This page is for someone who is in the UK without permission to stay and wants to know what is really there. We are going to be blunt, because the honest answer here is harder than the one you will be sold: the UK has no amnesty, no regularisation scheme, and the main long-stay route asks for more than twenty years. Anyone promising you papers in months is lying to you.
1. There is no arraigo here
People who have lived in Spain, or who have family there, often arrive with the wrong model in their head. Spain has a route where a couple of years of registered residence can turn into a permit. The UK does not have anything like it. Time alone, at UK thresholds, is measured in decades rather than years.
2. The route that does exist: the Private Life route
The Immigration Rules contain an Appendix called Private Life. What it asks for depends entirely on your age and on when you arrived:
| Adult, 18 or over | More than 20 years continuous residence in the UK — or, if less, the decision maker must accept there would be very significant obstacles to your integration in the country you would have to go to. |
|---|---|
| Young adult, 18–24, who arrived as a child | Must have spent at least half their life continuously resident in the UK. |
| Child, under 18 | At least 7 years continuous residence, and it must not be reasonable to expect them to leave. |
Two honest observations about that table. First, for most adults arriving now, the 20-year limb is not a plan — it is a description of a life. Second, the “very significant obstacles” limb is the one that actually decides many real cases, and it is a legal judgement about your particular circumstances, not a number you can count towards. It is exactly the kind of argument that needs a regulated adviser rather than a friend’s opinion.
And a permit on this route is not settlement. Settlement comes later, after a further qualifying period with permission — the Rules set that at ten years. The whole road is long, and it is better to know that at the start.
3. The rule that protects you while you ask
In the UK it is illegal for an unregulated adviser to give immigration advice at all. That is not our wording — it is the regulator’s. It has a practical consequence: the person charging you £3,000 in the back of a shop is not a cheaper lawyer, they are committing an offence, and GOV.UK states that you cannot get your money back from an unregulated adviser.
Regulated advice that charges nothing does exist. The regulator’s own search has a “not fee charging” filter. Use it before you consider paying anyone at all.
4. Work in the meantime
Working without permission does not create a right to stay, and it will not shorten anything above. But you still have rights as a worker if you are working: the minimum wage applies to the work you do, and Acas will advise you free and confidentially, in your own language. Keep your own record of hours and pay.
5. Before you pay anyone
Nobody can guarantee a visa — the decision belongs to the Home Office. Ask for an IAA registration number, or an SRA number, and check it yourself. It takes two minutes and it is free.
Read these too
Next step
Find a regulated adviser — starting with the ones that do not charge — and take every document you have to them, including the ones you think are unhelpful.
Sources
Every period and condition on this page comes from the Immigration Rules themselves. They change often — read them rather than trusting a date.
- Immigration Rules — Appendix Private Life
- GOV.UK — Find an immigration adviser
- IAA Register — check an adviser
Last verified: 2026-09-08
