Earned Settlement Is Decided: What Sponsors Must Do Now, Worker by Worker

Key Takeaways

• Earned settlement is decided policy, but it is not law yet. The government response to the consultation, CP 1707, was published on 2 November 2026. No Statement of Changes has been laid (HC 584 of 3 September 2026 is still the latest), there is no start date, and technical guidance comes before implementation, so settlement applications are still decided under today's five-year rules.
• Ten years becomes the default for sponsored workers who are not in a protected group. The Home Office illustratively estimates that about 146,000 Skilled Workers and 85,000 dependants who were expected to settle between 2026 and 2030 will be on the ten-year pathway. Skilled Workers granted permission under the rules before 4 April 2024, in roles below RQF 6, will be able to extend on their current terms until 2035 (instead of 2030), which helps you keep them but does not shorten their wait.
• Five years survives only for defined groups, and each has its own test. Care workers who entered or switched into the route before 12 May 2025 and met the £25,000, sponsorship and employment requirements; health and education workers below RQF 6 on national pay scales who came to the UK before 12 May 2025 and met their visa requirements; the RQF 6 and above public service occupations listed in Annex C of CP 1707; anyone earning at least £50,271 in three of the last five years; and workers with a British connection, such as a British citizen partner. Earnings of £125,141 in three of the last four years give three years. Every group must also meet the new mandatory requirements, including no criminal record and B2 English.
• A pay rise does not buy a faster route on its own. The higher-earner tests look back over several years, so a salary that crosses £50,271 today counts as one qualifying year, not five years' settlement. Do not promise a shorter wait in a pay review or an offer letter.
• Payroll records now decide settlement, so keep every year of them. CP 1707's summary table and chapter 2 ask for earnings of at least £12,571 in five of the previous seven years for the ten-year route, chapter 2 and Annex B also say "at least three years", and the Home Secretary's statement refers to three years of National Insurance contributions. Until the Rules settle it, keep every P60, payslip and RTI submission for every sponsored worker.
• A qualifying immigration breach as an adult will put a worker on a twenty-year route, and so can using public funds. Breaching a condition of permission will be on the breach list, so once it is in force, moving a sponsored worker into a different role or group company without the right sponsorship steps could cost them ten extra years as well as risking your licence. A worker who used specified public funds in the five years before applying must wait for five clear years or complete twenty. Never ask staff whether they claim benefits.
• Staff who are eligible under the current rules should apply on their earliest valid date. CP 1707 says applications are ordinarily decided under the rules in force on the date of decision, while the GOV.UK news story says the rules at the point of application apply. Applying early is the right advice under both readings, and B2 English becomes a legal requirement for settlement applications made on or after 26 March 2027.
• Care providers have a new date to plan for: 1 February 2027. From then, care workers whose sponsor loses its licence will have up to 120 days to secure a job offer and a further 60 days to resolve their status before their visa is curtailed. The date and the 120 and 60-day periods appear only in CP 1707; the Home Secretary's statement mentions only a longer period before curtailment.
• A worker sponsored for ten years instead of five roughly doubles your own sponsorship costs. For a medium or large sponsor, a second five-year Certificate of Sponsorship adds £525 plus £6,600 of Immigration Skills Charge per worker, and neither can be recovered from the worker.
• WPC HR's HR compliance software keeps the records a longer sponsorship depends on. Our HR compliance software sends visa expiry reminders at 90, 60 and 30 days, tracks right to work follow-up checks and stores each worker's file around the Appendix D list, and our sponsor licence compliance audit tests your pay and reporting history before a settlement application does.

Introduction

On 2 November 2026 the Home Office published A Fairer Pathway to Settlement: Government Response to the Consultation (CP 1707), alongside a GOV.UK news story and the Home Secretary's statement to Parliament. The question of whether settlement moves from five years to ten has been answered. It does, for most sponsored workers who are not in one of a handful of protected groups.

What has not been answered is when. CP 1707 is a policy decision, not a change to the Immigration Rules. Until a Statement of Changes is laid, every settlement application is still decided under the current rules in Appendix Skilled Worker, which give settlement after five years. That gap is the window this guide is about.

For HR teams, the decision turns settlement from a single date on a calendar into something that depends on each worker's route, start date, occupation, salary history and conduct. Two people hired on the same day can now have settlement dates five years apart. This guide sorts your sponsored workforce into those groups, sets out the records you need to evidence each one, and explains what a longer sponsorship costs and what you should do this week.

We keep confirmed law, decided policy and open questions separate throughout. For the record of the original proposals and what Parliament said about them, see our earlier guide on settlement reform and the ILR changes for employers. For the worker's own position, including families, refugees and Long Residence, our sister firm WorkPermitCloud has covered the earned settlement decision for care workers and other applicants.

