You can apply for ILR 28 days before you reach 5 years in the UK.
According to your signature, you arrived in the UK on a spousal visa on 1st June 2017. Therefore you will reach 5 years in the UK on 1st June 2022... which means you can apply for ILR from 4th May 2022, right up until the expiry date of your BRP.
Currently, the 24-hour Super Priority service is not available for FLR and ILR applications due to Covid, but I would hope that it is back up and running by the time you are eligible to apply. If you are unable to use the Super Priority service at that time, it can take up to 6 months for ILR to be processed.
But can anyone tell me what the parameters are for applying for a passport after that. Say for instance I pay for an expedited application for my ILR, is there then an amount of time that I have to have ILR statues before I can apply for naturalisation/a passport?
If you are married to a UK citizen, you can apply for UK citizenship as soon as you receive your ILR BRP card.
[If you are not married to a UK citizen, you have to hold ILR for 12 months before you can qualify for citizenship.]
You do need to make sure you meet all the other citizenship requirements at that time as well, such as the following residency requirements:
- you were physically inside the UK exactly 3 years prior to your citizenship application date
- you have not been outside the UK for more than 270 days in the last 3 years
- no more than 90 of those 270 days can have been in the final 12 months before applying for citizenship
Once your citizenship has been approved (which can take up to 6 months), and you have attended your citizenship ceremony (which needs to be done within 3 months of citizenship approval), you can apply for your UK passport (which takes about 6 weeks).
