EU Settlement Scheme: from pre-settled to settled, and the absences that break it
Pre-settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme is not the finish line. It becomes settled status, the permanent version, once you have completed a continuous qualifying period in the UK, usually five years. What can quietly cost you that upgrade is time spent abroad, because too much of it breaks the continuous qualifying period. As of July 2025 there are now two ways to satisfy the absence test, and it is worth knowing both, because the newer one rescues cases the original rule would fail.
The standard rule: 6 months in any 12
The long-standing rule is that, to keep your continuous qualifying period intact, you must not be absent from the UK for more than six months (180 days) in any rolling 12-month period. On top of that, you are allowed one longer absence of up to 12 months for an important reason, for example a serious illness, pregnancy and childbirth, study, vocational training, or an overseas work posting. That single permitted absence does not break your continuity. Beyond these limits, absences break the qualifying period.
The July 2025 alternative: 30 months in the last 60
Since July 2025 there is a second, more forgiving way to qualify. You can instead show that you were resident in the UK for at least 30 months out of the most recent 60, in other words that your absences across the last five years did not exceed 30 months in total. This is a total-based test rather than a rolling one, and it does not care how the absence was distributed. It is aimed squarely at people whose travel pattern, a single long spell abroad, say, would have broken the rolling six-in-twelve rule, but who have still spent the clear majority of the last five years in the UK. The original rule continues to operate alongside it, so you qualify if you meet either.
Why two rules help
The rolling six-in-twelve rule punishes a single concentrated absence even where the overall time abroad is modest. The 30-in-60 rule punishes only the overall total. Between them, more people reach settled status, and the two catch different patterns: one protects the steady traveller who never has a heavy year, the other protects the person who had one long spell away but was otherwise here.
The practical point
Track both, because they fail on different things. A run of long trips can breach the rolling six-in-twelve rule while staying comfortably inside 30-in-60, and a single very long absence can do the reverse. SplitYear watches both the rolling limit and the 30-in-60 total against your real travel, and tells you which one, if either, you are approaching, with each shown against the rule it comes from.
SplitYear gives general information about the rules, cited to source. It is not immigration advice and does not replace a professional adviser. Rules as at Appendix EU to the Immigration Rules and the Home Office EU Settlement Scheme guidance, including the July 2025 amendment.