Where Things Stand on 3 November 2026

We checked the consultation page, CP 1707 in full, the news story, the oral statement and the Statement of Changes collection on GOV.UK on 3 November 2026. The table separates what is law from what is decided and what is still unknown.

Which rules apply: two GOV.UK sources say different things

This point matters for anyone who is close to five years. Chapter 8 of CP 1707 says that, unless transitional provisions are made, applications are "ordinarily considered under the Immigration Rules in force at the date of settlement decision". The Home Secretary's statement takes the same line, saying settlement rules are determined when a decision is made. The GOV.UK news story, published the same day, says settlement rules will "continue to apply at the point of application".

Those are different tests. Under the first, an application made under the five-year rules but decided after the new rules start could be assessed under the new rules unless the Statement of Changes protects it. Under the second, the date of application fixes the rules. We do not know which the Statement of Changes will adopt, and we do not state either as settled. The practical advice is the same under both: a worker who is eligible now should apply on their earliest valid date, with a complete application, rather than wait.

Sorting Your Sponsored Workforce, Worker by Worker

The single most useful thing HR can do this week is put every sponsored worker into one of the groups below. Each group has a different settlement period, a different test and a different set of records you will be asked for. The table follows the groups in CP 1707. Where a worker could fall into more than one group, the shortest pathway they can evidence is likely to be the one that applies, although CP 1707 does not say so in terms.

Care workers and health or education workers use different cut-off tests

It is easy to merge these two groups because both are pinned to the Immigration White Paper of 12 May 2025. The tests are not the same. A care worker must have entered, or switched into, the route before the White Paper. A health or education worker below RQF 6 must have come to the UK before it and met their visa requirements. A nursing auxiliary who came to the UK as a dependant in 2023 and was later sponsored in that role may meet the second test. A care worker who arrived in 2023 on a different visa and switched into care work in June 2025 does not meet the first. Record the right date for the right group.

The pre-April 2024 cohort and the RQF question

Today, workers granted Skilled Worker permission under the rules before 4 April 2024 can keep extending on the lower transitional salary rules if they apply before 4 April 2030 and have held continuous permission since. CP 1707 extends that to 2035, explaining that settlement is now ten years "for workers in roles below RQF6 (and who are not subject to other exemptions)". That wording leaves it unclear whether a worker in an RQF 6 role who relies on the transitional salary rules gets the same extension. Until the Statement of Changes answers it, treat 2035 as confirmed only for roles below RQF 6, and keep the transitional going rates in our guide to SOC codes and going rates in front of whoever assigns your CoS.

Who is affected most

The Home Office's own figures in Annex A of CP 1707 show where the change lands. Of those expected to settle between 2026 and 2030, the Home Office's illustrative volumes put about 146,000 Skilled Workers and 85,000 dependants on the ten-year pathway, against 86,000 Skilled Workers on the five-year pathway and 27,000 on the three-year pathway. In social care, about 196,000 care workers are in the transitional cohort; the Home Office indicatively expects around 146,000 to meet the requirements and around 50,000 not to. If you sponsor chefs, butchers, care workers who joined after May 2025, or other roles below the £50,271 line and outside Annex C, expect most of your sponsored workforce to sit in the ten-year group.

Why Payroll Now Decides Settlement

Under the current rules, HR's part in a Skilled Worker's settlement is mostly the sponsor's confirmation at the end. Under earned settlement, the earnings history decides the pathway itself, and that history is your payroll. CP 1707 links each threshold to an income tax band, so the figures will move with future tax thresholds.

The contribution test is worded three ways

The minimum contribution test is not described consistently. The summary table in CP 1707, and the "best years" rules in chapter 2, ask for earnings above £12,571 in five of the previous seven years. A paragraph earlier in the same chapter says "at least three years", and Annex B repeats three years. The Home Secretary's statement lists failing to have made three years of National Insurance contributions as a bar, and the news story speaks of "a record of sustained National Insurance contributions".

Three years and five years are not the same test, and earnings are not the same thing as National Insurance contributions. CP 1707 also leaves open whether a "year" means a tax year or a period before the application date. The Rules will settle this. In the meantime, the safe position for HR is simple: keep every year's payroll record for every sponsored worker, in a form that can be produced on request, and make sure your RTI submissions match what you actually paid. Our sister firm WorkPermitCloud has explained how HMRC data is already being used in sponsor licence checks, which is a good reason to assume the Home Office will compare the two.

