ILR visa result

At 7:57 on the morning of 23 October 2025, an email arrived approving my indefinite leave to remain in the UK. I’d been at my biometrics appointment in London the previous day. Now I was sitting in my pajamas with my coffee, trying to understand that this part was finished.

A week earlier, I’d been shaking over an application and deciding whether to spend another £1,000 to shorten the wait. Nearly ten years of living in the UK hadn’t made visa applications comfortable. This one felt particularly big because it was about settling here.

Watch my application and result on YouTube.

The extra £1,000 decision

On 16 October, I’d finished the application and reached the payment stage. I’d already passed my Life in the UK test, filled in the personal information and checked the answers. Then I had to choose between the two services offered for my application.

The standard option showed £3,029 and a decision time of up to six months. Super priority was £4,029, with most decisions described as arriving by the end of the next working day after biometrics. Those were the options and prices in front of me then. I’d hoped for a middle option with a shorter wait and a smaller extra cost, but I didn’t have one.

The thought of waiting months made me anxious. What if there was a problem with the application and I didn’t learn about it until much later? On the other hand, another £1,000 was a painful amount to spend. I was trying to decide which pain I wanted less, losing the money or living with the uncertainty.

I chose super priority. I didn’t love it, and next-day speed was more than I really needed. A wait of two months instead of six would have suited me, but that wasn’t the choice I was making.

Even after checking my answers that morning, the warning that I couldn’t go back and edit after moving to payment made me scroll through them again. Some changes I’d made had saved correctly. Eventually, I entered my card details and paid. My bank flagged the payment as a possible scam. That felt about right for my mood.

A quick appointment after all that preparation

I booked biometrics for Wednesday 22 October and chose to upload my documents myself. After paying for the application, I wasn’t keen to pay someone else for the scanning when I could do it.

On appointment day, I took an earlier train into London in case something went wrong with the service. I brought my laptop so I could work at a cafe while waiting, along with my passport and appointment confirmation. I’d been through biometrics before, but that didn’t stop me being nervous.

I arrived about 15 minutes early and sat outside, expecting to wait. Someone came out almost immediately and invited me in. There was another short wait inside, then staff checked the appointment and scanned my passport, including its stamps.

A second member of staff took my fingerprints and a passport-style photograph. There was no digital signature this time, which surprised me. Instead, they filmed me saying my full name and date of birth, then handed the passport back and said I was done.

The appointment itself lasted about four minutes. My hands were still shaking and I was sweaty, but there was nothing more for me to do. I’d already uploaded the documents, so there wasn’t a pile of scanning to get through. I could go home and wait for the result.

Just an email, and a very big result

The next morning, I woke after eight and turned my phone notifications back on. The approval email had arrived 11 minutes earlier. I couldn’t believe how quickly it had happened after leaving the centre around noon the day before.

There wasn’t a physical card to make the result feel more substantial. I had an email, my coffee and the odd feeling of wondering what happened next. I was excited, but it hadn’t sunk in.

When I moved here at 22, with an English partner, I wasn’t following a long-term plan to settle in Britain. I wanted to try living here and see what happened. Citizenship hadn’t been a dream I was working towards either. It had seemed too far away to be part of my reality.

By this point, I was considering citizenship more seriously. Changing fees and requirements had worried me during my time here, and although indefinite leave felt like a huge step towards security, it hadn’t removed every worry. That was something to plan and budget for later. For the moment, I wanted to sit quietly and absorb the approval I’d just received.