Bingyan Lin & Zechao Huang v SSHD: EUSS closure and the limits of Article 14 protection

In Bingyan Lin & Zechao Huang v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2026] EWHC 457 (Admin), Mr Justice Linden dismissed a judicial review challenging the refusal of indefinite leave to remain under the European Union Settlement Scheme ("EUSS") on the grounds that the FMQBC route had closed on 8 August 2023. The judgement, handed down on 5 March 2026, addresses the intersection of the Surinder Singh principle, post-Brexit transitional arrangements, and the reach of Article 14 ECHR.

The claimants, Chinese nationals married to and the son of a British citizen, had resided in the United Kingdom since 2018 on the basis of EEA residence cards issued under regulation 9 of the Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2016 ("the 2016 Regulations") — the domestic implementation of the Surinder Singh principle. Those cards, issued in June 2019 and January 2020, were expressed to be valid for five years.

Following Brexit, the 2016 Regulations were revoked at the end of the transition period on 31 December 2020. A six-month grace period under the Citizens' Rights (Application Deadline and Temporary Protection) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020 preserved rights of residence until 30 June 2021, after which the claimants' EU-derived immigration status fell away entirely. The EUSS, which had been open to FMQBCs since March 2019, remained available to them — but they did not apply before the scheme closed to their category on 8 August 2023. Their online applications in December 2023 were refused on the grounds of using an incorrect form and applying out of time.

Ground 3: validity of the EEA residence cards

Permission had been refused on Ground 3 at the paper stage. The claimants renewed their application, arguing that their EEA residence cards continued to evidence lawful residence beyond 30 June 2021 by virtue of their stated five-year validity. Linden J rejected this emphatically. Regulation 18(7) of the 2016 Regulations confirmed that a residence card is proof of the holder's right to reside on the date of issue and ceases to be valid once that underlying right is lost. As the court observed, residence cards under EU law were always declaratory instruments rather than constitutive ones: they evidenced existing rights rather than creating them. The revocation of the 2016 Regulations extinguished those rights, rendering the cards ineffective as proof of ongoing lawful residence from 30 June 2021 onwards regardless of their printed expiry dates.

Ground 1: Article 14 ECHR

The principal challenge alleged unlawful discrimination contrary to Article 14 read with Article 8. The claimants identified their comparator group as non-EU national FMQBCs who had obtained EUSS family permits to enter the United Kingdom, and who benefited from additional time to apply to the EUSS following their arrival, including provision for reasonable grounds for delay.

Linden J accepted that both groups were in analogous situations and that the claimants had suffered less favourable treatment. He also accepted that the ground for differentiation — the comparator group's status as EUSS family permit holders arriving from abroad — engaged Article 14, following Carson v United Kingdom and Bah v United Kingdom. However, he found the difference in treatment objectively justified and proportionate. The comparators had, by definition, been abroad and unable to engage with the EUSS directly; they had already demonstrated reasonable grounds for delayed return as a condition of obtaining their permits. The leeway afforded to them reflected practical necessity rather than arbitrary preference.

By contrast, the claimants had been in the United Kingdom throughout, with unobstructed access to the EUSS for over four years. Extensive public communications, GOV.UK guidance updated from as early as 2017, and direct emails to residence card holders via their solicitors' address had made the need to apply under the EUSS widely known. The generous transitional arrangements had exceeded what the Withdrawal Agreement required, and it was neither irrational nor disproportionate to bring them to an end.

Grounds 2, 4 and 5

The remaining grounds were dismissed on similar reasoning. The decision to close the FMQBC route was rationally connected to the legitimate aim of aligning the treatment of all FMQBCs with general family Immigration Rules. The failure to provide for out-of-time applications was a lawful exercise of the Secretary of State's discretion, consistent with her practice when closing immigration routes. Even had such provision existed, the claimants would have faced considerable difficulty establishing reasonable grounds given their unexplained failure to apply during a protracted open period.

The case serves as a clear statement that the EUSS transitional arrangements, however broadly construed, do not operate indefinitely, and that possession of a time-limited EEA residence card provides no guarantee of ongoing rights of residence once the underlying EU-law basis for those rights has been removed.

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