What the sponsor's confirmation can expose

Under the current rules in Appendix Skilled Worker, a Skilled Worker's settlement application needs three things from you. Your licence must still be approved on the date of decision (SW 24.1). You must confirm that you still require the worker for the foreseeable future and that they are paid, and will be paid, at least the settlement salary (SW 24.2). That salary must meet both the general threshold and the going rate in the relevant row of the table in SW 24.3: £41,700 in the general case, with lower figures for the pre-4 April 2024 cohort (£31,300) and for some Immigration Salary List, health and education roles.

An application that runs back over five years of pay, and under earned settlement over seven, puts your history in front of a caseworker. Pay that dropped below the CoS salary, hours that were not worked, a change of role that was never reported, or salary paid in a way that does not meet the monthly pay period rule can surface at this point. They can damage the worker's application and they can start a compliance case against your licence. Our sponsor duties checklist sets out the reporting duties, and our guide to modern slavery and what HR must be able to prove covers the pay and hours records that protect you. The detail of the sponsor's role in a settlement application will follow in a separate guide.

Employer-caused breaches are now a settlement risk

CP 1707 says specified immigration breaches committed as an adult will place a worker on a twenty-year pathway, "regardless of higher earnings or other positive contributions". The list will be set out in the Rules, and it will include overstaying, using deception, frustrating immigration controls and breaching a condition attached to immigration permission.

That last item reaches into HR decisions. A Skilled Worker's permission is tied to the sponsored job with the sponsor. If you move a worker into a materially different role, or have them work for another company in your group, without the change being properly sponsored, it is the worker's condition that is breached. Today that is a licence compliance problem for you. Once the breach list is in force, it may also add ten years to the settlement of a worker who was an adult at the time. We do not yet know whether minor or technical breaches will count. Treat every change of role, hours, location or employing entity as something to check against the CoS before it happens.

The Cost of Sponsoring for Ten Years Instead of Five

A worker who would have settled at five years and now needs ten must hold at least one more grant of permission, and each grant needs a new Certificate of Sponsorship. The fees below are the GOV.UK figures we checked on 3 November 2026: the CoS fee in the Home Office fees table in force from 8 October 2026 and the rates on the Immigration Skills Charge page. The example assumes two five-year grants.

Shorter grants mean more certificates, so the CoS line rises if you sponsor in two or three-year blocks. Some workers are exempt from the Immigration Skills Charge, for example those in listed research and higher education occupations, and former Students who switched into Skilled Worker and then extend, for whom the extra cost is mainly the CoS fee. Check before you budget. The worker's own visa fee and Immigration Health Surcharge are separate; the sponsor guidance (Part 2) sets out the costs you must carry yourself.

The admin that doubles with the costs

The cash is the easy part to see. A ten-year sponsorship also brings:

• A follow-up right to work check before every expiry. A sponsored worker's right to work is time-limited, so you need a fresh check before each permission ends to keep your statutory excuse. Our complete guide to right to work checks covers the follow-up rules.
• A salary and going rate check at every extension. The thresholds in force on the date of each new CoS apply, unless the worker has transitional protection.
• A longer Appendix D file. Records for a sponsored worker must be kept throughout the sponsorship and until the earlier of one year after it ends or the date a compliance officer examines and approves them (Appendix D, version 10/26). Ten years of sponsorship is ten years of file. Our guide to getting your Appendix D records audit-ready lists what each file needs.
• Ten years of reporting duties. Every change of role, salary, hours or location, and every absence that triggers a report, has to go through the SMS for twice as long.
• More exposure to licence risk. A worker who depends on you for ten years depends on your licence staying active for ten years. Our guide to suspension, downgrade and revocation explains what puts it at risk.

Care Providers: What Changes and What to Prove

Care is where the decision is most generous and most demanding at once. The transitional five-year route depends on facts that sit in your records, and in the records of every provider who sponsored the worker before you. The general sponsor rules for care, including the CQC requirement and the in-country recruitment limits, are in our care sector sponsor licence compliance guide.

Evidencing the entry date and the £25,000 history

For each care worker, record the date they entered the care worker route or switched into it, using the grant letter, eVisa record or CoS history, and check it against 12 May 2025. Then check their pay against the £25,000 salary requirement for the whole period you employed them. CP 1707 is clear that this cohort keeps five years only where they met the salary, sponsorship and employment requirements, and the oral statement describes about a quarter of the people who came through the care route between 2022 and 2025 as not having met their visa conditions. Where the shortfall happened on your payroll, the worker will need your records to explain it, and a caseworker may ask you about it.

Give departing care workers copies of their payslips and P60s, and keep your own copies. A worker who moves on still needs your years to prove their five.

