An ILR Application success story: the documents I submitted

82 documents.

That’s what it took for me to complete my application for indefinite leave to remain. While it’s still fresh in my mind, I wanted to get this list together so you could see what one successful scenario looks like.

Every individual has their own circumstances. This list of documents is an example of one specific, successful scenario. Your list of documents will look different.

Disclaimer: I am not an immigration advisor. For personal immigration advice, consult an immigration solicitor. If you’re a member of either Unison or the RCN, you can get free immigration advice through them which is exactly what I did.

Getting indefinite leave to remain has been the goal from day 1. And now, after five years of living in the UK, I’m eligible to apply!

For the last 5 years my right to live in the UK has been granted on the basis of my work. Essentially my employer has sponsored me, so I was allowed to stay. Over the years it has had different names: tier 2 visa, skilled worker visa, health and care visa. You could also call it indentured servitude… even if it was enjoyable most of the time. But now I get to leave all that behind me and make the big leap from work visa to ILR and settlement in the UK.

To draw back the curtains of mystery and allow you to peer into the process I’ve compiled a list of all the documents I had to submit. These documents support my claims that I have indeed been here five years, working for my employer, that I have maintained my end of the bargain, essentially, and that I haven’t broken any of the rules they have placed upon me.

You’ll be pleased to know, too, that my application was accepted! So I guess they got all the info they needed.

The submission portal

In 2023, at the time of writing this post, the UKVI (UK Visas and Immigration) partners with the UKVCAS (UK Visa and Citizenship Application Services) to process their applications.

The portal is reasonably straightforward for uploading documents.

After filling out your ILR application through UKVI, you will receive a brief list of documents you’ll need to upload. It isn’t as detailed as I thought it would be, and knowing which documents I needed to submit was one of the more stressful aspects of this application for me.

So, naturally, I sought out reassurance and advice. I spoke to those who have been through the process before me, which is good for seeking reassurance and adopting a more hopeful outlook. But, as with all things legal, if you want advice about your situation it’s best to go to a professional. That’s where my union, the RCN, came in. They provide FREE legal advice for their members so I called them up and set a date.

The UKVCAS does provide some guidelines to help you successfully upload your documents, too, but they are more practical bits of advice about technology and scanning. The bits I found most important from that are:

• upload your documents into the most appropriate category
• use PDF (preferred), JPEG, or PNG format
• use simple file names without any special characters
• there is no limit to the number of documents you upload
• there is a size limit of 6MB per file
• to help keep documents small scan in B&W or greyscale and keep resolution between 150-300 dpi
• don’t upload password protected files

Document upload categories

The upload portal is organized into 2 sections: mandatory documents and optional documents. These are then further divided into categories and I had to decide where best to put my documents. I guess the idea is that it’s a standardized platform, but I was (inevitably) concerned that there were extra categories that didn’t apply to me because I have been on a work visa.

The categories:

Mandatory documents

• Proof of Application

Optional documents

• Other
• Residence in the UK
• Finances
• Proof of business
• Life events
• Medical information
• Sponsors/employment
• Proof of identity / travel history
• Educational

My documents (82 total docs)

I’ll go through each category and briefly explain my circumstances, then list out the documents I provided.

Mandatory documents

Proof of Application (2)

For this, I just followed the instructions given to me when I applied through UKVI. They provided a consent form so that they could request verification checks for things like bank statements, utility bills, etc. The consent form for me was on page one, and because my partner shares some of those accounts, he had to fill out part 2. Part 3 was not relevant to us, so I didn’t submit it.

• consent form provided by UKVI parts 1 and 2
• my current passport

Optional documents

Other (1)

The immigration solicitor I spoke to through the RCN suggested I include the confirmation email I received stating that I had passed my Life in the UK exam, so I did. The ILR application already asks for the unique number that is included in the email, so it was a bit redundant, but who am I to go against specialist advice?

• Life in the UK pass confirmation email

Residence in the UK (39)

This was by far the section with the most documents. I just didn’t want to give them any reason to think that I hadn’t been living in the UK. Plus, for the last 5 years, I’d been saving up all these documents for this very moment. I have lived at 3 different addresses in the UK all under different circumstances. For my first 3 months in the UK I lived in hospital accommodation. I had a lease agreement, but nothing else. The next place I lived in was a rented flat. I had a lease agreement and council tax bills. Now I live in a house that is owned by my partner. I didn’t know how best to support this living situation with documentation, but my RCN immigration solicitor suggested a mortgage statement, most recent mortgage payments, a letter from my partner, and a copy of his passport. So that’s what I did.

I also included the last year’s worth of utility bills. This helped support my claim that I lived at the address. I was going to include my phone bills for the last year, too, but at the last minute I realized my address hadn’t been updated! So I quickly removed those and went with what I had.

