Settled Status

Because there's a very limited time window for people to renew their status, it is fine to take a learner on now with the expectation that their status will be successfully renewed. P43/44:

43. Any learner or family member who has applied for an extension or variation of
their current immigration permission in the UK is still treated as if they have that leave.
This only applies if the application was made before their current permission expired.
Their leave continues until the Home Office decide on their immigration application. Their
leave will continue where they have appealed or sought an administrative review of their
case within the time allowed to them for doing so.
44. Therefore, a learner or family member is considered to still have the immigration
permission that they held when they made their application for an extension,
administrative review or appeal, and their eligibility would be based upon this status.

Thanks Steve Thats great

Hi, just resurrecting this thread as I know the rules have been tightened up this year.

We have a learner who is an EU citizen with pre-settled (not settled) status.  Running a right to work check on gov.uk tells me that they have the right to work in the UK until January 2026, which is not long enough for them to complete our 42 month programme.

The wording of the funding rules has changed slightly from what Steve quotes above but seems to have the same meaning:

290. Any individual, or relevant family member, who has applied for an extension or variation of their current immigration permission in the UK is still treated as if they have that leave. Keeping this permission applies as long as the application
was made before their current permission expired. Their leave continues until the Home Office make a decision on their immigration application.
291. An individual, or relevant family member, is considered to still have the immigration permission that they held when they made their application for an extension. Their eligibility would be based upon this status.

The Home Office advice on pre-settled status is this

Switching from pre-settled to settled status
You can switch to settled status as soon as you’ve had 5 years’ continuous residence, or sooner if you’re eligible before 5 years.

The 5 years is counted from the day you started your continuous residence, not the day you were granted pre-settled status.

If you do not switch to settled status, your pre-settled status will be extended by 2 years shortly before it’s due to expire.

The Home Office may cancel this extension if they think you no longer meet the requirements for it.

This suggests to me that he should be eligible for either settled status or an extension of his pre-settled status when January 2026 comes around, so he should be able to start his apprenticeship.

How do you read this?  

I HATE having to be an immigration law specialist as well as doing my day job!

Well quite...

The VERY BIG THING about Pre-settled is *very soon* everyone is getting an extra two years:

EU Settlement Scheme enhancements confirmed - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Which I assume would take the learner past the end?

I only know about this because of the very enterprising young person who found my email on here and from there found my phone number and rang me in tears because the provider they were trying to sign up with had turned them down due to them not having long enough on their pre-settled.

Thanks Steve, that's really helpful. I've also confirmed with the learner that they are planning to apply for settled status.

It's awful how this is affecting learners.

I mean, they might see sense and go back to the old understanding, but if they're getting the Home Office in to help them decide that's not exactly filling me with confidence...