Who it applies to
Adults applying for British citizenship on Form AN who hold indefinite leave to remain (ILR), indefinite leave to enter or settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme. The standard route looks back 5 years; if you are married to, or the civil partner of, a British citizen, it looks back 3. If you do not have ILR yet, the absence rule that matters to you first is a different one, covered in the ILR guide.
How it's counted
Every limit is counted backwards from the day the Home Office receives your application.
- Standard route (5 years): no more than 450 days outside the UK in the 5 years before the application.
- Spouse or civil partner of a British citizen (3 years): no more than 270 days outside the UK in the 3 years before the application.
- On both routes: no more than 90 days outside the UK in the last 12 months.
- Only whole days of absence count. The day you leave and the day you return are not counted, because you were in the UK for part of each. A trip from 1 to 5 March is 3 days of absence: the 2nd, 3rd and 4th.
- You must have been physically present in the UK on the day exactly 5 years (or 3 years) before the Home Office receives your application. This is a requirement in its own right: you can be well within the day limits and still fail it because you were abroad on that one day.
- On the standard route you must also have held ILR or settled status for 12 months before applying. Spouses and civil partners of British citizens do not have to wait.
Worked example
Suppose you apply on 1 October 2026 on the standard route. Your qualifying period starts on 1 October 2021, and you must have been in the UK on that day. Over the 5 years, holidays and work trips add up to 380 whole days abroad: under 450, so the first limit is met. But in the last 12 months you spent ten weeks with family abroad and took two short trips — 95 days in all. That is over the 90-day limit, even though your total is fine. Waiting a few weeks, until enough of those days have dropped out of the last 12 months, would bring you back within it.
Common questions
What happens if I am over the limits?
The limits are not absolute: the Home Office has discretion. Its guidance says total absences of up to 480 days (300 on the spouse route) are normally disregarded, and up to 900 days (540) only if you meet all the other requirements and have established your home, family and a substantial part of your estate in the UK. In the last 12 months, up to 100 days is normally disregarded; between 101 and 179 days needs further conditions to be met, and 180 days or more is disregarded only in the most exceptional circumstances. Discretion is never guaranteed.
Do a day trip or a weekend abroad count?
A day trip counts as zero: you left and came back on the same day. A trip leaving on Friday and returning on Sunday counts as one day, the Saturday.
Is the 90-day limit counted by calendar year?
No. It is the 12 months immediately before the date of the application, so it moves with the day you apply. The same is true of the 5-year or 3-year period.
Is this the same count as the Statutory Residence Test or the Schengen rule?
No. Those count days present; this one counts whole days absent. The Statutory Residence Test counts the midnights you spend in the UK, for tax, and Schengen counts every day in the area including the days you arrive and leave. The same trip gives a different number under each rule.
Is meeting the absence limits enough to get citizenship?
No. You also need to pass the Life in the UK test, meet the English language requirement and the good character requirement, and intend to go on living in the UK. This guide and the calculator cover the residence requirement only.
Check it at the source
These are the official GOV.UK pages this guide is based on. The Home Office updates its guidance regularly: check it before you apply.