Pre-settled EU national - conditions and routes for applying for UK citizenship if abroad for longer than 6 months

[edtwo]

Asking for a friend (no, really) and his wife who are both EU nationals pre-settled since early 2019, and also employed in the UK since then. Last month they traveled abroad due to pregnancy. They may have to remain abroad beyond 6 months. They continue to work for the same UK employers remotely from abroad. I know that switching from pre-settled to settled required max 6 months away from the UK (though some docs claim that the settled application online checks HMRC records, which only detects tax position changes rather than physical residency; anyway, I assume it's still the latter).

Their goal is to apply for british citizenship and don't want to affect that. The tl;dr question is: is there a way in which they can remain abroad now for longer than 6 months without having to bend over backwards in view of a later citizenship application?

Specifically:

(1) is it necessary for them to obtain settled status after 5 years of pre-settled, in order to remain legally in the UK after the 5 years? what happens if they break the "max 6 months absence" condition while pre-settled?

(2) is it necessary for them to obtain settled status before applying for citizenship?

(3) say they must remain abroad for 10 months. Can they instead apply for indefinite leave to remain (IRL) after 5+ years of living and working in the UK (with the "max 450 days total absence and max 90 days absence in final year before application" conditions) if they simply delay they IRL application to meet both the 450/90 days conditions? That is, forget about obtaining settled status. I couldn't confirm if that's allowed, i.e. if their pre-settled status would automatically persist and serve as legal permit for UK residency until they apply for IRL, or if they need to obtain some other residency permit until applying for citizenship (see question 1).

(4) There seems to be attenuating circumstances for the "max 6 months absence" when switching form pre-settled to settled if a serious reason is given, which includes pregnancy, in which case up to 12 months absence *can* be allowed, but I couldn't find any statistics of success rates in this case. Any clues?

I read [gov.uk](https://gov.uk) pages and [citizensadvice.org.uk](https://citizensadvice.org.uk) pages and I couldn't actually find accuerate information to answer (3), making me believe it's allowed.

I found a ton of info about switchign from pre-settled to settled, but not (1) whether it's actually required or (2) what happens if someone breaks the 6 months away condition.

[meself2]

Their goal is to apply for british citizenship and don't want to affect that.

Citizenship (naturalization) and immigration (settled/pre-settled status) are two separate things.
Immigration pathway stops at settled status/ILR; citizenship has its own, different rules. A lot of questions below are related to obtaining settled status/ILR here; it doesn't matter which way they got there for naturalization, it has its own rules.

is it necessary for them to obtain settled status after 5 years of pre-settled, in order to remain legally in the UK after the 5 years? what happens if they break the "max 6 months absence" condition while pre-settled?

They can extend their pre-settled for 2 more years if they can't get enough time on pre-setted to switch to settled, according to recent ruling.

(2) is it necessary for them to obtain settled status before applying for citizenship?

Yes.

Can they instead apply for indefinite leave to remain (IRL) after 5+ years of living and working in the UK (with the "max 450 days total absence and max 90 days absence in final year before application" conditions) if they simply delay they IRL application to meet both the 450/90 days conditions?

This is confusing, unfortunately. Can you rephrase the question?
ILR is the end of a different pathway for settlement, aimed mostly and nonEU nationals - they would have to start the whole 5 year process from scratch, not using any of the time acquired on EUSS.
They can apply for citizenship with either ILR or settled status, doesn't matter what they have as long as it's settlement.

(4) There seems to be attenuating circumstances for the "max 6 months absence" when switching form pre-settled to settled if a serious reason is given, which includes pregnancy, in which case up to 12 months absence *can* be allowed, but I couldn't find any statistics of success rates in this case. Any clues?

Don't think there's any, I'm afraid; your friend would have to try and find out.

[secret.simon]

Also see this answer to a very similar question from a few days ago.

Can they instead apply for indefinite leave to remain (IRL) after 5+ years of living and working in the UK (with the "max 450 days total absence and max 90 days absence in final year before application" conditions)

There is no such route to ILR (not IRL). Those are the requirements for naturalisation, not ILR.

There are various pathways to ILR, which is primarily aimed at non-EEA citizens, who come to the UK on work or spousal routes. They have different sets of requirements from Settled Status (which is just a simple term for ILR based on Appendix EU).

After your friend and their spouse have applied for and got Settled Status, they can apply for naturalisation after a year from the date they were granted Settled Status. At that point in time (i.e. at the time of applying for naturalisation), they need to meet the five years in the UK with "max 450 days total absence and max 90 days absence in final year before application" conditions.

See the first link at the top of this post. Naturalisation and immigration are two separate and unrelated processes and have different requirements (absences and others).

Tell your friend and their spouse to go through the requirements of getting Settled Status (and trust us when we say that they are on one of the easiest immigration routes to the UK already) and get back to us with any questions.

[edtwo]

I've done some further reading and came back to say I figured it out, but you guys were quicker -- thanks for the replies.

So my understanding was correct: given they have EU pre-settled status, and that being their only residency permit, they will be required to obtain settled status after 5 years of pre-settled. Also, gov.uk confirms the up to 12 month absence in case of childbirth (and other important reasons).

Interestingly, the 2 year extension can be offered even when breaking the "max 6 months absence in any rolling 12 months" condition, which remains broken even 2 years later, i.e. switching to settled will be denied. It seems that in this case, the extension is offered to allow the EU national to prepare and obtain some other residency permit before the pre-settled extension expires (ILR, work visa, etc).

[JB007]

Interestingly, the 2 year extension can be offered even when breaking the "max 6 months absence in any rolling 12 months" condition, which remains broken even 2 years later, i.e. switching to settled will be denied. It seems that in this case, the extension is offered to allow the EU national to prepare and obtain some other residency permit before the pre-settled extension expires (ILR, work visa, etc).

Although those who use the UK immigration rules remember to apply for a new visa before their visa ends, the EU thought those using the EU''s Free Movement (who tend to be low skilled) would not remember to do this; hence the 2 years extra.

It's also interesting to note that the following is changing too-

It was-

"Finally, it’s worth noting that at present there’s no need to actually list the exact dates of travel as part of a Settlement Scheme application. The applicant simply needs to self-certify they’ve resided continuously in the UK.

This suggests a more relaxed approach to absences than the Home Office adopts in other types of settlement. That said, the Home Office will have a record of travel where eGates have been used at airports and where travel has been stamped in a passport, meaning that honesty is always the best policy. "

https://freemovement.org.uk/lengthy-abs ... s-at-risk/

In the annoucement of the 2 extra years, they have also stated -

Safeguards will be in place to ensure that settled status is not wrongly granted.

Which suggests the end of the "self-certify they’ve resided continuously in the UK"?.

And this in the same announcement-

More than 2 years on from the EUSS application deadline of 30 June 2021 for those resident in the UK by the end of the transition period on 31 December 2020, the range of measures laid before Parliament today will also make sure that the Home Office can ensure the integrity of the EUSS, protecting it against fraud and abuse. They include changes to the way reasonable grounds for late applications to the scheme are considered. We are also closing 2 temporary transitional routes, both of which fall outside the UK’s Withdrawal Agreement commitments.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/eu-s ... -confirmed