ILR absences: the 180 days in any 12 months, counted day by day
For settlement you can spend no more than 180 whole days outside the UK in any 12-month window. Add your trips to see your worst window, the days you have left and whether any trip restarts the clock.
Days abroad, worst 12 months and days left
Days you can still spend abroad (rolling 12 months)
180 days
No 12-month window holds more than 180 days: your 5-year period is unbroken.
| 5 years completed | 13 October 2027 |
| Apply from (28 days early) | 15 September 2027 |
| Worst 12-month window | 30 days |
| Allowance left today | 180 days |
| Days abroad on the trips listed | 30 days |
| Citizenship, at the earliest | 15 September 2028 |
On that date: 30 days abroad in 5 years (limit 450), 0 in the last 12 months (limit 90); set by 12 months after indefinite leave.
Whole days only: the day you leave and the day you come back are not counted. Citizenship assumes ILR granted on the first application date; enter the real date when you have it.
Calculated in your browser: nothing you type is sent anywhere. Not legal advice; not affiliated with the Home Office.
Published by Radif Partners · How we calculate · Home Office fees of 8 October 2026, rules checked 13 October 2026
The absence rule for indefinite leave to remain sits in Appendix Continuous Residence, paragraph CR 3.1: you must not have been outside the UK for more than 180 days in any 12-month period. Two details decide most cases. First, only whole days count; the Home Office guidance (version 10.0) tells caseworkers to ignore part days, so the day you fly out and the day you land do not add to the total, and a trip from 1 July to 10 August is 39 days, not 41. Second, for permission granted on or after 11 January 2018 the window rolls: the Home Office can test any 12 consecutive months inside your qualifying period, not only calendar years. Trips for listed reasons, such as a life-threatening illness in the family or travel disruption caused by conflict or a pandemic, are left out of the count. A breach breaks continuous residence; the calculator then restarts your period from the date you came back and shows the new earliest date to apply.
One trip, counted the Home Office way
The guidance gives its own example: an applicant away from 1 July to 10 August. Calendar arithmetic says 41 days if you count both ends, 40 if you subtract the dates. The caseworker counts 39: the departure day and the return day are part days, and "part day absences, less than 24 hours are not counted". The same logic answers the edge case the guidance raises, a traveller who starts the journey home on day 180 and lands on day 181. Day 181 is not a day of absence, so the limit is not passed.
Some time that feels like being in the UK still counts as absence. Work offshore beyond the 12 nautical mile limit, on a ship or an oil rig, is time outside the UK. So is time abroad while an application is pending, and time between getting an entry clearance and actually arriving. Days in the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man, on the other hand, count as UK days when your latest permission was granted in the UK.
Why the calendar year is the wrong test
People who count per calendar year are the ones who get caught. Suppose a Skilled Worker who arrived on 2 May 2022 takes a long autumn assignment abroad (1 August 2024 to 20 November 2024, 110 whole days) and then a second spell over the winter (15 January 2025 to 10 April 2025, 84 days). Neither 2024 nor 2025 reaches 180 days on its own. But the 12 months that begin in early August 2024 hold 194 days of absence, and that single window is enough.
| Way of counting | Days found | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Calendar year 2024 | 110 | under the limit |
| Calendar year 2025 | 84 | under the limit |
| Rolling 12 months from August 2024 | 194 | over 180 |
Without the trips this worker could apply from 4 April 2027. With them, the calculator restarts the five years on 10 April 2025 and the earliest application moves to 13 March 2030, almost three years later. Permission granted before 11 January 2018 is the exception: absences in that period are tested in fixed 12-month blocks ending on the anniversary of the application date (CR 3.2), which the guidance illustrates with a permission from 2015 to 2018.
Absences the Home Office leaves out
CR 3.4 lists absences that are not counted at all, whatever their length:
- helping with a national or international humanitarian or environmental crisis overseas (with the sponsor's agreement on a sponsored route);
- travel disruption caused by a natural disaster, military conflict or pandemic;
- compelling and compassionate personal circumstances, such as your own life-threatening illness or the life-threatening illness or death of a close family member;
- sponsor-approved research by a Skilled Worker in codes such as 2111 to 2119, 2161, 2162 or 2311, and research by some Global Talent holders;
- on the family life route, work, study or supporting family abroad while family life and your permanent home stayed in the UK;
- accompanying a partner on Crown service, for example in HM Armed Forces or with the British Council.
There is no fixed list of evidence, but the guidance expects it: letters explaining what happened, medical certificates, proof of cancelled flights. Dependants who travelled with the main applicant for one of these reasons have those days left out too (CR 5.1). Enter such a trip in the calculator only if you cannot document the reason, because the tool counts every day you give it.
Planning the next trip
The figure that matters before you book is how many days the last 12 months have already used. A worker who arrived on 1 September 2021 and spent 129 days abroad in early 2023 has 51 days left on 31 August 2023, and that headroom only grows back as the old trip slides out of the window from January 2024. The tool's headline figure shows the same count for today's date. Trips that break the limit are not fatal to settlement in every case, since the Home Office can accept a reason under CR 3.4, but the calculator cannot judge reasons: it applies the rule as written and moves the date. For a past breach you want to explain, speak to a solicitor or an adviser registered with the Immigration Advice Authority before you apply. The ILR overview covers the other tests, and long residence has its own older limits for trips that began before 11 April 2024.