Recently filed my ILR application successfully. However, when I decided to file the paperwork myself I found myself asking the Slack community a lot of questions that were unclear. So I thought to write this note to help others that might be filing for ILR and have the same questions as me. Here goes.
TRICKY QUESTIONS
Q. Do you have a valid national identity card?
This is a country specific guidance as many countries have a specified National Identity Card, but many countries don’t. For India in my case there are multiple identity documents e.g. Aadhaar but they are not a National Identity Card. So answer is No. You must check what is applicable for your country.
Q. When did you first enter the UK?
The form specifies clearly that you should put the date “on which you are basing your application”. I.e. say you came on Tier 2 ICT visa that was not eligible for ILR, then don’t put that date and instead put the date of your GT visa. I had come to the UK on ICT dependent and then switched to GT. I put the date I ARRIVED in the UK on the NEW GT VISA (which was few days after the grant date; some people say they put grant date but I had put arrival date).
Q. How do I fill absences? [Not an exact question; is based on Absences section]
You must fill all or as many as you can fill. If your travel is a lot and you can’t fill anymore in the online form, attach an excel with others. I would fill the latest first in the form and put older ones in the excel.
Note: I put one liner reasoning like ‘Family holiday’, ‘Work Travel to meet a client’.
Q. Are you employed or self-employed?
This is a tricky one for those that may have founded their own companies. And depends on your situation, described here.
- If you are a normal employee at a company you joined this is the easiest case - you are Employed
- I had created my own company and am a Director in that company, BUT I also registered for Paye and paid myself a regular salary. So I selected Employed. If you are paying yourself a salary and submitting Paye, I would pick Employed.
For fully Self Employed i.e. you have a company and take money out of it as and when, you need to verify with your Accountant and also perhaps other people that have done this can share experience in comments. I would recommend paying yourself via Paye - its much easier but I know others have received ILR without this and by showing Dividend Certificates as well.
Q. Have you previously lived in a country outside the UK including your country of birth?
In this case give all countries and periods where you have lived, including your country of birth. You will need to include any other country where you lived e.g. if you studied somewhere abroad etc. In my case, other than my country of birth (India), I had previously lived in the UK and Netherlands so I included my time/date for India and the Netherlands.
Q. English language related
This also depends on your country and education language. In my case my degree was taught in English but its is not accepted as meeting English language requirement. So I answered as follows:
Do you have a degree that was taught in English? YES
Does your degree meet the English language requirement for this visa? NO
When you select Yes for earlier and No for above question you will be asked further if you have taken approved English Language Test or gotten ECCTIS approval for your certificates. I had taken the Grade 5 CEFR Level B1.1 English Language Test so filled in the reference number of that.
Q. Do you have a visa, leave to enter or remain or other permission to be in the UK?
This is mostly YES since you have ET/Global talent BRP.
DOCUMENTS TO SUBMIT & QUESTIONS RELATING TO THAT
I submitted the following documents:
- Current Passport (ALL PAGES)
- Mandatory PART 1 and if relevant PART2 /3 consent forms
- TechNation Endorsement Email showing grant of Exceptional category
- Letter that came with Global Talent Visa Grant
- Payslips for latest 3 months
- P60 for Latest Year
- Bank Statements for 3 months showing salary credited
- Letter from Company stating payslips are valid (note in my case I had a co-founder not living in the UK, but since I had a co-founder who owned shares in the same UK company I got him to sign the company letters - this might not be possible if you are the only Director/employee - you can use Accountant’s letter in that case)
- Letter from Accountant stating earning in expert filed and amount of earning
- Letter from Company stating earning in expert filed and amount of earning
- BRP Copy
- Old Passports used to travel to UK (ALL PAGES)
- English Language Test Certificate form Trinity College London
- [Adding this since people are asking] You have to add the Reference Number of your Life in the UK Test that you get after passing it; but there is no document, email or certificate to be attached for the same. Only the reference number has to be added to the application in the relevant section.
When you go to the step of submitting documents you will have to figure out which category to upload which document in. I did the following:
Mandatory Section: 1, 2
Other: 3, 4
Sponsors / Employment: 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
Proof of Identity / Travel History: 12
Educational: 13
Initially I was confused if I should put the payslips etc in Finance, but realised that Employment is better and far more accurate. Finance is used to show “funds to support yourself” typically and not something we have to show so I didn’t put in that.
Hope this guidance is helpful for anyone trying to figure the ILR by themselves. Having done the process I can say that its very easy to apply for your ILR yourself and you don’t need a consultant or immigration lawyer (unless of course you have a complex situation).
All the best.
so I would recommend that you find professional help in case of complex questions. Any view and inputs we provide are basis our experience and not from a “official” source or channel.