The UK Home Office notified some EU citizens who had lived in the UK before Brexit that they had been mistakenly granted residency status.
Those notified say their work, housing, and family reunification may be affected.
The issue is whether the Home Office’s process for resolving their status sufficiently guarantees protections and appeal procedures under the Withdrawal Agreement.
3-Line Summary
1. 1,473 EU citizens received notifications about errors in their status
2. The policy was reflected in guidance at the end of 2025
3. Legal review could change the actual outcome
Notifications That Status Was “Granted in Error” and 1,473 People
The UK Home Office notified 1,473 EU citizens who had received the right to reside in the UK after Brexit that the decision to grant them their initial residency status had been erroneous. They were people who had lived in the UK before Brexit and had received either pre-settled status or settled status.
Pre-settled status is a residency status under the UK-EU Withdrawal Agreement, administered through the UK’s EU Settlement Scheme. Settled status is described as permanent residency status available after 5 years of residence in the UK.
The Home Office said that people who had received pre-settled status in error were not beneficiaries of the Withdrawal Agreement. However, it maintains that they may submit evidence to the contrary and may appeal if they reapply to the EU Settlement Scheme and are refused.
Cases in Which the Passport Issuance Date Was Treated as the Date of Acquiring Nationality
The controversy was particularly evident in cases involving people who held nationality based on Italian ancestry. Some of those notified were told that they had not been eligible for status because they had not submitted a passport with their original application.
Reported cases also included people from Brazil who had held Italian nationality from birth. The Home Office determined that they were not Italian at the time they applied on the basis of their residence before Brexit.
However, in one case brought before the Administrative Court, the Home Office withdrew its decision. It acknowledged that the date on which a person received a physical Italian passport after Brexit was not the date on which they acquired Italian nationality. This ruling could become an important issue for Italian nationals in similar circumstances, but it has not yet been confirmed that the status of all affected people will automatically be restored.
The Method of Status Expiration Is the Central Issue
The specialist legal publication Free Movement reported that the Home Office revised its operational guidance at the end of 2025 to allow pre-settled status to be treated as having been “granted in error.” Under this approach, the status is not cancelled but is allowed to expire without being extended.
Normally, to reduce or end a person’s leave to remain, the individual is allowed to submit evidence, have the proportionality of the action assessed, and then exercise a right of appeal. However, criticism has emerged that these safeguards do not apply to a determination that status was “granted in error.”
The citizens’ rights group the3million said it had identified at least 50 cases and notified the Home Office that it would pursue judicial review of the policy. The interests at stake differ between people whose pre-settled status will actually expire and people who may retain settled status but lose their rights under the Withdrawal Agreement to bring family members to join them in the UK.
What bears watching in this matter is not only the number of notifications, but also what legal procedures must govern individual nationality determinations and the resolution of residency status. The conclusion for each affected person may vary depending on the court’s ruling or the Home Office’s subsequent decisions.
References
Tags #Brexit #UKBrexit #UKHomeOffice #EUcitizens #EUSettlementScheme #PreSettledStatus #SettledStatus #UKResidencyRights #UKImmigration #WithdrawalAgreement #ItalianNationality #UKRightOfResidence