Special provisons apply to person who are "exempt" from immigration control.Under the Immigration Act 1971 (‘the 1971 Act’) diplomatic staff members of a mission (‘a diplomat’) are exempt from UK immigration controls. They therefore have no restrictions upon the length of their stay in the UK or the number of time they may leave and re-enter the UK, provided they remain a diplomatic staff member of the mission. The removal of restrictions also apply to “a person who is a member of the family and forms part of the household of such a member”.

 

Indefinite leave to remain ('ILR')

Generally a diplomat will be entitled to apply for indefinite leave to remain (commonly referred to as permenant residency) after residing in the UK for a “continuous” period of 10 years. As a matter of practice, the Home Office treat the period of residence as being “continuous” if the diplomat has been absent for less than 18 months “during the period in question” and if each individual period of absence is less than 6 months.

 

Naturalisation

Once a diplomat has been granted ILR, he will eventually be entitled to apply for naturalisation provided he can satisfy the all the naturalisation requirments. Time spent in the UK as a diplomat does not "normally" count as residence in the UK for the purposes of calculating the residential qualifying period for naturalisation and is "usually" treated as absence from the UK.