Home Office to remove EUSS pre-settled status from April 2026: what EU citizens need to know  

From 9 April 2026 the Home Office announced it has begun notifying pre-settled status holders their EU settlement scheme (EUSS) may be removed if the Home Office believes they have been absent from the UK for too long. If you hold pre-settled status and have been away from the UK for long periods, it is important to understand what it means and what to do if you are affected.

Those at risk of having their status ‘curtailed’ or ‘cancelled’ are those who the Home Office believes have “clearly ceased to maintain continuous residence in the UK”.  In other words, those who have been absent for too long since they were granted pre-settled status and have therefore breached the residence conditions of the EU settlement scheme. The Home Office will focus first on people it believes have been outside the UK for the last five years. 

To identify relevant pre-settled status holders the Home Office will carry out two checks near to the current pre-settled status expiry date: 

Check 1) The Home Office will review your tax and benefit records using your National Insurance number (if you have one). They will also review if you have any criminal record or conduct.

Check 2) If your tax and benefit records do not show that you are eligible for settled status (i.e. have completed a five-year qualifying residence period), the Home Office will check travel data to assess whether you have maintained continuous residence in the UK.

If the conclusion of these two checks is that you have significant absences from the UK, the Home Office will likely contact you by email and text message to notify you of the possibility that your pre-settled status might be removed. If you have been absent from the UK for five years and your pre-settled status is close to expiring, you can expect that your case will likely be reviewed for curtailment or cancellation. 

If you have been notified that your pre-settled status will be removed, you will have the right of appeal to the First-Tier Immigration Tribunal. 

Be aware that there very strict deadlines to submitting an appeal, so make sure you act as soon as possible if you want to appeal a decision to remove your status. If you are in this situation, we recommend you seek regulated advice to get the best possible outcome. 

If the Tribunal disagrees with the Home Office decision, then you will keep your EUSS status and you can upgrade to settled status if you qualify in the future. If the Tribunal agrees with the Home Office, then the decision to remove your pre-settled status becomes final. If you no longer hold status under the EUSS then you will need to secure an alternative immigration status if you wish to remain living in the UK (or wish to return to the UK if you are outside). Failure to secure an alternative immigration status could lead to the Home Office requiring you to leave the UK. 

The status removal process is implemented alongside an improvement to the automated upgrade process. This process moves pre-settled status holders to settled status automatically without the need for an application. 

Previously a pre-settled status holder would be upgraded to settled status if their National Insurance records showed five years of continued residency in the UK based on the stricter 6 months in each 12 months criteria. Now, the Home Office has changed the process so it applies the simplified residence criteria. This allows pre-settled status holders with 30 months of UK residence in the last 60 months (or 2.5 years of residence out of the most recent 5 years) to be granted settled status automatically. 

Please note that some status holders cannot be upgraded automatically. If any of the following applies to you then you will not be automatically upgraded: 

• EU citizens who do not have 30 months of tax and benefit payments in the last 60 months (unless your travel data indicates that you have five years of residency)
• Sponsored family members of any nationality 
• Those under the age of 18 
• Retained rights of residence and ‘derivative rights’ cases
• Persons granted pre-settled status who have obtained another UK immigration status 

If you are eligible for settled status but cannot be upgraded automatically, you will have to make an application to be granted settled status. 

Over five years ago on 31 December 2020 the ‘transition period’ between the UK and the EU ended. This represented the cut-off date for EU citizens to move to the UK and be within scope of the EUSS and Withdrawal Agreement. This means that most EU citizens and their family members resident by the end of the transition period should now have completed a five-year qualifying period to qualify for settled status, assuming they remained living in the UK. Some persons granted pre-settled status ceased to live in the UK and therefore, no longer fall within scope of the EUSS.

The Home Office is within their rights – as permitted by the Withdrawal Agreement and subject to procedural safeguards – to sort out pre-settled status holders into those who have remained resident in the UK, and those who have left for long periods (and in some cases forever). The curtailment and cancellation plans and the improvement to the settled status automation process, represents the Home Office plans to carry out this sorting task in an orderly fashion and hopefully reach the correct outcome on individual cases. 

Ensuring the correct outcome for individuals, rather than the basis for the wider policy, is where concerns lie. This is because the status removal process is essentially a data driven exercise, where the quality of the data being utilised to identify curtailment cases is unknown. What is known is that the EUSS is a very complex area of immigration law and the individuals most at risk of losing their status if the data gets it wrong, are likely to be those least equipped to navigate a 28-day evidence-gathering process alone. This will include people in insecure living situations and other vulnerabilities who are likely to have limited access to essential legal advice. We have seen consistently in our casework how easily people with genuine ties to the UK face issues navigating the EUSS, and how rules are inconsistently applied. 

The safeguards required under the Withdrawal Agreement, including proportionally testing individual circumstances, are important protections, but their value will depend on how Home Office caseworkers apply them in practice. That is something we will be watching closely. 

We recommend taking the following steps now, before you receive any contact from the Home Office:

• Make sure your contact details are up to date on UKVI so you receive relevant notifications. 
• Do not ignore any contact from the Home Office about your status.
• Check your eligibility for settled status.  If you qualify you can make an application.
• If you have extensive absences from the UK, gather evidence of your life in the UK for such as payslips, tenancy agreements, GP registration, utility bills, bank statements.
• Seek regulated immigration advice if you are concerned or unsure about how this may impact you. 

The Independent Monitoring Authority which monitors the implementation of the Withdrawal Agreement, has also made a statement on this announcement which you can read on their website.