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My husband is looking to apply for British Citizenship, but we've had some conflicting advice on when we'd be able to do this.

He obtained his ILR on the 2nd of August this year, having completed 2 years on an FLR after we got married in July 2011.

Prior to that, he came to the UK from the USA to study for his PhD at Cambridge and entered the UK in October 2006. He has remained in the UK since then on student visas - he was on a student visa when we got married, then switched to FLR - and has not left the UK for long periods of time. In the last three years we've been away on holiday for 27 days total.

I'm getting conflicting advice on whether he'd be able to go for naturalisation now or not. Some advice given is that he meets the 3 year residency requirement as he's been here since 2006. Other advice has told me no, since student visa time doesn't count towards the residency requirement.

Can anyone please give me some definitive advice before we send in an application only to have it rejected? Thanks in advance

speckledhen wrote:My husband is looking to apply for British Citizenship, but we've had some conflicting advice on when we'd be able to do this.

He obtained his ILR on the 2nd of August this year, having completed 2 years on an FLR after we got married in July 2011.

Prior to that, he came to the UK from the USA to study for his PhD at Cambridge and entered the UK in October 2006. He has remained in the UK since then on student visas - he was on a student visa when we got married, then switched to FLR - and has not left the UK for long periods of time. In the last three years we've been away on holiday for 27 days total.

I'm getting conflicting advice on whether he'd be able to go for naturalisation now or not. Some advice given is that he meets the 3 year residency requirement as he's been here since 2006. Other advice has told me no, since student visa time doesn't count towards the residency requirement.

Can anyone please give me some definitive advice before we send in an application only to have it rejected? Thanks in advance

Student visa time does count towardss the residency requirement so he is eligible to apply for BC now provided if he meets other standards requirements.

Indeed, any legal stay counts but for some minor exceptions, i.e. diplomatic stay.

Thank you - this is great news!

Neither of us have anything that would hold against us for being in good standing, so we should be sorted.

Looks like that's another grand going out of our account...