FAQ

What does it mean to have permanent residence rights under the Withdrawal Agreement?

Following a December 2022 High Court judgment (see our FAQ https://the3million.org.uk/faq/ima-pss-jr-consequences), the Home Office announced certain changes in July 2023.

One of the consequences of the judgment is that people with pre-settled status should automatically acquire permanent residence rights once they meet the conditions of Article 15 of the Withdrawal Agreement, even if they have not yet applied for, or been granted, settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme.

For most people this means having lived in the UK in accordance with EU law for 5 years.

This has a number of consequences for people with pre-settled status who have acquired permanent residence rights under the Withdrawal Agreement, for example:

• Being able to apply for naturalisation as a British citizen after a year (or immediately, if married to a British citizen), subject to other eligibility conditions being met. See changes made to the Naturalisation as a British citizen: caseworker guidance on 21 July 2023. 
• Their child being eligible for registration as a British citizen as soon as a parent with pre-settled status acquired permanent residence under the Withdrawal Agreement. See changes made to the Registering children as British citizens: caseworker guidance on 21 July 2023
• Their child, if born in the UK, being automatically British. At the time of writing, the Automatic acquisition of British citizenship: caseworker guidance has not yet been updated.
• Having a “right to reside” for the purpose of welfare benefits - at the time of writing we have not seen any updated DWP guidance
• Having the right to leave the UK for 5 years before losing residence rights

We have created a Q&A document, with a detailed list of questions on the implementation of the judgment, which is available here.