Overview
- Thursday’s Home Office figures show 199,628 people were granted Indefinite Leave to Remain in the year ending June 2026, a 24% rise and the highest total since 2010.
- Indian nationals were the largest single group granted ILR and citizenship, receiving 35,384 settlement grants (up 51%) and 24,851 citizenship grants in the latest year.
- The government has proposed changing ILR rules to raise the baseline qualifying period from five to ten years and to impose roughly 15–20 year waits for low‑paid workers and benefit claimants; the measures are in consultation and will be debated in Parliament.
- Applications for citizenship jumped to a record 315,224 in the year ending June 2026 while refusals rose 44%, a surge that officials and analysts link to people trying to lock in rights before the proposed rule change.
- Ministers have signalled transitional arrangements for borderline cases, but details remain unresolved and the plan has prompted debate inside the governing party and could affect about 1.6 million migrants due to qualify for ILR between 2026 and 2030.