If you have completed 5 years residence in the United Kingdom and have held Permanent Residency or Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) for 1 year, you can apply for naturalisation as a British Citizen. There are different ways to become a British citizen. The most common is called ‘naturalisation’.

If you are married to a British Citizen, you can apply for naturalisation as soon as you have completed 3 years residence in the UK and has Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) in the UK. You must be a person of good character and must not have any unspent criminal conviction or civil judgment made against you in the UK or in any other country. You must have passed Life in the UK Test and an English text before an application for naturalisation as a British Citizen is made to the Home Office. You are expected to make the United Kingdom as main country of residence.

You can apply for British citizenship by naturalisation if:

• you are 18 or over
• you are of good character, eg you don’t have a serious or recent criminal record, and you haven’t tried to deceive the Home Office or been involved in immigration offences in the last 10 years
• you will continue to live in the UK
• you have  met the knowledge of English and life in the UK requirements
• you meet the residency requirement

And you must usually have:

• lived in the UK for at least the 5 years before the date of your application
• spent no more than 450 days outside the UK during those 5 years
• spent no more than 90 days outside the UK in the last 12 months
• been granted indefinite leave to stay in the UK (or permanent residence if you’re an EEA national) – this means there’s no specific date that you have to leave
• had indefinite leave to stay in the UK for the last 12 months (or permanent residence if you’re an EEA national)
• not broken any immigration laws while in the UK

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About the Author:

Don Magsino MBA is a student of Oxford Brookes University at Post-Graduate Degree in Law in Oxford, England, UK. He is a graduate of Ateneo De Manila University Graduate School of Business. He is a qualified and a practicing Immigration Lawyer in the UK. His mobile phone is 07446888377 / Direct Line: 0207 316 3027 Email is don@stanfordlawassociates.co.uk. His London office is located at Regus, 239 Kensington High Street, London W8 6SN. He is accredited by the Law Society in England and Wales and regulated by the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner (OISC) Level 3: highest level in immigration professionals. He has represented clients in the First-tier Tribunal, Immigration Detention Courts and Deportation and Bail Hearings and to the Upper Tribunal and won many difficult cases in immigration law in the United Kingdom.