How detailed do absences need to be? EEA(PR) section 5.3

[nabnab]

Is EEA(PR) section 5.3 this asking for every last holiday, even weekend trips since coming to the country, with exact dates? Three years back I can have pieced together dates from booking confirmations in my email but that's as far as it goes, I don't don't think I have any way of getting a perfect record! Would a Subject Access Request from UK Visas and Immigration give me this information?

Thanks for your help!

[ohara]

If you are an EEA citizen then it's unlikely an SAR will be of any help as travel records are not really kept. You can try, but when I did it, they had no record at all of my passport being used to enter or exit the country despite me having used it at least 6 times in the last 10 years.

They only ask you to list absences as they are looking to see if you have broken continuity of residence since acquiring PR, which means being out of the UK for 2 years or more.

If you have only spent a few weeks here and there outside the country, it won't be a massive problem if your dates aren't exact. Just write it in the additional information box.

You also only need to list absences since the start of your qualifying period, not since you first came to the UK, regardless of what the form may say.

[nabnab]

good to know, thanks for your reply! If visa and immigration don't know it can't be that fussy.