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Hi all. A year and a half ago I obtained an EEA2 residence card. I am the unmarried partner of an EEA national. After five years, I would like to apply for permanent residency. I have a couple of questions.

Let's say in a year or two we have a child and my partner decides that she wants to stop working and raise the baby full time. How would this affect my status? How would this affect my permanent residency application?

The FAQ says the following:

Under EEA regulations, after 5 continuous years of the EEA national exercising treaty rights, the EEA national (and family members living in the UK) automatically obtain Permanent Residence status. This status is not lost unless the person is absent from the UK for more than 2 consecutive years.

Even before my EEA2 application my partner had been working here for 5 years. This seems to suggest that she is already a permanent resident and if she stopped working, she would still be a permanent resident because she will have remained in the UK.

When I apply for my permanent residency in a few years, can the evidence for her permanent resident status be from any 5 year period (even 5 years before I originally applied for EEA2)? I'm a little confused if she needs to work for the same 5 years between when I received my residence card and when I apply for permanent residence.

Finally, would her becoming a British citizen change any of this?

Thanks for your help. I'm happy to clarify anything.

Get her to apply for a permanent residence certificate to make things easier when you apply, if she has PR, as long as she has not left the UK for over 2 years she retains PR and no longer requires to prove she is a qualified person.

Many thanks for your reply. I will talk to her about applying for a permanent residency card. Is the sole purpose of this card to support the permanent residency application of family members? I can't really see why else it would be necessary.

Follow up question: when I was applying for my residency card using an EEA2 application, I had to submit a lot of documentation. I want to be proactive and save/collect whatever documentation I might need for my permanent residency application. If my partner applies for her permanent residency card now and gets it, what documentation do I still need to collect for when I apply?

Final question: my partner expressed interest in becoming a British citizen -- how does permanent residency tie into this?