10-Year Parent Route

What Is the 10-Year Parent Route?

Appendix FM gives a parent of a child in the UK two routes to settlement. The five-year route requires every suitability and eligibility requirement to be met, including finances, accommodation and English, leads to settlement after 60 months, and is covered on our Parent Visa page. The 10-year route is for a parent already in the UK who meets the relationship, immigration status and suitability requirements but not the rest, and to whom paragraph EX.1(a) applies.

EX.1 is not a route on its own. Where it applies, the financial, accommodation and English language requirements fall away, and overstaying, or immigration bail after arriving more than six months before applying, is no longer a bar. All other requirements still apply. Leave is granted for up to 30 months, with settlement after at least 120 months. The settlement application is made under Appendix Settlement Family Life rather than Appendix FM, and the 120 months can be made up of any combination of permission as a partner or parent under Appendix FM, permission on the private life route, permission as the child of a partner or parent, and permission granted outside the rules on Article 8 grounds, so time already spent on the 10-year partner or private life route is not lost.

Anyone eligible to apply as a partner must use the partner rules instead: see our 10-year partner route page. If EX.1 does not apply, the Home Office must still consider exceptional circumstances under GEN.3.2.

The Parental Relationship Requirement

Paragraphs E-LTRPT.2.2 to 2.4 apply on both routes. Your child must be under 18 at the date of application (or, if you are extending, under 18 when you were first granted leave as a parent and not leading an independent life), living in the UK, and British, settled, an EEA or Swiss national with Appendix EU limited leave, or resident here continuously for the seven years immediately before the application where EX.1 applies.

You must then be in one of two positions. Either you have sole parental responsibility, or the child normally lives with you and not their other parent, who must be British, settled or hold Appendix EU limited leave. Or the child normally lives with that other parent or carer, who holds one of those statuses and is not your partner, and you have direct access to the child in person by agreement or UK court order. In every case you must show you are taking, and intend to continue to take, an active role in the child's upbringing.

Sole parental responsibility means the other parent has abdicated or abandoned it and you alone direct the child's day-to-day welfare; it is rarely established where both parents are involved. A child normally lives with you where your home is their primary residence: equal time with each parent counts, weekends and holidays alone do not.

Would It Be Reasonable for the Child to Leave?

Paragraph EX.1(a) applies where you have a genuine and subsisting parental relationship with a child who is under 18, in the UK, and either British or resident here continuously for the seven years immediately before the application, and where, taking the child's best interests as a primary consideration, it would not be reasonable to expect the child to leave the UK.

The relationship is judged on substance: whether you are the child's parent, take an active role in their upbringing and decisions, live with or see them regularly and contribute to their life. Contact that is recent, irregular or purely financial invites closer scrutiny. The seven years count time with and without leave, and more than six months out of the UK at one time normally breaks them.

The guidance starts from the position that a qualifying child would not normally be expected to leave. Following KO (Nigeria) [2018] UKSC 53, the question is answered in the real world the child lives in: where both parents are expected to leave, the child would normally go with them unless the evidence shows that would not be reasonable. It is made whether or not the child would in practice leave (AB (Jamaica) [2019] EWCA Civ 661), weighing citizenship of and ties to the other country, language, health and any issues raised for the child. The child is not blamed for a parent's immigration history, although that history is still weighed against the parent in the public interest balance.

Evidence and Common Problems

The burden of proof is on you. The child's birth certificate is the best evidence of age and parentage; a British passport, a passport endorsed with indefinite leave to remain or a Home Office letter shows status; for a seven-year child, dated school and GP records should cover the whole period.

For your role, GOV.UK asks for evidence from a government body, school, court or medical professional, less than four years old: a school letter about the school run or parents' evenings, a letter from the child's doctor, dentist or health visitor, or court paperwork. Cards, photographs and messages are not strong evidence. Direct access is shown by a court order, a letter or certified affidavit from the parent or carer the child lives with, or a contact centre record. Our child arrangements team can advise where the other parent will not cooperate.

Family Court documents must come with the court's written permission to disclose them. A parent who takes up contact unreliably may be found to have no genuine and subsisting relationship. A visitor, or anyone with leave of six months or less, does not meet the immigration status requirement, and EX.1 does not lift that bar, unless the short leave was granted pending family court or divorce proceedings. Suitability still applies, so a conviction, deception or certain debts can lead to refusal.

How the Application Process Works

1. Confirm the route: whether you must apply as a partner, whether the five-year requirements can be met, and whether your child is a qualifying child.
2. Gather the evidence: identity documents, the child's birth certificate and status, proof of where the child lives and of your role, court orders with disclosure permission, and the child's ties here and abroad.
3. Consider a fee waiver. If you cannot afford the fee (published on GOV.UK) or the Immigration Health Surcharge, an eligible applicant can request a fee waiver first. Request it while you still have valid leave. If the waiver is granted you must submit the main application within 10 working days of getting the fee waiver decision, using the reference number you are given, and attend the biometrics appointment within 17 working days of being asked to book. Miss the 10 working days and the reference number can lapse, and if your leave has expired in the meantime you lose the protection of section 3C and become an overstayer. A fresh fee waiver request inside that window does not extend section 3C leave.
4. Apply online from inside the UK, before any current leave expires so that section 3C extends it while the application is pending.
5. Give your biometrics: fingerprints and a photograph.
6. Receive the decision. A grant is for up to 30 months, normally with no recourse to public funds unless you are destitute, a child's welfare outweighs the condition, or your finances are exceptional.
7. Extend and settle. Apply again at any time before your current leave expires. The Home Office advises applying no more than 28 days before it does, because only up to 28 days of unused leave is carried across into the new grant and an earlier application can push back the date you qualify for settlement. An application made earlier is still valid. At the settlement stage your child must be a British citizen living in the UK, be settled here, or be applying for settlement at the same time as you, and you must still have sole parental responsibility, or the child must normally live with you, or you must have direct access to them in person, and you must be taking an active role in the child's upbringing. A parent whose ten years rests on a child who has lived here for seven years but has never gained status of their own cannot settle until that child is British, settled, or applying alongside them. Current requirements are on our settlement and indefinite leave to remain pages.

When Legal Advice Is Especially Important

Advice matters most where the facts about residence or contact are disputed; where you have overstayed or are on immigration bail, since EX.1 removes the status bar but not suitability (see our overstayer advice page); where the child is approaching 18 or the seven-year mark; and where no recourse to public funds would cause the family hardship.

If the parent route is not met, the Home Office must consider the child's own seven-year residence claim and any exceptional circumstances before refusing. A refusal normally carries a right of appeal, but the letter must be checked promptly: our parent visa refusal and human rights appeals pages explain the next step.

How RakLAW Solicitors Can Help

RakLAW Solicitors handle 10-year parent route applications from our office at 42 Shad Thames, near Tower Bridge in Southwark, and advise clients across the UK. A free 15-minute consultation confirms which route fits your family.

We organise the evidence around each limb of E-LTRPT.2.2 to 2.4 and EX.1(a), set out the child's best interests as a primary consideration, address immigration history openly and ask for access to public funds where justified. Wider advice is on our Article 8 family and private life page and the human rights immigration hub. RakLAW does not offer legal aid.