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Guidance

Private life: caseworker guidance

Immigration staff guidance on how to consider applications for permission to stay in the UK on the basis of private life.

Updates to this page

From:
UK Visas and Immigration
Published:
20 June 2022
Last updated:
30 December 2025
Show all updates

  1. Updated with minor amendments to suitability.

  2. Updated to remove reference to Part 9 of the Immigration rules and instead apply Part Suitability.

  3. Updated to clarify the approach to be taken to young adults who meet the requirements of Appendix FM and Appendix Private Life, and the policy in relation to requests for longer periods of permission (or settlement).

  4. Updated to clarify how to consider cases where an applicant has spent time in detention following a conviction and to clarify that the requirement for a child applying as a dependent of a person on the private life route to have been born in the UK has moved from validity to eligibility.

  5. This guidance has been updated to: include links to new guidance covering access to public funds; remove information relating to police registration; include guidance about consideration of compelling compassionate factors.

  6. First published.

Documents

Private life: caseworker guidance (accessible)

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Private life: caseworker guidance

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Details

UK Visas and Immigration guidance on how staff should consider applications for permission to stay in the UK on the basis of private life, made by:

  • a person who arrived in the UK as an adult
  • a person who arrived in the UK as a child
  • a person who is now over 18 who arrived in the UK as a child

It also tells decision makers how to deal with applications from a dependent child born in the UK to a person on the private life route.

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