Steps after applying to the EU Settlement Scheme

What do you need to do after you have applied?

This is a checklist of steps you can take after you have applied to the EU Settlement Scheme:

1. Check your email for the outcome of your application
2. Make sure you don’t lose your status
3. From pre-settled status to settled status
4. What if you change your personal or contact details?
5. What if you get a new passport or ID card?
6. How to view and prove your status to third parties (employers, landlords, etc)

1. Check your email for the outcome of your application.

Check your email regularly - you should receive at least three emails:

• an email confirming you have submitted an application
• an email with a 'Certificate of Application' (though you won’t get this if you already have pre-settled status and this application is for settled status)
• a decision email which tells you whether you have been granted status

The emails will be sent to the email address you provided for your application. This can take a few days, but sometimes several weeks. Do check your Spam folder too, they can end up there.

When received, print them out or keep it in an accessible folder on your email for future reference. Although they are not proof of your status, you may need the information in the letters later, when you need to update the information held by the Home Office.

While you are waiting for a decision, your Certificate of Application will be important to help you prove your rights.

2. Make sure you don’t lose your status

With settled status you can leave the UK for a period of up to five years (or four years if you are Swiss or a family member of a Swiss citizen). If you stay away longer, you may lose your status. However, you only have to come back to the UK for a few days to make sure you keep your status, and 'reset your clock' on absences (see this FAQ for more information).

Pre-settled status is a more precarious status. It may be automatically extended by the Home Office, but it also can be taken away if the Home Office consider you are no longer eligible for it. Once you become eligible for settled status, it is advisable to apply for it, to get a more secure status.

But be careful! If you want to qualify for settled status, you must maintain your continuity of residence. The continuity of residence rules were changed in July 2025 to become a bit more flexible. See our FAQ: What does ‘continuous residence’ or ‘continuity of residence’ mean?

If your absences are too long, you could be at risk of automatically losing your status - see our FAQ: If I have pre-settled status and spent more than 2 years outside the UK, will I lose my EU Settlement Scheme rights?

See our absence calculator page for useful tools on absences.

3. From Pre-settled status to settled Status

You can apply for settled status as soon as you complete your five years of continuous residence in the UK. You don’t have to wait until the expiry date on your pre-settled status, or until the Home Office tries to automatically grant you settled status.  

4. What if you change your personal or contact details?

You must update the information held by the Home Office if you change your mobile phone number or email address. This is important. If you don’t, you may have serious problems maintaining and proving your status when needed. You can update your details online. Go to your online profile and choose the link: “Update your details”. Click on the details you want to update. Save them and make sure you keep a record of what you have done.

See also our FAQ: I’ve changed my email address / mobile number. Do I really need to keep my UKVI account / eVisa updated? What happens if I don’t update my digital status with my new contact details?​

5. What if you get a new passport or ID card?

If you get a new passport or ID card, you should update your data online and inform the Home Office.

Also, if you have more than one nationality / passport, or you have both a passport and a national identity card, you can add multiple identity documents to your status for travel purposes, so that Border Force officials can look up the status linked to your travel document. 

Visit this Home Office page to make the changes, which usually allow you to do the update by using an app to scan your new identity document. If however you are asked to physically send in your identity documents by post, please follow our tips below:​

1. Make a copy of your new passport or ID card, and keep it safe.

2. Download and print the two-page file called “New Identity Document", the cover sheet and the checklist.

3. Place the letter and your new ID document in an envelope. Write your application reference number on the front of the envelope, together with the Home Office address, as given on the web page.

4. Also include a return envelope with your own address on it and franked for Special Delivery. The post office will do this for you, so don’t seal the envelope until this is done.

5. Take the envelope to the post office and send the package Special Delivery, after you have also had the return envelope franked and you have sealed everything in the envelope with the Home Office address and your number.

This is the most secure way and will make sure your documents reach the Home Office safely and are returned to you quickly.

See also our FAQ: I’ve renewed my passport. Do I really need to keep my UKVI account / eVisa updated? What happens if I don’t link a new passport or national identity document to my digital status?

6. How to view and prove your status to third parties (employers, landlords, etc)

You will not be given physical proof of your status. The confirmation email and the pdf letter you receive are not proof of your status.  Please join our Fix the digital status campaign.​

Instead, you need to prove your status online. In 2025, the Home Office started referring to this way of proving your status as your “eVisa”.

See our FAQ: I have been asked to provide a share code to prove my (pre-)settled status. How do I do this?