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ILR Tracker

Community Report · August 2026

Standard ILR now takes over four months, and your route decides how long you wait.

Median standard-service ILR decision in the 90 days to 31 July 2026: 126 days (n=29). Work-route applicants wait about 3.5 weeks longer than partners. £500 priority still turns the wait into days. This edition focuses on what the data showed in July.

2,781 community timelines collected to date (1,526 with a confirmed decision). This edition analyses 57 ILR decisions in the 90 days to 31 July 2026 and 61 citizenship decisions issued in July 2026. Every figure below states its own n. Where a sample is too small for a median we publish the range instead.

Published 3 August 2026 · Revised 9 August 2026 · Data through 2026-07-31 · Methodology · Download CSV

July in numbers

14

ILR decisions reported in July

11 of 14 used a paid service · a count, not a median

126 days

Standard ILR median (n=29)

the 90 days to 31 July 2026 · up from 103 in the May edition

131 days

Citizenship median, July decisions (n=61)

+96% vs July 2025 (67 days, n=47)

6 Jul

Priority citizenship launched

+£500 · first timelines next month

ILR: your route sets your wait

standard service · the 12 months to 31 July 2026

Median days from biometrics to decision, approved applications on standard service, decisions in the 12 months to 31 July 2026.

SET(LR): 10-year Long Residence87 days · n=23
SET(M): Partner of a settled person108 days · n=49
SET(O): Skilled Worker & other work routes132 days · n=52
Unlike citizenship, where every route waits about the same, ILR waits differ by route. SET(O) work-route applicants wait about 3.5 weeks longer than partners on standard service (132 days, n=52 vs 108 days, n=49). No surprise then that 66% of SET(O) applicants pay to upgrade, vs 21% on the partner route.

Standard service only, since paid services decide in days regardless of route. SET(DV) (n=2) and other ILR forms (n=3) are omitted: too few decisions to publish. Uptake percentages are computed across all approved applications on each route, not just the 12-month window.

ILR median days to decision by route, standard service, the 12 months to 31 July 2026. SET(LR): 10-year Long Residence: 87 days, n=23. SET(M): Partner of a settled person: 108 days, n=49. SET(O): Skilled Worker & other work routes: 132 days, n=52.
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ILR: money still buys time

the 90 days to 31 July 2026 · n=57

Standard ILR is slowing too: 103 days in our May report, 126 now.

ServiceMedianP90nTime saved
Standardincluded in fee126 days175 days29n/a
Priority+£5006 days9 days22−120 days
Super Priority+£1,0001–4 daysrange, no median—6−122 to −125 days
£500 buys back about 120 days (n=22). Super Priority decisions in this window all landed within 4 days, but on only 6 reported cases, which is too few to say what the extra £500 buys on top of Priority. 49% of the 57 ILR applicants in this window paid to upgrade, and in July 11 of 14 reported decisions were paid cases.
ILR median days to decision by service level, the 90 days to 31 July 2026. Standard 126 days, n=29. Priority 6 days, n=22. Super Priority 1 to 4 days, n=6.
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New this month

You can now pay to fast-track citizenship too

On 6 July 2026 the Home Office launched a Priority Service for nationality applications (naturalisation and registration): +£500 for a target decision within 30 working days of biometrics. New applications only (you cannot upgrade an application already in the system), and the 30 days is a target, not a guarantee.

Given the timing, the first community-reported priority timelines should appear in our September edition. Applied priority? Share your timeline and help the community find out if it's worth it.

After ILR: citizenship watch

Decisions issued in July took a median 131 days (n=61), vs 67 days in July 2025 (n=47). Almost twice as long.

July 2025 median: 67 days
94
107
115
118
124
131
Febn=86Marn=96Aprn=61Mayn=61Junn=88Juln=61

Median citizenship wait (days) by decision month, 2026 (n=86, 96, 61, 61, 88, 61 respectively). +39% since February, with a new record every month since March.

