Immigrationboards.com

Hello,

I have US/EU citizenship and have lived in the UK with my (British) husband for the last 2.5 years on my Italian passport. I always thought I had to wait 5 years to apply for citizenship, but someone just told me for spouses it is three. It does say spouses can apply after three years but would have to already have indefinitely leave to remain, which takes 5 years. So it sounds like you do need to wait the five years - however I don't get why they would then say three years for a spouse as anyone with ILR is already eligible for citizenship, no?

Can someone clear this up? Would love for it to be 3 years so we don't have to reset my clock post-Brexit if we spend my maternity leave back in the states.

You need PR or settled status first and that takes 5 years.

Don't confuse immigration rules, EU rules and UK nationality laws. They are all separate and independent of each other.

Prior to 8th July 2012, a UK spouse visa was issued for 2 years then could apply for ilr/PR. the spouse could apply for citizenship after holding ILR/PR for 1 year, i.e 3 years from arriving on spouse visa. The immigration rules (not nationality laws) were changed in July 2012 making it 5 years before ILR can be applied for.

Nationality laws (not rules) are much harder to change.