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Guidance

Settlement – family life, private life and bereaved partners: caseworker guidance

Immigration staff guidance on applications for settlement by those on the family and private life routes.

Updates to this page

From:
UK Visas and Immigration
Published:
17 August 2022
Last updated:
19 August 2026
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  1. Changes have been made to introduce guidance for paragraph 297 and paragraph 298 within Part 8 of the Immigration Rules, update references to Part Suitability and to improve accuracy of the information in the guidance. This document replaces versions 1 to 4 of the Settlement family and private life guidance.

  2. Updated validity and eligibility sections in the private life guidance, allowing children and young adults to rely on a previous grant of permission based on their private life; added continuous residence requirements for a child born in the UK, applying for settlement on the private life route; clarified the relationship requirements for partners whose sponsors held permanent residence as an EU national; clarified that permission granted under Appendix Private Life based on significant obstacles (PL 5.1) or Article 8 of the Human Rights Convention (PL 8.1) is considered permission on the private life route.

  3. Updated to reflect the introduction of a fee waiver for bereaved partners who are destitute.

  4. Updates throughout - see 'changes from the last version of this guidance' for full details.

  5. First published.

Documents

Settlement: family life, private life and bereaved partners (accessible)

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Settlement: family life, private life and bereaved partners

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Details

UK Visas and Immigration guidance on how staff decide applications for settlement by those on the family and private life routes.

This includes:

  • the 5-year family settlement route for partners and parents, including provisions for bereaved partners (Appendix FM)
  • the 10-year family settlement route (Appendix Family Settlement)
  • the private life settlement route (Appendix Private Life)

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