The United Kingdom has announced a major change to who can settle permanently. Most migrants will generally have to wait 10 years for indefinite leave to remain (ILR), not five. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood set out the Earned Settlement policy in Parliament on November 2, 2026.
Mahmood said the changes would begin to be laid in the immigration rules in December 2026 and be put in place through 2027.
The new qualifying periods
The time a person has to wait now depends on earnings, occupation, immigration history and conduct:
- Standard route: 10 years
- Earning more than £50,271 a year: five years
- Earning more than £125,140 a year: three years
- Certain public-service workers: five years
- Qualifying care workers already in the UK: five years
- People who breached immigration rules: at least 20 years
- Refugees arriving by approved safe and legal routes: five years
- Refugees arriving by small boat or other clandestine routes: up to 30 years
Four conditions for everyone
Applicants must also meet four conditions, whenever they arrived.
They need a spotless criminal record, a high standard of spoken English, no outstanding debt to the British taxpayer and a sustained record of National Insurance contributions.
Mahmood said at least three years of contributions. Public debt can include unpaid tax, NHS charges and litigation debt, and for refugees unpaid asylum-support costs.
Finishing the qualifying period alone does not guarantee settlement.
The care workers’ concession
An earlier proposal would have made many lower-paid workers, including care workers, wait up to 15 years.
The government has dropped that for qualifying care workers who arrived before May 2025. Those who met their visa conditions and earned at least £25,000 a year in social care keep the five-year route.
Workers who did not meet their visa conditions will be offered a further five-year care visa. It will not tie them to their previous employer, which is meant to help workers hit by exploitative or fraudulent sponsors.
Mahmood said about a quarter of people who arrived or switched into the care route between 2022 and 2025 had not met their conditions.
About 250,000 people and their dependants came through or moved into that route in those years. The government also said it had removed about 1,800 employers from the sponsorship system, mainly for exploitation or other breaches.
Nurses and other public-service workers
The Royal College of Nursing confirmed on November 2 that registered nurses keep the five-year route, and so do nursing support workers who arrived before May 2025. Other qualifying health and education workers have transitional protection, including roles identified by the Migration Advisory Committee.
Applied to people already in the UK
The most consequential part is that the new periods are expected to apply to people already in the UK who do not yet have settlement. Many on work visas planned to apply after five years. Unless they fall in an exempt group, they could now wait 10.
The government says settlement applications are judged on the rules in force when they are decided, not the rules at arrival. Some Labour MPs and migration experts have criticised this. Diane Abbott raised the effect on people who had arrived legally and built their lives around the old route, and Mahmood rejected any comparison with the Windrush scandal.
Who is exempt
People who already hold settled status keep it. Hong Kong British National (Overseas) visa holders, members of the armed forces, family members of British citizens, people on certain legacy routes such as Windrush-related ones, and victims of domestic abuse who came as dependants keep their existing paths. The policy applies across the whole UK.
What the government expects
The government estimates the revised policy will reduce by about 500,000 the number of migrants who arrived from 2021 onwards and would otherwise have qualified by 2030. About 1.4 million could still qualify in that period. It also says the reforms could save billions of pounds in welfare spending.
What this means for Nepalis in the UK
The effect will depend on each person’s route, occupation, earnings, arrival date and compliance:
- Care workers who arrived before May 2025, meet visa conditions and earn at least £25,000 may keep five years. Others may get the extra five-year visa.
- Registered nurses keep five years, and other health staff must check whether their job is on the list.
- Skilled Worker visa holders below the higher-earner threshold, in non-exempt jobs, may face 10 years.
- Students and graduates do not gain settlement just by staying, and their route and later visa changes matter.
- Dependants may have different periods from the main applicant, depending on the final rules.
Anyone close to their fifth year should not assume the old route is still open, and should not assume the new one already applies.
What happens next
The December 2026 immigration rules will set the exact conditions, evidence needed and transitional arrangements.
