Important information about the Population Management Law
The Population Management Law came into force on 3 April 2017. On 30 March 2017, during a States debate, a policy was agreed that improves the transitional arrangements, sometimes referred to as "grandfather rights", for some Short Term Housing Licence holders.
What's changed?
People who on 2 April 2017:
- held a Short Term Housing Licence; or
- were on a break from Guernsey after holding a Short Term Housing Licence; and
- had already lived in Guernsey for a total of 45 months when all their residence is added together;
will now be able to keep coming back to work in Guernsey on a 9 month-on, 3 month-off pattern for as long as their employer wants them to.
These new rules will be better because they apply to more people, and mean that a person's current employment pattern can carry on.
If a person stays away from Guernsey for three years, they will lose these special grandfather rights. (Reference DR33)
Why has the change happened?
- The change is intended to make the move to the new Population Management Law easier for employers and employees to adapt to.
- Before the States changed this rule, people on Short Term Housing Licences could get "grandfather rights" but only if, by 2 April 2017, they had lived in Guernsey for 60 months (5 years) when all their residence was added together. If a person met this residence test, they could keep coming back to Guernsey to work for up to 12 months at a time, but would have then had to spend the same amount of time away from Guernsey before they could come back under a new style Short Term Employment Permit.
Other languages
- A notice posted under 'downloads' at the top right of this page has this information in Portuguese and Latvian.
- If you need to translate this page into any other language, you can:
- click on the icon at the top of this page next to 'Sign In'
- select 'translate'
- chose another language from the list
- wait a moment for the page to translate into the selected language
- The change agreed by the States will also apply to people who previously held a Short Term Housing Licence, but were on their three month break in residence on 3 April 2017, if they have already lived in Guernsey for a total of 45 months when all their residence is added together.
- We don't have a way of getting in touch with people on their three month break, but we want to make sure they know that this change has happened because they might benefit from it. If you know someone who is on their three month break, you might want to let them know about this change.
