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<h1><span style="color: #0c3951;">The 10-year route</span></h1><p>“You can’t have dreams or aspirations on the 10-year route... It ruins lives, it ruins families.”</p>

The 10-year route

“You can’t have dreams or aspirations on the 10-year route... It ruins lives, it ruins families.”

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The 10-year route to settlement

The 10-year route to settlement is an immigration pathway for people living in the UK who have a strong human rights-based reason to be here – either because they have children or a partner in the UK, or because they have lived here for a long time. People on the route are given status for 2.5 years, and have to reapply – and pay eye-watering fees – four times before being eligible to apply for settlement (also known as Indefinite Leave to Remain or ILR).

“You can’t have dreams or aspirations on the 10-year route... It ruins lives, it ruins families.”

It is a route with insecurity baked into it. People we work with who are on the 10-year route – in particular The VOICE action group – tell us that it leads to anxiety, financial hardship, housing and employment insecurity, and debt. They say it holds them back from everything they want to achieve.

Our demands

1. Cap all routes to settlement at 5 years.

2. Reduce visa fees to administrative costs and make fee waivers easier to access.

3. End the default “no recourse to public funds” condition given to people on the 10-year route.

4. Scrap “Earned Settlement” and any plans to make routes to settlement longer and ILR harder to achieve.

A Punishing Process

Experiences of people on the 10-year route to settlement

In 2023, with Praxis and the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), we published a report based on over 300 people’s experience of the 10-year route. We found that:

  • The 10-year route causes financial hardship, housing and employment insecurity;

  • Being on the 10-year route has a negative impact on people’s mental health, relationships and family life, affecting whole families; and

  • Due to the length of the route, cost of fees, complexity of applications, and lack of legal aid, people are vulnerable to “falling off” the route and losing their status completely.

We called for routes to be made shorter and more affordable.

Read the report

"I was working in the emergency department. You have to put a smile on your face and be the best of you. But you yourself need help. Inside, you are dying slowly."

Earned settlement

In their 2025 Immigration White Paper the government announced they planned not to shorten the 10-year route, but to expand it to far more people including on skilled worker visas. Their November 2025 statement went even further, revealing plans to put some people on 15, 20- and even 30- year routes, as punishment for accessing benefits, arriving on the wrong kind of visa, or even just being a skilled worker in a job that’s low paid.

These plans are appalling. In Greater Manchester alone, around 1 in 10 residents would be affected, increasing child poverty, housing insecurity and destitution, and impacting the wellbeing of people who live in our communities and call this place home.

“The government being able to change the rule at any time – you’re never settled. That’s anxiety every single day.”

You can read our explainer on earned settlement here, and our response to the Home Affairs Select Committee on routes to settlement here.

In March 2026 we attended a mass lobby of Parliament, where over 500 people spoke to over 80 MPs about the impact earned settlement plans would have on them and their communities. Read more here.

Nelson's story

In July 2024, we celebrated a major legal and campaign victory against the 10-year route. Nelson Shardey has lived in the UK since 1977, raising a family and becoming a pillar of his Wallasey community. But in 2019, he discovered he had no legal status. By his mid-70s, a simple mistake made without legal advice left him back at square one, and he was told he must spend another decade on the 10-year route to settlement.

GMIAU Solicitor Nicola took on his case. With her legal challenge, and the family’s powerful campaigning, his story reached national headlines and struck a chord with thousands. Under growing pressure, the Home Office finally backed down. The family’s crowdfunding campaign raised more than £47,000, which Nelson chose to donate to three North West charities.

In 2026, Nelson became a British citizen. He continues to campaign against the 10-year route.

“I was so relieved that in the end, we won the battle. Now we hope to win the war: for the authorities to agree that the 10-year route is inhuman and abolish it or shorten it.”

Further work

Briefing for North West local authorities

Our joint briefing with IPPR aims to provide local authorities with practical information, to ensure that all those who call the North West home, including those on the 10-year route to settlement, are supported to thrive in our communities.

Read the briefing

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