• Cover letter outlining my address history and the evidence I was providing for each in a simple table (1)
• Lease agreements for the 2 places I’ve rented (2)
• Council tax bills for 1 of the flats I rented (I didn’t pay council tax in my first accommodation) (1 pdf of all the council tax bills at that address)
• The notice letter of ending the lease which I threw in for good measure (1)
• Council tax bills at my current accommodation (2)
• Most recent mortgage statement which was over a year old (1)
• Pdf of most recent mortgage payments which weren’t yet on a statement (1)
• A signed letter from my partner confirming that I live in the house he owns and outlining how much I contribute to the mortgage (1)
• A copy of my partner’s passport (1)
• Most recent water bills (2)
• Most recent gas/electricity bills (13)
• Most recent broadband bills (12)
• Most recent TV license payment (1)

Finances (10)

I had to submit my most recent bank account statement, and in my document list it did say that they only wanted the most recent one, but my immigration advisor said to send a few to show that I have some financial security. He did caveat that by saying if I was in overdraft, then don’t. So I sent in a few month’s worth of bank statements from all of my UK accounts.

• Most recent UK bank account statements (5)
• Most recent UK credit card statement (1)
• Most recent statement from both of my UK saving accounts (4)

Proof of business (0)

Had no real clue what this one was about.

Life events (0)

I didn’t have any life events that were relevant to my application. I considered putting my marriage and divorce info here, but the real reason for including that was for them to confirm my identity, not to support my application for ILR.

Medical information (0)

Again, nothing relevant for me here.

Sponsors/employment (21)

Some of these documents were on the checklist I received from UKVI, others were suggested to me by the immigration solicitor I consulted through RCN (free for members!). P60s are sort of like a W2 for you Americans out there. They run alongside the financial year which in the UK is from 6^th of April to 5^th of April of the next year. Because 2022/23’s P60 hasn’t been issued yet, I was advised to include my payslips from April ‘22 all the way up to the submission date of my application. I’ve been with the same employer so getting these letters was reasonably straightforward, though it was the bit that took the longest because, well… HR. Need I say more? If I had previous employers, then I would have had to get the same letters from them, too.

• P60s from every year I’ve been here including any I’ve received due to booking bank shifts (6)
• Payslips covering the period from my last P60 to the present (13)
• Letter from sponsor confirming employment touching on all the information required by the UKVI outlined in the document list they provide (1)
• Letter from employer outlining all my absences from the UK and confirming that they were taken with annual leave, days off, or a combination thereof and fitted around my normal working pattern. Plus a few other bits of info. (1)

Proof of identity/travel history (9)

Because I have previously been married, I needed to include my marriage license and divorce decree alongside my old passport with my married name and my current passport with my maiden name. (Any other divorcees out there: will the whole ordeal ever well and truly go away?) I also included all the “visas”/BRPs that I have had since moving to the UK: the entry clearance vignette I got before taking that big flight, the BRP I picked up a week or two after arriving, the BRP I got after my first visa extension, and the (disappointing inferior) confirmation email I got instead of a BRP card with my last visa extension.

• Most recent email confirmation from UKVI confirming my right to remain. I didn’t get a BRP card for my last right to remain, so I just included this to cover my bases.  (1)
• Copies of my BRP cards front and back (2)
• Copy of entry clearance vignette that was put in my passport before I moved (1)
• Current passport (1)
• Cover letter explaining that I had been married and am now divorced (1)
• Marriage certificate and divorce decree (2)
• Passport with married name (1)

Educational (0)

Again, another one that wasn’t relevant to my application. I have studied, but it is not info that would have supported my application in any way.

Extras

The UKVCAS offers a range of extras that you can pay for. The two that I availed myself of were the document checking and the SMS service for a total of £50 extra. After spending nearly £3000 on the application, I figured having someone look over the quality of the files I uploaded and checking that they were in the correct categories. I feel it was worth it. The £2 I spent on the SMS updates weren’t terribly helpful, but it wasn’t much lost.

Final thoughts

The only reason you ever should have made it this far in this post is that you too have your sights set on indefinite leave to remain and you’re looking to get as much information as you can either to hoard until the fateful day or to get them together now to send off.

Either way, my best advice would be to stay organized. And if you have any access to immigration advice then it can give you that much more confidence when hitting that submit button.

Every single application will be different because everyone’s circumstances are different. The RCN immigration solicitor suggested including documents that weren’t even mentioned in the checklist I received from the UKVI. As a bonus, it was basically free to me since it was included in my union membership.

It is possible to do it on your own without hiring a solicitor, but many people do so that they can rest assured that a professional is guiding the process. And if you have any questions about your situation, then getting professional advice is the way forward.

Disclaimer: This is not immigration advice – for more information read through the terms of use and privacy policy for using this website.