5-year qualifying period and ILR (EEA)

Hello everyone, I'm new to this board and I have a few questions I would like to ask regarding a future British citizenship application.

I have been studying in the UK since September 2014 (School, then Uni) and have successfully applied for ILR with EU Settlement scheme and received it the 17th of September 2019. After looking and the AN Guidance PDF, I have seen that there is a 5-year qualifying period to fulfil where the permitted absences are generally up to 480.

1st question, since I have left the UK to go back home every school/uni holiday, that might be more than 100 days per year on certain occasions, will this mean I don't qualify at all? Because I will have left the UK for more than 480 days in the past 5 years.

2nd question, if I have an ILR, do I still have to prove my residency over the last years in the Naturalisation application(eg sending the school and uni certificates over again), or is the ILR enough to cover anything before I got it?

3rd question, will I be asked to provide all airplane tickets for the time I have lived in the UK to prove the time that I stayed, or is it enough to provide attendance certificates from school and uni like for the ILR?

I'm quite worried because there is no point in applying if I'm already going to be excluded from the start due to my absences. However, on the website it isn't mentioned that if you have ILR you need to satisfy the residency requirements.

Thank you very much for your time!

1st question, since I have left the UK to go back home every school/uni holiday, that might be more than 100 days per year on certain occasions, will this mean I don't qualify at all? Because I will have left the UK for more than 480 days in the past 5 years.

As you can only apply for citizenship once you have held settled status for 12 months, you need to work out your absence counting back from the date you apply next year.

2nd question, if I have an ILR, do I still have to prove my residency over the last years in the Naturalisation application(eg sending the school and uni certificates over again), or is the ILR enough to cover anything before I got it?

Yes, you have to prove your residence. ILR EU Settlement scheme is completely different rules under the UK immigration rules to the Nationality Laws which citizenship is based on. They are not the same thing and have different requirements.

3rd question, will I be asked to provide all airplane tickets for the time I have lived in the UK to prove the time that I stayed, or is it enough to provide attendance certificates from school and uni like for the ILR?

No you do not have to prove evidence of air travel. Letters from school, P60s, Council tax all work.

I'm quite worried because there is no point in applying if I'm already going to be excluded from the start due to my absences. However, on the website it isn't mentioned that if you have ILR you need to satisfy the residency requirements.

Everyone has to satisfy the residency requirement for citizenship.

It is good then that I don't have to prove air travel because I don't have all the tickets. However, this also makes me unsure on wether my holidays in the last 5 years add up to more than 480 days. Does the government have access to this information? If all my other documents are fine (bank statements, school letters etc) will I risk it having refused because they more information than I have to?

guglielmo wrote: ↑

Thu Nov 07, 2019 3:35 pm

It is good then that I don't have to prove air travel because I don't have all the tickets. However, this also makes me unsure on wether my holidays in the last 5 years add up to more than 480 days. Does the government have access to this information? If all my other documents are fine (bank statements, school letters etc) will I risk it having refused because they more information than I have to?

The government has a database from the passenger advance information they get from the Stupid. However note that it is your responsibility to prove you meet the requirements when you apply.

You also cannot use bank statements to prove residency. The form AN guidance notes explains what you are able to use, see link below.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... n-guidance