL absences from the UK. The rule is that you are in the UK for a continuous period of 5 years and the case worker can then disregard business trips and holidays consistent with annual paid leave as long as these are short.

They have special instructions where absences are more numerous than reasonable.

The absences must have been for compelling grounds either of
a compassionate nature or for reasons related to the applicant's employment in the
UK. None of the absences abroad should be of more than three months duration,
and they must not amount to more than 6 months in total for the whole five year
period.

The discretion is with the case worker. But full disclosure is your responsibility.

genorp wrote:It's not about excluding those days. If you were out of the country, you were out of the country.
You must list ALL absences from the UK. The rule is that you are in the UK for a continuous period of 5 years and the case worker can then disregard business trips and holidays consistent with annual paid leave as long as these are short.

They have special instructions where absences are more numerous than reasonable.

The absences must have been for compelling grounds either of
a compassionate nature or for reasons related to the applicant's employment in the
UK. None of the absences abroad should be of more than three months duration,
and they must not amount to more than 6 months in total for the whole five year
period.

The discretion is with the case worker. But full disclosure is your responsibility.

Of course I meant to disclose all days. But I think it is pretty non controversial matter that if, say, I was absent from the UK for 230 days altogether, but, say, 60 days out of this were due to paid holidays (confirmed by the letter from employer), that those days should not count towards the limit of 180 days per year. Here, I am quoting the UKBA:

2.1 Calculation of the five year period for settlement
When assessing if an applicant has met the criteria for 5 years continuous residence in the UK, short absences abroad, for example for holidays (consistent with annual paid leave) or business trips (consistent with maintaining employment or self-employment in the UK), may
be disregarded, provided the applicant has clearly continued to be based here.

So, my question is not whether I should disclose all days not in the UK, or not. my question is which days will count towards the 180 day limit.

All days except business trips(with an employer letter) count, days of travel are excluded. When the count exceeds 180 days , its the case workers call!
best wishes

See also out of country days = ?

There's a lot of confusion out there about the number of days. It's not 180 days plus holidays. It's days absent. The 180 days is often brought up because of the 6 months quote I mentioned (section 5.3). Notice it's not in the section you quoted (section 5.1) where they only mention "short trips". They're saying if it has approached 6 months total then there must be "compelling grounds of a compassionate nature or for reasons related to the applicant's employment"
The main thing they are looking for is that you weren't out of the country too many days.
The guidance given to the case workers is that they can discount short trips such as business and holidays. Too many will get their attention and thus need explaining.
If you were absent 230 days you definitely need a letter explaining them as that will get their attention. They're not seeing 230 minus holidays, but 230 days. I've read of plenty of people have been approved because they've had that many due to business.
I've read success stories of someone with 205 total days of which 50 were holidays. Even one with 442 total days that was so high because of business. One person even said that if there are more than 195 personal days they won't do it in person, only by post. Also failures with high days but not because of the total but because they had single trips over 90 days. So the key is that the bulk of your time out be explained business-related days if the number is high and that you don't have a single absence that itself is too high.
Refer to this thread: http://www.immigrationboards.com/viewto ... 28cdaccf68

The important thing to remember is that all you can do is give the list and an explanation. There is no hard fast formula. They will total them, though you may want to provide a spreadsheet that breaks down your absences, and take your explanation(s) such as a letter from your employer into account.
Your 60 days paid holiday is normal (I had 95). So think less about some 230 or 180 minus 60, and make sure you explain the remaining 170 days.
I know it may not be the answer you're looking for but no one can quote a rule that doesn't exist. This part of the process can be quite subjective on the part of the case worker.

See http://www.immigrationboards.com/viewtopic.php?t=75247. In the new case worker guidelines for the continous residence criteria, there is no mention of the "more than 3 months continuous/6 months total in 5 yrs" clause. This is subject to parliamentary approval though.

It's still there in Annex B, 2.3.

there have been no absences abroad (apart from those described in para 5.1 above) and authorised employment or business here has not been broken by any interruptions of more than three months or amounting to more than six months in total for the whole five year period. Decisions in such cases must be taken at HEO level or above.

or

there have been longer absences abroad, provided the absences were for compelling grounds either of a compassionate nature or for reasons related to the applicant’s employment or business in the United Kingdom. Where continuous residence has been broken, periods may be aggregated or shortfalls disregarded only with the approval of an SEO or Grade 7

They just slightly reworded and specified what level of officer it must be passed to to make the decision.

well, as i mentioned in the referenced thread, i interpret that clause to apply to breaks in employment and not to absences abroad.

rkc wrote:I did think of quoting that upper paragraph as well to avoid any confusion but better late than never:

there have been no absences abroad (apart from those described in para 5.1 above) and authorised employment or business here has not been broken by any interruptions of more than three months continuously or amounting to more than six months in total for the whole five year period. Decisions in such cases must be taken at HEO level or above.

I tend to interpret the above paragraph in the context of breaks in employment/self-employment and economic status i.e. the above paragraph means that even if you do not have any absences abroad(or only absences consistent with paid leave/business absences) you do not qualify for ILR (or do qualify for ILR at discretion of HEO) if you were unemployed & economically inactive for more than three months continuously in a year or amounting to more than six months in total for the whole five year period.

Also, in my original posting I did mention "relevant absences" meaning business related travel or annual paid leave. One should be careful while taking longer absences since this is a UKBA discretionary decision anyways...


And please, can we refer to the maximum absences as 3months/6months unless someone can point to me an official guidance that says 90days/180 days? There is a big difference between both.

I don't think this is what they mean. If this were so, they would require all ILR applicants to show all contracts and other evidence of economic activity for the preceding 5 years, which does not appear to be the case (at least for Tier 1 migrants). Besides, this would be a major retrospective change, considerably stricter than the newly introduced points requirement (especially given the current economic climate).

I think what they mean to say is that absences abroad for more thn 180 days combined with breaks in authorized employment in the UK would imply that residence here was not observed, and decisions in such cases would be considered very strictly. The key in paragraph is the word AND (not OR):

rkc wrote:well, as i mentioned in the referenced thread, i interpret that clause to apply to breaks in employment and not to absences abroad.

rkc wrote:I did think of quoting that upper paragraph as well to avoid any confusion but better late than never:

there have been no absences abroad (apart from those described in para 5.1 above) and authorised employment or business here has not been broken by any interruptions of more than three months continuously or amounting to more than six months in total for the whole five year period. Decisions in such cases must be taken at HEO level or above.

I tend to interpret the above paragraph in the context of breaks in employment/self-employment and economic status i.e. the above paragraph means that even if you do not have any absences abroad(or only absences consistent with paid leave/business absences) you do not qualify for ILR (or do qualify for ILR at discretion of HEO) if you were unemployed & economically inactive for more than three months continuously in a year or amounting to more than six months in total for the whole five year period.

Also, in my original posting I did mention "relevant absences" meaning business related travel or annual paid leave. One should be careful while taking longer absences since this is a UKBA discretionary decision anyways...


And please, can we refer to the maximum absences as 3months/6months unless someone can point to me an official guidance that says 90days/180 days? There is a big difference between both.

Regardless of the absences, that clause is linked to breaks in employment/self-employment and does not apply to people who had absences abroad for valid reasons and were still employed during that time. Those absences were largely for business trave/overseas travel.