UK to double wait for permanent residency, with exemptions for care workers

Under the new rules, most foreign workers will have to wait 10 years to settle in the UK, but higher earners can qualify sooner.

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The United Kingdom has revised its immigration rules, doubling the time most foreign workers must wait to qualify for permanent residency to 10 years and making refugees who arrive on “small boats” wait as long as 30 years.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, speaking in Parliament on Monday, said hundreds of thousands of care workers will be exempt from the hardline rules, offering a concession amid a political outcry within the governing Labour Party.

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Permanent residency, known in the UK as indefinite leave to remain, carries the right to work, study, use the free National Health Service and claim welfare benefits. Until now, it has been granted after five years.

The new rules, set to take effect next year, tie eligibility for permanent residency to income.

People who earn more than 50,000 pounds a year ($67,000) will still be able to apply after five years, and those earning more than 125,000 pounds ($167,500) after three. Everyone else will be placed on the 10-year path. The median salary in the UK is about 39,000 pounds (roughly $52,000).

The rules will apply retroactively to workers already in the country.

“Settlement should not be automatic. It should be earned,” Mahmood, the home secretary, told Parliament, adding that the changes would restore fairness by linking the right to settle to what immigrants contribute.

“Those who contribute most will settle fastest,” she said. “Those who don’t play by the rules will be refused or wait longer.”

Care workers, refugees

The UK government first proposed last year that lower-skilled workers wait 10 to 15 years for permanent residency.

But the plan drew fierce opposition from unions and parts of the Labour Party, particularly over its effect on care workers, who are often poorly paid and work in a sector that has long struggled to fill vacancies. Many of them arrived in the early 2020s, as the country was reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic, to fill gaps left by European workers who had departed after Brexit.

Under the revised plan, care workers will be able to settle after five years if they have met the conditions of their visas and earn at least 25,000 pounds ($33,500) a year.

Mahmood said the rules would offer a path for care workers “who worked hard and answered our call when we needed them”.

As for refugees, those who arrive through one of the government’s “new safe and legal routes” will be able to settle after five years, she said. For other refugees, the standard wait will become 20 years, reduced to 10 years for those who work or study. Anyone who arrived by an “illegal method”, such as by small boat, could wait up to 30 years for settlement, she said.

Under the new rules, applicants will also be disqualified if they have a criminal record, cannot speak English “to a high standard”, owe money to the government, or have not made at least three years of national insurance contributions.

Mahmood said the overhaul would mean that half a million people would settle later than they otherwise would have, saving the government billions of pounds in benefits.

In total, the government estimates that as many as 1.4 million people will receive settled status between 2026 and 2030.

The changes, announced after a 12-week public consultation that drew more than 200,000 responses, are part of a broader effort to tighten immigration rules after arrivals surged following Brexit.

They are a response to political pressure, including from Nigel Farage’s populist Reform UK party, which has surged in popularity in recent years with calls for stricter migration controls. Reform UK has sought to depict the arrivals of refugees on small boats across the English Channel as a crisis, and anti-immigration activists have staged protests, including outside facilities that house asylum seekers.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s government has said that increased law enforcement cooperation between the UK and France has helped reduce the number of people making the crossing so far this year by more than 40 percent compared with 2025.

根据新规，大多数外国工人必须等待 10 年才能在英国定居，但高收入者可以更快获得资格。

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英国修改了移民规则，将大多数外国工人获得永久居留权所需的等待时间延长了一倍，达到 10 年，而乘坐“小船”抵达的难民则需要等待长达 30 年。

内政大臣沙巴纳·马哈茂德周一在议会发表讲话时表示，数十万护理人员将不受这些强硬规定的约束，这是在执政的工党内部政治抗议声中做出的一项让步。

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列表 2/3：由于政策收紧，英国净移民人数下降近 50%。

英国将三名青少年难民申请者送进监狱，原因是他们驾驶一艘超载的英吉利海峡移民船。

永久居留权，在英国被称为无限期居留许可，赋予持有人工作、学习、使用免费国民医疗服务体系（NHS）以及领取福利的权利。此前，永久居留权通常在居住满五年后授予。

新规将于明年生效，将永久居留资格与收入挂钩。

年收入超过5万英镑（约合6.7万美元）的人五年后仍可申请，年收入超过12.5万英镑（约合16.75万美元）的人三年后仍可申请。其余人员将按十年期流程申请。英国的工资中位数约为3.9万英镑（约合5.2万美元）。

这些规定将追溯适用于已经在该国境内的工人。

“定居权不应该是自动的，而应该靠自己争取，”内政大臣马哈茂德在议会表示，并补充说，这些改变将把定居权与移民的贡献挂钩，从而恢复公平。

“贡献最大的人会最快获得结算，”她说。“不遵守规则的人要么会被拒绝，要么需要等待更长时间。”

护理人员、难民

英国政府去年首次提议，低技能工人需要等待 10 到 15 年才能获得永久居留权。

但这项计划遭到了工会和部分工党成员的强烈反对，尤其反对其对护理人员的影响。护理人员收入往往很低，而且该行业长期以来一直面临人员短缺的问题。许多护理人员是在2020年代初抵达英国的，当时英国正遭受新冠疫情的冲击，他们是为了填补英国脱欧后离开的欧洲工人留下的空缺。

根据修订后的计划，护理人员如果满足签证条件且年收入至少达到 25,000 英镑（33,500 美元），五年后即可获得定居资格。

马哈茂德表示，这些规定将为“那些辛勤工作并在我们需要他们时响应我们呼唤的护理人员”提供一条出路。

她表示，对于难民，通过政府“新的安全合法途径”入境的人，五年后即可获得定居权。其他难民的等待时间将延长至20年，而工作或学习者则可缩短至10年。她还指出，任何通过“非法途径”（例如乘坐小船）入境的人，可能需要等待长达30年才能获得定居权。

根据新规，申请人如有犯罪记录、英语水平“不达标”、欠政府钱款或未缴纳至少三年国民保险费，也将被取消资格。

马哈茂德表示，这项改革将使 50 万人比原本应该的时间晚些获得养老金，从而为政府节省数十亿英镑的福利支出。

政府估计，从 2026 年到 2030 年，总共将有 140 万人获得永久居留权。

这些变化是在经过 12 周的公众咨询后宣布的，咨询期间收到了超过 20 万份回复。这些变化是英国脱欧后入境人数激增，为收紧移民规则而采取的更广泛措施的一部分。

这些举措是对政治压力的回应，其中包括来自奈杰尔·法拉奇领导的民粹主义政党“改革英国党”的压力。近年来，“改革英国党”因呼吁加强移民管控而人气飙升。该党一直试图将难民乘坐小船穿越英吉利海峡的事件描绘成一场危机，反移民活动人士也组织了抗议活动，包括在收容寻求庇护者的设施外举行示威。

英国首相安迪·伯纳姆领导的政府表示，英国和法国加强执法合作，使得今年迄今为止偷渡人数比 2025 年减少了 40% 以上。