Job related foreign visits and holidays abroad consistent with annual paid leaves should not be counted towards 180 days private absences. This is obvious in Immigration Directorate Instruction Chapter 6A regarding settlement of Tier 1 at page 46-47 i which reads as under:
“Annex B - Calculation of the qualifying period of continuous leave
for settlement
2.1 Calculation of the five year period for settlement
When assessing if an applicant has met the criteria for 5 years
continuous residence in the UK, short absences abroad, for example
for holidays (consistent with annual paid leave) or business trips
(consistent with maintaining employment or self-employment in the
UK), may be disregarded, provided the applicant has clearly
continued to be based here.
2.2 ……………
2.3 Discretion in cases where continuous residence has been broken
Time spent here may exceptionally be aggregated, and continuity not
insisted upon, for cases where:
• there have been no absences abroad (apart from those described in
para 2.1 above) and authorised employment or business here has not
been broken by any interruptions of more than three months or
amounting to more than six months in total for the whole five year
period. "
In above extract the expression in 2.3 "apart from those described in para 2.1 above" makes it explicit. A member on this board had posted a UKBA reply to him which made it further clear and extract reads as under:
"Any absences other than paid annual leave or necessary business trips should not exceed 3 months at a time or 6 months in total over the 5 year period."
http://www.immigrationboards.com/viewto ... mrit+haria
However Modernised Guidance is not explicit on this issue. On this board there is an instance where ILR of a teacher was refused due to absences. His paid leaves were much more than 180 days over period of 5 years as he was entitled to paid leaves of 12 weeks each year. This may be odd case but one should be cautious as generosity of UKBA fluctuates.
That is why it is my advice to count both types of leaves towards 180 days as most of employer are not giving more than 36 days paid leave in a year. However if paid leaves are more than 180 days then one should produce the employment contract and/or employer letter verifying their annual leave policy.
