What documents are required for 10-year permanent residency? Historical visa and entry-exit list

The actual thing that needs to be submitted for the Long Stay Permit (SET(LR)) is a continuous residence timeline from the first legal entry until the submission date, with no gaps in between; passports, stickers, BRP are just supporting documents for this timeline. The Home Office August 3, 2026 version of the "Long Residence" guidance clearly states the starting point of the assessment: the applicant's passport and immigration records. If there is a gap in the ten years, the conclusion will be that the conditions are not met.

The judge is not responsible for making up the pictures for you.

Make a ten-year timeline by yourself before submitting it.

This table is not a draft for personal use, but one that needs to be uploaded together with the application. It divides the past ten years into two types of segments: each period of permission, and each time of departure. The two types of segments must fit perfectly end to end, without any gaps such as "I was also in the UK during this half year but had no documents."

The middle line is the easiest one to be emptied. Submitting an extension before the old permit expires, and maintaining a legal status during the months waiting for the decision by section 3C, during this time no documents can reflect it - the date on BRP has already expired, and the new card hasn't arrived yet. The only way to prove it is the confirmation email sent that year and the payment receipt. People who have changed visas two or three times in ten years usually have these emails long deleted into the trash, and now going through the email is much easier than being asked to supplement documents after submission.

Which passport should be scanned, and which page should be scanned?

All passports covering a ten-year period, not a single one can be missing, each page must be scanned, including blank pages and the inside covers. The visa sticker (entry clearance vignette) is attached to a particular passport, which is considered as the original document, not "the old ones can be ignored". When replacing with a new passport, the old one is canceled, punched or corner-cut, it still needs to be scanned; cancellation refers to the travel function, not the immigration records inside.

The invalidated BRP card is the same, keep the scan.

BRP After fully switching to eVisa, there is a rumor in the circle: the visa history is all in the UKVI account, so there is no need to prepare the old passport and old card anymore. This claim does not hold. The View and Prove service provides your current status and validity period, but it will not issue a list of "which permits I have held in the past ten years"; the starting point for assessing long residence in the August 2026 version of the guidance is still the passport plus immigration records. eVisa proves the present, while ten-year residency needs to prove the past.

Lost old passport, SAR only provides for the last five years

Filing a subject access request (SAR) to Home Office can indeed retrieve your immigration records, which is free, and the response is generally provided within one month after identity verification. However, on GOV.UK's page "Request copies of your personal immigration and borders information," there is a line that many people don't read carefully:出入境 travel records are only provided for the past five years, and you need to submit a passport or travel document covering this period.

📌 My judgment: For those whose gap falls between the 6th to 10th year, you shouldn't first submit SAR and then wait for a month. The official travel record is not given in that period, and what you get is only a document that does not cover the gap, which just pushes back the submission date. The scenarios where submitting SAR is worthwhile are two: when the missing entry/exit is within the last five years, or when you need to retrieve a decision letter and file records of a previous application.

The gap of more than six years can only be filled by third parties on an annual basis. There is more available material than you might imagine: you can download employment history from your HMRC personal tax account, which records one employer per year; enrollment or attendance letters from schools, which usually clearly state date ranges; GP medical records that can prove you were locally present; rental agreements combined with council tax bills and bank statements showing local UK spending, which can help fill in a particular year. When searching for these documents, there's one discipline you must stick to: whenever third-party records don't match your own timeline, first explain the discrepancy before deciding whether to submit them, otherwise it's like preparing evidence to refute yourself. If your passport was lost or stolen, attach an additional explanation, and if possible, include a police report or a certificate of reissue from the embassy or consulate.

UK Permanent Resident Departure Days: Two sets of rulers around April 11, 2024

The calculation of the period of stay abroad for ten years is divided on April 11, 2024. For the portion before this day, it is based on the total and single departure: the total does not exceed 548 days, and any single departure starting before this day does not exceed 184 days. For the portion after this day, it is changed to a rolling basis: no more than 180 days within any 12 consecutive months.

The ten-year period across different categories needs to be calculated in segments, with two sets of criteria running in parallel within the same table. Take a specific example: someone who entered in 2017 and completed ten years in 2027, the period from 2017 to April 2024 is assessed according to 548/184, and after April 2024, each rolling 12-month window is assessed individually for 180 days. Not exceeding the limit in the first segment does not guarantee safety in the subsequent segment. Days are counted as full days, with both the departure day and return day to the UK counted as being in the UK. Manual counting is prone to errors in cross-year trips; use 永居计算器 APP to enter each segment of travel, which can directly calculate the days according to the segmented approach.

Whether that period counts or not, and until which day, is the most common source of dispute in the ten-year application. If unsure, it's safer to pay £5 on justiscript.com to get a written confirmation from a UK-qualified lawyer, rather than calculating the expiry date based on guesses.

The application fee for SET(LR) is £3,226 per person starting from April 8, 2026, and it is non-refundable. If any segment of the ten-year timeline lacks supporting documents, the fastest remedy will take weeks—finding an email confirmation from 2019 in the mailbox may take only ten minutes, but getting a proof of employment from the previous employer may take two or three weeks. Do all these things before submission.

This document is for reference only. For specific issues, please consult a licensed attorney.

[Data source] Home Office "Long residence" caseworker guidance (version dated 3 August 2026): assets.publishing.service.gov.uk; GOV.UK "Request copies of your personal immigration and borders information"; GOV.UK Visa fees (effective 8 April 2026)

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