Moving to the USA after receiving the ILR (then trying to return later)

Hello,

My husband is a British citizen and I am eligible to apply for the ILR in November 2023. If we wait until then and decide to move to the USA the following year, are we able to return to the UK (let's say, in 10 years for example)?  Does the visa process start over for me or can I come back on the ILR and eventually apply for citizenship? If it does start over, would it be best to obtain citizenship first so we can move between both countries (if we choose to do that)? We are just looking at our different options for the future.

Thank you so much for your help.

If you are out of the UK for 2 years, you lose ILR. Also it should be highlighted that you can't live outside the UK and have the occasional trip back to keep ILR; you have to be habitually residing in the UK. If you lose ILR and want to return to the UK after being away for more than 2 years, you could apply for a returning resident visa (but note, these are notoriously VERY difficult to obtain), or to start the whole process from scratch again according to the immigration rules in place at the time.

If you would like to leave the UK and potentially return at a later date without any worry of how much time you are away, we recommend obtaining UK citizenship.

Thank you so much - very helpful to know. Really appreciate it.

My advice would be to:
- apply for ILR in Nov 2023, using the Super Priority service so that the visa is processed in 24 hours from biometrics
- apply for citizenship immediately after getting ILR (assuming you meet all the requirements at that time)
- move to the US in 2024 once your citizenship has been granted and you have your UK passport

That way, you won’t have to worry about losing ILR in the future and you will have the freedom to live in either the UK or US at any time for the rest of your life, without any visa or immigration worries.

If you were to move to the US after getting ILR but before citizenship, as mentioned above, you would only have 2 years to return to live in the UK again. If more than 2 years passed, your ILR would become invalid and in order to move back to the UK, you would have have to start over from scratch on the 5-year spousal visa/FLR(M) path to ILR.

We’ve seen a number of people return to live in the US before getting UK citizenship, because they thought they wouldn’t return to the UK, and then they changed their minds later, decided to move back to the UK, and regretted not getting citizenship because they’ve had to start the entire UK immigration process over again.


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And it the process only becomes more expensive over time and never gets easier.

Really great advice - it all makes sense so we will work towards getting the citizenship straight away. Thank you for your replies and honesty! So helpful for us.

As ksand said, if you're waiting to get ILR you might as well wait a little bit longer and get citizenship.

Please do not take this as a definite at all but you could be really lucky like my wife and get your citizenship in four weeks (crazy fast).

Wow, that's amazing! If anything, it's great to know that is a possibility ) Really appreciate it so much.