Median British citizenship days to decision by decision month 2026. Feb: 94 days, n=86. Mar: 107 days, n=96. Apr: 115 days, n=61. May: 118 days, n=61. Jun: 124 days, n=88. Jul: 131 days, n=61.
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Who actually got a decision in July? Mostly February applicants.

Applied February 2026 · median 133 days38 of 61
Applied March 2026 · 131-day median on only 19 cases — rare fast-lane exceptions you cannot request19 of 61
Applied July 2026 · 3-day median on only 3 cases — rare fast-lane exceptions you cannot request3 of 61
UKVI is currently clearing the February queue. Applied in February or early March? Your decision is likely landing about now. April or later? You're probably still in line. Don't panic yet.
  • Slow but predictable: half of July's decisions landed inside a two-week band (122–137 days; 90% by 142). n=61.
  • Route made almost no difference in July: every route with enough cases to compare sat within 9 days of the others (via ILR 130 days, n=31; EU settled status 133, n=12; spouse of a British citizen was slowest at 139, n=7). Routes with fewer than 7 July decisions are not shown.

CS email → Atlas email

10 days

Median gap between the informal "a decision has been made" reply and the official approval email (p90: 19, max: 26, n=24). Don't panic before week 3.

Approval → ceremony

19 days

Median wait from approval to ceremony (n=446). 67% of the community books a private ceremony over the group one (n=111 where ceremony type was stated).

The hidden pre-bio wait

5–8 days

Form submission → biometric appointment (ILR 5, n=544 · citizenship 8, n=2,122). UKVI's clock starts at biometrics, not when you paid.

Refusal rates (self-reported)

0.4% · 0.5%

Citizenship 4/1,138 · ILR 2/388. Treat as a floor, since refused applicants under-report. Real Home Office rates run ~3–5% historically.

Glossary & methodology

CS email: reply from UKVI Customer Service confirming "a decision has been made", an unofficial early heads-up. · Atlas email: the official automated decision email from the Home Office's Atlas casework system (the formal approval; ceremony invite follows). · Pre-bio wait: application submission → biometric enrolment. · Decision month: reports are bucketed by when the decision was issued, not when the application was filed.

Source population. Every figure in this edition is computed from publicly posted timelines in Reddit community megathreads: 2,781 timelines, of which 1,526 have a confirmed decision. ILR Tracker holds a further 2,149 timelines from other sources (ECAA, ABCV and users who shared their own), and those are not included in any figure here, because they are collected differently and would not be comparable.

Sample sizes. Every figure states its own n. Where fewer than 20 decisions are available we publish the observed range instead of a median, and where a group is smaller still we omit it and say so. Medians are of self-reported days from biometric enrolment to decision for ILR, and from application to decision for citizenship. Percentiles are of the same distributions.

Windows are fixed, not rolling. "the 90 days to 31 July 2026" means decisions dated 2026-05-03 to 2026-07-31 inclusive; the 12-month window is 2025-08-01 to 2026-07-31. They are anchored to the end of the data month rather than to the date we ran the query, so anyone can reproduce these figures later and get the same answer. Recent months do still fill in as people report, so July will settle slightly.

Limitations. This is a self-selected sample of people who chose to post a timeline, not a random sample of applicants, and it over-represents the routes and services that community members use. Refused applicants under-report, so our refusal rates are a floor and not an estimate. Do not read these medians as Home Office service standards.

Revision, 9 August 2026. Figures restated on 9 August 2026. The first version reported a corpus count drawn from all data sources above findings computed from the Reddit-sourced subset only, and did not state sample sizes for its headline figures. Every figure below is now drawn from one population, carries its n, and is computed over windows fixed to 31 July 2026 rather than the date the query was run. Citizenship figures were materially unchanged; ILR priority and super-priority figures moved.

Reuse. These figures and charts are published under CC BY 4.0: use them anywhere, including commercially, with attribution. Cite the series as ILR Tracker Community Processing Times Report, ilrtracker.com/reports, which always shows the current edition. The aggregate figures are downloadable as CSV (medians, percentiles and n; no individual timelines).

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