SettledStatus.Blog

Why you may want to reapply for pre-settled status before 30 June 2021, although you already have pre-settled status

Pre-settled status gives you the right to remain in the UK for 5 years. By the end of this period, you must either apply for settled status, or leave the UK. You are not able to apply again for pre-settled status after 30 June 2021, unless you are outside the UK and a joining family member of an EU national with settled or pre-settled status in the UK.

To be able to successfully apply for settled status by the time your pre-settled status expires, you must prove that you have a “continuous” qualifying period of residence in the UK of 5 years which continues at the date of application. It is essential to understand the meaning of the word “continuous” in this context.

“Continuous” means that during the qualifying period of residence in the UK, you have not served a sentence of imprisonment of any length in the UK, you have not been excluded or removed deported from the UK.

But “continuous” also means that during the qualifying period of residence in the UK, you have not been absent from the UK for more than six months in any 12-month period. The period of absence of more than 6 months may consist of a single absence of more than 6 months, or of several absences of less than 6 months, but which, cumulatively, result in an absence of more than 6 months in a 12-month period.

Example:

Clara has been granted pre-settled status on 5 February 2020. She must apply for settled status by 5 February 2025, if she wants to remain in the UK.

In March 2020, as a result of the lockdown, she lost her job in a London hotel and left the UK, as she could not afford anymore to pay the rent for her flat. She planned to return to the UK immediately after the hotel reopened. But she did not anticipate the length of the pandemic and the fact that UK and the EU country where she came from will re-enter in successive lockdowns in the following months.

Clara returned to the UK initially in September 2020 and remained until December 2020. She then returned in June 2021, after the restrictions have been eased, and the hotel reopened. She was outside the UK between March and September 2020, for more than 5 months, and then between December 2020 and June 2021, for 6 months. In total, between March 2020 and March 2021, she was absent from the UK for more than 8 months, made of two absences of 5 months and 3 months.

Clara initially started a “continuous” qualifying period of residence in the UK in February 2020, when she has been granted pre-settled status. But this period of residence ceased to be “continuous” when she has been absent from the UK for more than 6 months in a 12-month period.

Clara started a new “continuous” qualifying period of residence in the UK in June 2021, when she returned in the UK. But in February 2025, when Clara must apply for settled status if she wishes to remain further, she will only have a “continuous” qualifying period of residence in the UK of 3 years and 8 months (from June 2021 to February 2025). She will not be able to apply for settled status and she will have to leave the UK for good, unless she will identify another route available to her to stay or return in the UK.

If you have been absent from the UK for more than six months in any 12-month period, the only chance to have a “continuous” qualifying period of residence in the UK of five years by the time your pre-settled status expires is to re-apply for pre-settled status before 30 June 2021.

This is perfectly legal. The solution is confirmed by the “EU Settlement Scheme caseworker guidance”, version 12.0, published for Home Office staff on 21 May 2021, which states, at page 52, that, where a further valid application under the EU Settlement Scheme has been made after an earlier application under it has been decided, if the earlier application resulted in pre-settled status being granted, the further application must be considered in the normal way.

If you are granted pre-settled status where you already have pre-settled status, then your new pre-settled status will vary (replace) the earlier grant of pre-settled status. The date of the first grant of pre-settled status will remain the start date of your pre-settled status. The expiry date of your pre-settled status will be five years from the date of decision on the further application for pre-settled status.