British Citizenship - Absences from the UK for the last 5 ye

[atkuzmanov]

Hello everyone,

I will be applying for British Citizenship soon and I am going through the application form and I have the following questions.

In the application I must provide details for the following section "Section 2: Residence requirements", subsection 2.2, page 8:
"2.2 Please give details of all absences from the United Kingdom during the last five years. If you are married or in a
civil partnership toaBritish citizen, give details for the last three years only (see page 7 of the Guide)."

For subsection 2.2 I must provide the following details in a table:
Country Visited; Reason eg. Holiday, business, visiting relatives; Date of departure from United Kingdom D D M M Y Y; Date of return to the United Kingdom D D M M Y Y; Total number of days absent;

I entered the UK for the first time in September 2008 and I have a record of all my absences from the UK since then.

This is the full list of my absences:

Absence 01 - 29/07/09 to 26/08/09
Absence 02 - 25/03/09 to 06/04/09
Absence 03 - 23/12/10 to 08/01/11
Absence 04 - 10/04/11 to 13/04/11
Absence 05 - 29/12/11 to 07/01/12
Absence 06 - 21/05/12 to 06/06/12
Absence 07 - 09/08/12 to 26/08/12
Absence 08 - 16/12/12 to 04/01/13
Absence 09 - 08/08/13 to 25/08/13
Absence 10 - 20/09/13 to 22/09/13
Absence 11 - 22/12/13 to 08/01/14
Absence 12 - 24/04/14 to 27/04/14
Absence 13 - 18/07/14 to 30/07/14
Absence 14 - 21/12/14 to 10/01/15

Question 1: In subsection 2.2 it says "during the last five years", so how exactly do you count 5 years, is it simply current year 2015 - 5 years = 2010?
If so, does this mean I should remove Absence 01 and Absence 02 from the list, as they are in 2009 and the current year is 2015?

On the other hand it also says "(see page7of the Guide)" which then refers you to "section 6 of the Booklet AN" (Booklet AN page 9) for EEA nationals, such as myself, which says:
"But remember that, unless married to or the civil partner of a British citizen, you should normally have held permanent resident status for 12 months before applying for naturalisation. This means that you may need to wait until you have been in the United Kingdom for 6 years before you can apply."

So does this mean that, as an EEA national, I should actually account for 6 years instead of 5 and include Absence 01 and Absence 02?


Question 2: In Guide AN, SECTION 2: RESIDENCE REQUIREMENTS, page 7, it says:
"Please note: You should also check that you were physically present in the UK 5 years
(3 years if you are married to or in civil partnership with a British citizen) before the
date that the application will be received by the Home Office or other receiving
authority (see page 17 "Where to send your application form"). If you do not meet this
requirement your application is unlikely to be successful, unless you were in the UK
armed forces at that time..."

More specifically this part "were physically present in the UK 5 years... before the date that the application will be received by the Home Office...".

I am hoping to submit my application around end of March 2015 or beginning of April 2015, which as far as I understand, should be fine as if I look 5 years back in my absences, 2015 - 5 = 2010, I only have Absence 03, which was in December?
I hope they will not look at Absence 02, when I was absent for 11 days from end of March to the beginning in April. Should I remove Absence 02, just in case, so the people going through my application don't get confused and revoke it?



The Application Form AN, Guide AN and Booklet AN can be found here:

Application for naturalisation as a British citizen: form AN:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... N_v1_0.pdf

Naturalisation as a British citizen - a guide for applicants: guide AN:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... N_v1_0.pdf

Naturalisation booklet - the requirements: booklet AN:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... c_2014.pdf


I apologise for being so thorough, it's a very expensive application and I really want to get it right the first time.

Thanks,
atkuzmanov

[milan69]

This has already been answered.
It is last 5 years from the date of application.

[atkuzmanov]

This has already been answered.
It is last 5 years from the date of application.

I do apologise, I must've missed the other topic.

Thank you so much for the reply, I find your confirmation very useful!