Care Worker and Health Routes

Key Takeaways

• The Health and Care Worker visa is not a separate visa. It is the Skilled Worker route with lower application fees, no Immigration Health Surcharge and faster processing for eligible health and adult social care jobs.
• Your employer must hold a sponsor licence and be an eligible health or care organisation, such as an NHS body, an organisation working under an NHS contract or a registered adult social care provider.
• Care workers and senior care workers can only apply from inside the UK. There is no longer a way for a new care worker to be sponsored from overseas.
• Switching into care work from another visa needs at least 3 months working legally for that employer first, and the application must be made before 22 July 2028.
• Care workers first sponsored on or after 11 March 2024 cannot bring a partner or children as dependants, apart from a few narrow exceptions.
• Most health and care jobs need a salary of at least £25,000 a year plus the going rate, and care workers also need at least £12.82 for every hour worked.
• You can work up to 20 hours a week in a second job on top of unlimited overtime in your sponsored role, provided the second job is in a permitted occupation.
• We act for health professionals, care workers and care providers at every stage. See our Health and Care visa service.

Introduction

This page is for doctors, nurses, allied health professionals, social workers and care workers who want to work in the UK, and for the employers who sponsor them. It covers who qualifies for the Health and Care Worker visa, the separate rules that now apply to care workers, what the visa costs, who can come with you and how the route leads to settlement.

How the Health and Care Worker Visa Works

The Health and Care Worker visa is a version of the Skilled Worker visa for people taking eligible jobs in health and adult social care. You apply on the Skilled Worker form and answer yes when asked whether you are applying for the Health and Care visa. Every Skilled Worker requirement still applies, so you need a job offer from a licensed sponsor, a certificate of sponsorship, the right salary and English at the required level.

What the visa adds is a set of benefits that standard Skilled Workers do not get:

• Reduced application fees, the same amount whether you apply from inside or outside the UK.
• No Immigration Health Surcharge for you or your dependants, which saves £1,035 a year for each adult and £776 a year for a child under 18.
• Fast-track processing, usually a decision within 3 weeks of proving your identity and providing your documents.
• A dedicated Home Office team handling health and care applications.

A single grant can last up to 5 years. You can extend as often as you still qualify, and time on the route counts towards settlement. Our guidance on Skilled Worker: Apply, Switch and Extend covers the wider application process, and GOV.UK sets out the route in outline.

Who Can Sponsor You

Your employer must hold a sponsor licence and must be one of the health and care organisations the Home Office accepts for this visa. That covers:

• NHS organisations across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, including trusts, health boards, and national bodies such as NHS Blood and Transplant or the UK Health Security Agency.
• Organisations delivering primary medical or dental services under an NHS contract, which includes most GP surgeries and dental practices.
• Adult social care providers registered with the Care Quality Commission in England and carrying on a regulated activity, or regulated by the Care Inspectorate in Scotland, Care Inspectorate Wales, or the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority in Northern Ireland.
• Organisations registered with, monitored by or working under a contract with a UK health or care regulator, such as the General Medical Council, the Nursing and Midwifery Council, the Health and Care Professions Council or Social Care Wales.

The full list sits in the Home Office Health and Care visa guidance. A private provider working for the NHS may be asked for evidence of its contract. If your employer does not hold a licence yet, it needs to apply before it can sponsor anyone, and our guidance on Sponsor Licence: How to Apply explains how.

Eligible Health and Care Jobs

The list of eligible occupation codes is exhaustive. If your job is not in one of them, you cannot use this visa. Your employer chooses the code, and it has to be the one that genuinely matches the work you will do.

Several of the codes below degree level depend on a job being listed on the Immigration Salary List or the Temporary Shortage List, and those lists carry removal dates. Laboratory technicians, for example, qualify through the Immigration Salary List only where the job needs three or more years of relevant experience. Check the current Appendix Immigration Salary List before relying on a code, and see our guidance on Skilled Worker: Eligibility and Salary for how occupation codes and going rates work.

When a Health Job Uses the Standard Skilled Worker Visa Instead

Plenty of healthcare roles fall outside this visa. A job in a private clinic with no NHS contract, or a role in an occupation code that is not on the health list, can still be sponsored under the standard Skilled Worker route. The difference is cost and salary. You pay the full Skilled Worker fee and the Immigration Health Surcharge, and the general salary thresholds apply instead of the health ones. A care worker sponsored outside the Health and Care visa has to be paid at least £33,400 a year and £17.13 for each hour worked, against £25,000 and £12.82 on the Health and Care visa.

Salary Requirements for Health and Care Roles

You need to meet a general salary figure and the going rate for your occupation code, whichever produces the higher amount. Only guaranteed basic pay counts. Overtime, shift premiums, bonuses, allowances and benefits in kind are all excluded, which catches out employers who rely on enhanced weekend rates to reach the threshold. If you are sponsored to work more than 48 hours a week, only the pay for the first 48 hours counts towards the threshold.

