Britain’s Home Office said on Thursday that nearly 6.5 million EU citizens had applied for a permanent residence permit in the UK by the end of February. The statistics contain data on the nationality of applicants until the end of 2021: accordingly, the number of applications submitted by Hungarians by December 31 is more than 161 thousand.
According to the latest summary from the UK Home Office, citizens of the 27 EU member states living in Britain had submitted 6,493,300 applications for incorporation by February 28, 2022, of which 437,000 were after the deadline. By the last day of February, more than 90 percent of applications had been processed.
Great Britain withdrew from the European Union on January 31, 2020, but EU citizens who have legally and habitually settled in Great Britain by the end of 2020, the end of the 11-month post-Brexit transition period, can still retain all of their acquired rights to country but you must apply for a residence permit for an indefinite period, which is an official legal status.
The British flag in front of Big Ben in London.
Photo: FABRICE COFFRINI / AFP
The deadline for this was, in principle, June 30 last year. However, the UK government continues to encourage beneficiaries to apply in any event, as the authorities will accept and process legitimate applications for incorporation that meet the criteria, despite the deadline.
In 51 percent of approved applications, applicants were granted permanent status, that is, without a deadline, and in 41 percent of cases, they were granted pre-settlement status. The latter is available to those who arrived before 31 December 2020 with the intention of establishing themselves but have not yet lived in the UK for five years at the time of application. They can also wait until the five years have passed and then obtain a final residence permit. In the period until then, they are also entitled to the full enjoyment of the acquired rights. In the remaining 9 percent of cases, applications were rejected, withdrawn by applicants, or invalid.
The data series, which also indicates the nationality of the applicants, is included in the statistics of the British Home Office until the end of 2021, according to which 161,600 Hungarian citizens applied for a permanent residence permit in Great Britain.
At the top of the list were the Romanians with 1,184,370 applications for settlement, followed by the Poles, with 1,375,570 of whom had applied for settlement status in the United Kingdom by the end of December. The number of Italian applications reached 572,350, the Portuguese 436,650, and the Spanish 372,300. Of the citizens of the largest EU member states living in Great Britain, the French 240,530 and the Germans 170,230 applied for permanent residence by the end of 2021. (MTI)
