Kelli Giddish Is Returning to Law & Order: SVU as Series Regular for Season 27

Amanda Rollins is coming home.

PEOPLE can confirm Kelli Giddish will be returning to Law & Order: Special Victims Unit as a series regular for season 27 this fall.

Giddish first departed the longtime NBC show in December 2022 in the middle of the 24th season, though she served as a guest star in various episodes throughout seasons 25 and 26.

For the season 24 finale, which was part of a crossover with Law & Order and Law & Order: Organized Crime, Giddish first returned to reveal Rollins was pregnant and expecting her first child with Assistant District Attorney Dominick Carisi (Peter Scanavino). The actress was also expecting in real life.

Giddish also appeared in the season 25 premiere in January 2024, as Rollins and Carisi celebrated the baptism of their newborn son, Nicky, and again later in the season when having left her job as a professor at Fordham University, she was free to help Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) work an SVU case.

Last fall, Giddish's guest SVU spot came with a promotion to sergeant — and a new gig working for the NYPD Intelligence Unit.

"I got pitched that idea from the writers and I was so excited to actually do that and to know that they were developing Rollins in that way," Giddish, 44, told PEOPLE in October. "And as Rollins tells Benson, it's like getting to eavesdrop on the whole wide world!"

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Ahead of her departure in 2022, Giddish also spoke exclusively to PEOPLE about her bittersweet exit.

"It's funny because, after last night's show, it does feel more final now. I didn't expect today to feel that way," she explained. "Now it's over and everyone's seen it. Everyone's gotten to experience it and feel all the feels that I felt, filming that last scene with Mariska."

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On May 8, NBC announced Law & Order: SVU would be getting the green light for yet another record-breaking season.

Season 27 will see the departure of the series' showrunner David Graziano, who helmed the show from season 24 through season 26. In April, Variety shared that Michele Fazekas would be taking over the top spot, making her the first female to hold the job in the show's history.

The season 26 finale of SVU will air Thursday at 9 p.m. ET on NBC.