New wording in Immigration Rules on UK settlement for children with one settled or British parent

21 July 2026

A new Statement of Changes (HC 259) of the UK’s Immigration Rules would appear to loosen a recent tightening of the rules on paths to settlement in the UK for children with one settled or British parent and one parent with limited leave to stay in the UK.

Following the government’s loss in the Court of Appeal in the case of R (on the application of Kone) v SSHD [2025], which briefly opened up a new faster path for settlement for children with one settled parent and one with temporary permission which I wrote about here and here, the UK’s Immigration Rules were amended on 26 March 2026 to close this path with no transitional provisions. An accompanying memorandum explained that under the new rules, “a child should settle in the UK when both parents are settled or are British citizens. If only one parent is settled the child can be granted settlement if that parent has sole responsibility (e.g. the other parent is deceased or has abdicated responsibility) or there are compelling and compassionate circumstances.” The rules were changed so that a child may apply for indefinite leave to remain (ILR or settlement) if “one parent or a close relative is present and settled in the United Kingdom or being admitted on the same occasion for settlement, their other parent does not have (and is not being granted) limited leave in the UK and there are serious and compelling reasons to grant the applicant settlement.”

An unintended consequence of the March wording was to make the wording more stringent for children of British citizens than those of immigrant parents. To redress this, the Home Office has changed the wording in a Statement of Changes due to change settlement rules from 3 August 2026. The new wording opens up a route to ILR for children from August where “one parent is present and settled in the United Kingdom or being admitted on the same occasion for settlement, their other parent does not have (and is not being granted) limited leave in the UK, unless there are serious and compelling reasons to grant the applicant settlement.” Whereas the wording in March meant a child of a British citizen and a second parent with limited leave such as a visa under the Family Rules cannot settle, even if there are “serious and compelling circumstances to grant the applicant settlement” because of the mere presence of their other parent, the new wording opens the door to applications in such cases if there are “serious and compelling reasons to grant the applicant settlement.”

What’s more it appears to go beyond this and allow applications where there aren’t “serious and compelling reasons” to grant settlement provided neither parent is in the UK with limited leave. This is unlikely to be the meaning the Home Office intend as similarly loose wording led to the Home Office losing the aforementioned Court of Appeal case, as a result of which the Home Office has made these changes to the wording in the Rules.

Of course, the wording is open to interpretation and the Home Office may issue a further change to the Immigration Rules between now and August. If you are in the above position, it may be worth seeking legal advice to make an application in August if there are no further amendments to the rules.

If you think your child may benefit from this provision, we would advise you to get legal advice as soon as possible, as the window for making the application may well close. These will be complex applications that require very careful preparation so we would advise preparing these with the benefit of legal assistance.

Alex Piletska is a Senior Associate at Vanessa Ganguin Immigration Law. She specialises in a wide range of private immigration, including complex human rights cases, skilled migration and everything in between. She has a particular interest in complex citizenship and nationality cases, vanishingly tricky Adult Dependent Relative applications, Judicial Review and technical procedural issues like validity and variations. Alex often writes and comments on UK immigration issues in the media.