The 1 February 2027 window when a licence is revoked

At present, when a sponsor's licence is revoked, its sponsored workers' permission is normally cut short to 60 days. CP 1707 says that from 1 February 2027, care workers who lose their employment because their sponsor's licence is removed will have up to 120 days to secure a job offer and a further 60 days to resolve their visa and employment status. If they do not secure an offer within 120 days, or resolve their status within 180 days, their visa will be curtailed. The date and the 120 and 60-day periods appear only in CP 1707. The Home Secretary's statement says only that these care workers will get a longer period before curtailment, and no Rules or guidance yet set out how it works.

Our sister firm WorkPermitCloud has explained what care workers can do next when a sponsor licence is revoked and whether a worker can still get ILR after a revocation at five years.

Recruiting care workers who need a second chance

The roughly 50,000 care workers the Home Office expects to fall short at five years are also a pool of experienced staff. CP 1707 says they will be able to apply for a further five-year Health and Care visa, restricted to genuine work in the sector, with no recourse to public funds. Its worked example says they will be supported to move into genuine, sponsored employment, and the Home Secretary said they will not be tied to their old employer. Annex A counts them as care workers "able to secure further sponsorship", and none of the sources says the visa is sponsor-free, so plan on the basis that you would need to sponsor them.

Under the current Rules, a worker who already holds Skilled Worker permission as a care worker or senior care worker can be sponsored by a new care provider without the 22 July 2028 cut-off that applies to other in-country recruits (SW 6.1B(b)). Whether the second-chance visa uses the same mechanism will be clear only when the Rules are laid. If you recruit from this group, offer real, guaranteed hours at or above the required salary, because this visa exists to give them the work record they did not get the first time.

Getting Eligible Staff to Apply Under the Current Rules

The five-year rules are still law, and for many of your workers they are the better deal. Your job is not to make the application for them, but to make sure nothing on your side holds it up. Prioritise in this order:

• Workers who will reach five years before the change and are not in a protected group. They have the most to lose: under earned settlement most of them face ten years. This includes chefs, butchers and other roles below RQF 6 earning under £50,271.
• Workers who reach five years between now and 26 March 2027 and may struggle with B2 English. Applications from that date need B2 in speaking and listening (SW 22A.1). Our sister firm WorkPermitCloud has covered the new B2 English requirement for settlement.
• Care workers in the pre-May 2025 cohort with a clean salary and hours history. They keep five years under CP 1707 too, but applying under today's rules removes the uncertainty about the new mandatory requirements.
• Everyone else who is already eligible. There is no advantage in waiting.

For each one, check your licence is fully active, that their current salary meets the SW 24.3 row that applies to them, and that your sponsor confirmation can be issued within days of a request. Point workers to WorkPermitCloud's ILR eligibility calculator and five-year ILR service for their side of the application. Once settlement is granted, the worker no longer needs sponsorship, and you still have to report the ILR grant to the Home Office through the SMS within 10 working days of becoming aware of it.

What Not to Do

Earned settlement gives employers more influence over a worker's future than the old rules did, because pay, hours and sponsorship now shape the pathway. That influence comes with risk.

How Can WPC HR Help?

WPC HR is the HR-tech arm of WorkPermitCloud Ltd, providing HR compliance software and sponsor licence compliance audits to UK employers, and for earned settlement it gives sponsors the records and checks a longer sponsorship depends on. Our HR compliance software stores each sponsored worker's file around the Appendix D list, sends visa expiry reminders at 90, 60 and 30 days, and keeps right to work checks with their dates and follow-up reminders, so a worker who now needs two or three more grants of permission does not slip through an expiry. See our pricing for plans.

Before a settlement application puts your pay and reporting history in front of a caseworker, our sponsor licence compliance audit checks your worker files, salary evidence and SMS reporting against the Home Office requirements, so any gap is found and fixed by you first.

Conclusion

The decision on earned settlement is made, but the law has not moved. For now, every sponsored worker is still on the five-year rules in Appendix Skilled Worker, and every application made in this window is decided under them, at least until a Statement of Changes says otherwise. That makes the next few months the time to sort your workforce, not the time to wait for detail.

Put each worker into a cohort, record the date and pay evidence that cohort depends on, and help those who are eligible now to apply on their earliest valid date, ahead of 26 March 2027 where English is an issue. Budget for a second CoS and a second block of Immigration Skills Charge for everyone heading to ten years. Keep every year of payroll, and treat any change to a sponsored worker's job as a possible breach until you have checked it. When the Statement of Changes is laid, we will update this guide with the dates and the final wording.

Glossary