Many Hungarians have applied for a residence permit in the UK

According to the latest figures released by the UK Home Office on Thursday, nearly 6.5 million EU citizens have 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 last year: accordingly, the number of applications submitted by Hungarians by December 31 exceeded 160,000.

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, nearly 90 percent of the applications had been judged.

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 an indefinite residence permit. The deadline for this was, in principle, June 30 last year. However, the British government continues to encourage recipients to submit their applications in any event.

In 51 percent of approved applications, applications were granted final – that is, without a deadline – and in 41 percent of cases the status was pre-determined. 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 In the remaining 9 percent of cases, applications were rejected, withdrawn by applicants, or invalid.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.

The list is run by Romanians with 1,184,370 applications for incorporation, followed by Poles, 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 state living in Great Britain, the French 240,530 and the Germans 170,230 applied for permanent residence by the end of 2021.

(Featured photo: The Palace of Westminster in central London on October 19, 2019. Photo: ISABEL INFANTES/AFP)