Home Office to start converting eligible EUSS pre-settled status holders to settled status this month

The Home Office will soon start automatically upgrading those who hold pre-settled status under Appendix EU and are now eligible for settled status. This is being done to finish implementing the decision R (Independent Monitoring Authority for the Citizens’ Rights Agreements) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] EWHC 3274 (Admin) as explained by the Home Office in this policy paper (our write up of the case is here).

We will email pre-settled status holders who are approaching the expiry of their status to inform them that they may soon be considered for an automated conversion to settled status. We expect to issue the first grants of settled status under this process from late January 2025. Pre-settled status holders will not need to do anything, and we will inform them if we are unable to grant them settled status.

The Home Office will automatically check pre-settled status holder records against government-held information, for example to ensure they have remained resident in the UK, and to check for any evidence of criminal conduct. These checks are the same as the checks undertaken when the person first applied to the EUSS and will ensure they are eligible for settled status before it is granted.

Later in 2025, the Home Office intends to expand this process to enable more eligible pre-settled status holders to benefit from it. We are also considering the appropriate next steps for cases where a pre-settled status holder no longer meets the conditions of their pre-settled status, for example because they have not remained continuously resident in the UK. Further information will be provided in due course.

The announcement also advises that those who are eligible for settled status can still apply for this if they do not want to wait for the automatic conversion. This is a good moment for pre-settled status holders to check that the Home Office has the correct email address for them and that any emails from the Home Office will not go to a junk folder.