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Guidance

Discretionary leave: caseworker guidance

Immigration staff guidance on discretionary leave.

Updates to this page

From:
UK Visas and Immigration
Published:
24 June 2013
Last updated:
23 July 2026
Show all updates

  1. Updated the discretionary leave guidance, a full list of changes can be found in the guide.

  2. Clarified the pause on certain cases.

  3. Updated sections on modern slavery cases, further leave, and curtailing discretionary leave (DL). A full list of changes can be found in the guidance.

  4. Updated page as we are pausing ‘Temporary Permission to Stay considerations for Victims of Human Trafficking or Slavery’ decisions for cases which, in light of VLT (Vietnam) vs SSHD [JR-2023-LON-001944], would require a KTT Discretionary Leave consideration.

  5. Removed out of date policy equality statement on discretionary leave.

  6. Guidance updated to implement caselaw and general update.

  7. Updated discretionary leave guidance.

  8. Updated guidance on granting discretionary leave.

  9. Policy equality statement added.

  10. Updated guidance.

  11. First published.

Documents

Discretionary leave (accessible)

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Discretionary leave

PDF, 427 KB, 32 pages

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Details

UK Visas and Immigration staff guidance on the circumstances in which it may be appropriate to grant discretionary leave.

We have temporarily paused consideration of settlement applications for applicants who were first granted Discretionary Leave (DL) under the Transitional Arrangements, who committed a criminal offence prior to their first grant of DL for which they were sentenced for 12 months imprisonments or longer.

This pause is due to ongoing litigation proceedings relating to the policy for that cohort (see judgment of Jimoh v SSHD [2026] EWCA Civ 643).

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