Residency requirement - year abroad

[postbrexitgerman]

Good morning,

I am considering applying for British citizenship this October, once my 12 months of PR are fulfilled. However, I spent approximately 750 days abroad in the past 5 years, and would therefore need to ask for discretion for the residency requirement for my application. The reason why I want to apply now, rather than wait for a few years until I would not have this issue is that I am German and would like to keep my German nationality, which will only be possible before Brexit (Germany only recognises dual nationality with EEA states). I will have lived in the UK for six years at the point of application.

Concretely, I have two questions regarding my circumstances:
1) If I were to cancel my annual leave this year I could likely get my absences down to 730 days over the last five years. However, I spent 101 days abroad in the year immediately preceding this period and 73 days were one single absence. I would assume that this would count as a "substantial absence"?
2) My absences are largely due to a compulsory year abroad in Italy (474 days). I have a letter from my British university proving that this was compulsory and part of my degree. Could I ask for this to be considered as an "unavoidable consequence of the nature of the applicant’s career"?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

[muraenidae]

How long have you been in the UK in total? Will it have been exactly 6 years when you apply? If so, the 730 day thing is not relevant, as you would need 2 years without substantial absences before the qualifying period.

Have you got any family members in the UK? Do you own a home? (As you would need to show you've established "home, employment, family and finances in the UK".)

As an aside, I am curious - how did you get your PR with an absence of 474 days? I thought a single absence up to a maximum of 12 months is ok for study reasons - 474 days is almost 16 months?

[postbrexitgerman]

Unfortunately exactly 6 years, I thought it was 1 year if it was less than 730 days?

I am 23 and not married so the only family I have in the UK is an uncle and I do not own a home. However, I've had a bank account here for 6 years, am paying taxes and into a pension account (in addition to the state pension) and do not own property or have a bank account outside the UK.

In terms of PR, there was no issue with that because that was the length of the year abroad + the summer break. There were no issues with my application and those of some friends of mine in the same situation so I think they are quite lenient if it is compulsory.

[muraenidae]

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... 2.0EXT.pdf


Where the applicant has absences of between 480-900 for applications under section 6(1) of the British Nationality Act 1981 (...) and otherwise meets the requirements you must only consider exercising discretion where the applicant has established their home, employment, family and finances in the UK, and one or more of the following applies:

• at least 2 years residence (for applications under section 6(1)), or 1 year (for applications under section 6(2)), without substantial absences immediately prior to the beginning of the qualifying period. If the period of absence is greater than 730 days (for section 6(1)) or 450 days (for section 6(2)) the period of residence must be at least 3 or 2 years respectively.
(...)

Your application would be under section 6(1) (section 6(2) is for the spouse of a British citizen), so it would be 2 years for absences <730 days, and 3 years for absences between 730 and 900 days.

As to what your chances are that this is seen as an "unavoidable consequence of the nature of the applicant’s career", I don't know, maybe somebody else can shed some light on this.