With a week to go until the deadline for EU nationals living in the UK to apply for settled status, it is clear that far more EU citizens have been living in the country than previous estimates suggested.
As of 31 May, the government had received 5.6 million applications for the post-Brexit scheme that allows EU (and EEA) nationals to continue living and working in the UK after the end of this month.
That is far higher than the official estimate when the scheme was fully opened in March 2019 that there were 3.7 million (non-Irish) EU nationals in the country.
About five million settlement applications came from England, just over quarter of a million from Scotland and about 92,000 each from Wales and Northern Ireland.
The latest figures for the scheme are broken down into numbers in each local authority in England and Wales. That allows us to make comparisons with the official estimates for the number of EU nationals in each local authority, to find out which areas those extra EU nationals are living in.
What is settled status?
EU nationals living in the UK have until 30 June to apply to stay in the UK. They can apply for:
- Settled status – on offer to anyone who can prove that they had been in the UK continuously for five years or more before 31 December 2020. As of 31 May, it has been granted to 2.75 million people.
- Pre-settled status – on offer to anyone who had been in the UK for less than five years by the end of 2020. As of 31 May, it has been granted to 2.28 million. They can apply for settled status in future, but there is no guarantee they will get it.
It is also important to note that smaller numbers of applications were repeats, invalid, or were rejected. And some non-European family members of EEA citizens can also apply.
In many areas, including parts of West Sussex, Wolverhampton and numerous London boroughs, the number of applicants was more than 80% higher than the estimated local population of EU nationals.
And some nationalities stood out. More than 760,000 applications have been approved for Romanians in the UK, for example, while the estimate of the resident Romanian population is only about 400,000.
