PS: re citizenship, what do you mean by "if you don’t meet the residency requirements right away"...
Do you need more than the 5 years that were already needed to get ILR?
Thanks again!
No, but you can't have been outside the UK for more than a certain number of days in the 3 years before applying. So, if you have been outside the UK for too many days in those 3 years, you would need to wait until you were under those number of days before you applied.
If you are married to a UK citizen, the citizenship residency requirements are:
- you must hold ILR (for any length of time)
- you must have physically been inside the UK exactly 3 years prior to your citizenship application date (i.e. if you apply on December 1st 2022, you must have been in the UK on December 1st 2019)
- you have not been outside the UK for more than 270 days in the 3 years before applying (i.e. since December 1st 2019)
- no more than 90 of those 270 days can have been in the final 12 months before applying (i.e. since December 1st 2021)
When working out the number of days, you don't count the days you left or returned to the UK, as you were inside the UK for part of those days... so, if you leave the UK on Monday and return on Friday, that only counts as 3 days outside the UK (Tue, Wed and Thu).
So, say for example, you spent 100 days in Canada in 2020, 70 days in Canada in 2021 and 85 days in 2022, you could apply for citizenship as soon as you got ILR, because you would have only been outside the UK for 255 days in the last 3 years. But if you spent 80 days in Canada in 2020, 120 days in 2021 and 90 days in 2022, you would have been outside the UK for 290 days in the 3 years, so you would have to wait until those extra 20 days dropped off before applying.
