without going deep into details, the answer is NO.

Ummm... I actually would insist you go into details, or otherwise your reply is not particularly helpful.

From the Home Office website:

European Economic Area nationals and Swiss nationals

If you are a national of a country in the European Economic Area (EEA) or Switzerland, or you are the family member of such a person, you will automatically have permanent residence status if you have exercised EEA free-movement rights in the UK for a continuous five-year period ending on or after 30 April 2006. You do not need to apply for leave to remain. You should have held permanent residence status for 12 months before you apply for naturalisation.

If you have been outside the UK for six months or more in any one of the five years of the residence period, you will have broken your residence. This does not apply if:

• the absence was due to military service; or


• all absences were for under 12 months and were for important reasons such as pregnancy, childcare, serious illness, study, vocational training or an overseas posting.

If you leave the UK for a continuous period of two years or more, you will lose your permanent residence status.

My understanding is: in July 2012 I get the permanent residence status as I will have been in UK for 5 years, permanently employed, I have all the documentation to show this. I will keep this status until I'm back from Australia, as it won't be more than 2 years. After that I have to stay another 12 months in UK before applying for naturalisation, but only because another section states: You must not have been absent for more than 90 days in the last 12 months.

What am I missing?

Please i am also interested i the above topic. I have a daughter who is an EEU citizen (Ireland to be precise) she is below 16year and has been in the uk for 5years. the rest of the family are here but not yet have permanent residence are we able to change our status based on her citizenship . if yes how do we go about it and how will she change her nationalizim to British.

You are missing the most basic of information that you need. What you have copied and pasted refers to residence/permanent resident status in the UK as eu citizen. what you have read is


This only refers to your permanent residence status, and not to the requirement of naturalisation. I suggest you read standard requirements of naturalisation on UKBA website. If still you do not understand, I will explain.

Just that I am a bit tired (lol) on repeatedly typing the info that I have pointed to many a times, and the same is very boldly mentioned in naturalisation requiremnts.

http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/britishcitizenship/eligibility/naturalisation/standardrequirements/  - the title of the page is "Standard requirements for naturalisation" - apologies, but I wasn't able to find any other page that would explain the requirements for naturalisation for EEU nationals.
The only other thing on this site that could have any effect (which I find simply contradicting what is stated in the subsequent section about EEU nationals) is the following:

Residential requirements

To demonstrate the residential requirements for naturalisation, you must have:

• been resident in the UK for at least five years (this is known as the residential qualifying period); and


• been present in the UK five years before the date of your application; and


• not spent more than 450 days outside the UK during the five-year period; and


• not spent more than 90 days outside the UK in the last 12 months of the five-year period; and


• not been in breach of the Immigration Rules at any stage during the five-year period.

On one hand as EEU citizen I get and keep the permanent residence status if I don't leave UK for more than 2 years and after having held it for 12 months I can apply for naturalisation. On the other hand there are only 5 years for non-EEU people.
The confusing thing here is that if I was a non-EEU national, the naturalisation point and 5-year residential requirements are effectively the same and I could already be applying for naturalisation. However, as EEU I effectively need 6 years not 5. The rules are almost contradicting each other and I thought you fall under one section OR the other, not both.

However, even assuming that this section applied to me, the only item that is questionable in my case would be
not spent more than 450 days outside the UK during the five-year period.
If UKBA started calculating 5 years (instead of "holding residence status for 12 months") at the point of naturalisation the period I could be away would would be reduced from 2 years to 450 days. But if I left only for 12 months, and then stayed another 12 months (to fulfill 4th bullet point) I think I should still be good. What would be insane would be if that meant that I had to then stay yet another year to get to 6years (as EEU citizen).

If you don't want to explain this again and wouldn't mind pointing me to another thread where you explained a similar case already I'm perfectly happy to read that instead.

Now, here I do not want to sound like I am implying that you are stupid, but let me say, there is no contradiction whatsoever in naturalisation requirements. Its just that not everyone is always able to read through legal requirements.

Anyways, let not go deep into that matter. Lets keep it to the point and whether you will or will not qualify, once you are back into UK.

You have pasted the standard requirements. Now can you please tell me how you will fulfil the requirement "not spent more than 90 days outside the UK in the last 12 months of the five-year period;" ?

As I stated in the first post in this thread, and then once again in one of following replies, after coming back to UK I will wait another 12 months living in UK before applying for naturalisation, precisely because I have read and understood this requirement. Is that not enough in your opinion?

If you go abroad for 18 months, then come back and stay in UK for 12 months and apply for naturalisation the you will not meet the requirement of

• not spent more than 450 days outside the UK during the five-year period;
  

Basically, you will have to look back 5 years from the date you intend to apply and count your total absenses in that 5 years period.

Example: If you want to apply for naturalisation on 01/07/2014 then count back 5 years. Your total absense between 01/07/2009 and 31/06/2014 should be no more than 450 days.

My original post mentioned going to Australia for 12-18 months, so it would have been perfectly enough if you simply said "yes, you can go for 12 months, but not for 18 months as this will push you beyond 450 days limit which still applies to you". Quick, straight to the point, and we could have avoided this whole conversation and bouncing quotes back and forth and a strange feeling "I can't be bothered to reply to your question properly".

Anyway, glad to have it clarified now. Have a good day.

In hindsight, I agree with you that conversation just got too long for no reason.

Dear Sir or Madam,

I'd like to confirm if my understanding of the rules regarding European nationals is correct.
I am a citizen of one of EEU countries and I have arrived in UK in July 2007, so in July 2012 I will have passed the 5 years period required for residency. From what I understand, I do not have to apply anywhere to get this status - it is granted "automatically".
I am thinking of going away for about 12-18 months after that (probably in October or November 2012), and then applying for citizenship after coming back and staying here for 12 months (i.e. probably coming back early 2014 and applying for citizenship in 2015).
Is that going to work? Am I allowed to have this "break" between residency period and a year qualifying me for the citizenship?

Thanks a lot,
Lili