Pay has to arrive in the right amounts as well as the right total. Your salary must reach the going rate for every hour worked in each pay period, and unpaid working time counts against you. Unpaid travel between care visits is the clearest example, and it has cost providers their licences, as our post on unpaid travel time between care visits explains. The job must also comply with the National Minimum Wage and the Working Time Regulations, or the visa application will be refused whatever the paperwork says.

Nurses and Midwives Working Towards NMC Registration

If you are sponsored in one of the nursing codes and are not yet fully registered, your salary can sit below £25,000 for up to 8 months. This applies if you are returning to practice on an approved programme, or if you have passed the Nursing and Midwifery Council English and computer based tests and will sit the clinical examination within 3 months of your job start date. During that period you must still be paid at least the Agenda for Change band 3 rate, and your sponsor has to confirm that sponsorship will end if you do not achieve full registration within 8 months of the job start date.

Care Worker and Senior Care Worker Rules

Care workers (occupation code 6135) and senior care workers (code 6136) are treated differently from the rest of the health list. The rules below apply on top of everything above.

No Applications From Outside the UK

A care worker or senior care worker application must be an application for permission to stay, made from inside the UK. Overseas recruitment into these two codes closed on 22 July 2025. An employer cannot assign a certificate of sponsorship to someone abroad for a care role, and an application for entry clearance in these codes will be refused. Care providers recruiting now are recruiting from people already in the UK, which includes workers whose previous sponsor lost its licence.

Switching Into Care Work: the Three-Month Rule

If you are in the UK on another visa, such as a Graduate visa or as the dependant of another visa holder, you can be sponsored as a care worker only if you have already been working legally for that same employer, as a care worker or senior care worker, for at least the 3 months ending on the day your certificate of sponsorship is issued. Two points catch people out. The 3 months must be with the employer who is going to sponsor you, so care experience elsewhere does not count, and the work must have been permitted by the immigration permission you held at the time. Your employer keeps evidence of it, such as payslips or a contract.

This route has an end date. An application relying on the 3 months of employment must be made before 22 July 2028. Our post on the 3-month experience rule for SOC 6135 and 6136 looks at the switching question in more detail, and Graduate and Student Switching covers moving from a study route into work.

Changing Employer or Extending as an Existing Care Worker

If you already hold Skilled Worker permission as a care worker or senior care worker, including under the old codes 6145 and 6146, you do not need to serve 3 months with a new employer. You can extend with your current sponsor or move to another licensed care provider, as long as your Skilled Worker permission in those codes has been continuous. A new sponsor will ask for evidence of your previous sponsorship, and the change of employer needs a new certificate of sponsorship and a new application before you start the job.

CQC Registration and the Regulators Across the UK

Where the job is anywhere in England, the sponsor must hold active registration with the Care Quality Commission and must be carrying on a regulated activity. Without it, the licence application is refused, a request for certificates is rejected, and any application you make is refused. The one exception is for workers first sponsored in the old codes 6145 or 6146 before 11 March 2024 who have held Skilled Worker permission in care codes continuously since and are staying with the same sponsor.

In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland the sponsor has to hold registration with the Care Inspectorate, Care Inspectorate Wales or the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority where its activities require it. Private households cannot sponsor care workers at all, other than a sole trader sponsoring someone to work in their business. Sponsors also have to put their registration number and the working locations on the certificate of sponsorship, and a missing detail is enough for the application to be refused. The employer duties sit in our guidance on Sponsor Licence: Compliance and Duties.

If Your Sponsor Loses Its Licence

If your sponsor's licence is revoked while you are in the UK, your certificate of sponsorship is cancelled and your permission is cut to 60 days, or to whatever time you have left if that is less. Within that window you need to find a new licensed sponsor and apply, switch to another route, or leave. If you were involved in the reasons the licence was lost, the position is worse and your permission can be withdrawn outright. A suspension is different, and you can usually carry on working while the Home Office investigates.

Care workers in this position can be sponsored by a new care provider without serving another 3 months, because they already hold permission in the care codes. The Department of Health and Social Care runs a displaced worker pool through regional care partnerships, and providers are encouraged to recruit from it. Our post on what care workers can do when a sponsor licence is revoked sets out the practical steps, and GOV.UK explains what happens to employees when a sponsor loses its licence. Where a worker has been referred into the National Referral Mechanism and receives a positive conclusive grounds decision during their permission, the Home Office can lift the work conditions so that any work is allowed apart from professional sport. Our post on changing employer after a modern slavery decision covers that situation.

English Language Requirements

You need English at level B2 of the Common European Framework in reading, writing, speaking and listening. The exception is where your most recent Skilled Worker permission was granted subject to a B1 requirement, in which case B1 still applies when you extend or update that permission, and you do not have to prove it again. Switching in from another route means meeting B2.

You can prove it with a secure English language test from an approved provider, a degree taught and awarded in the UK, an overseas degree taught in English confirmed by the Home Office's assessment provider, or a UK school qualification such as a GCSE begun before you were 18. Nationals of a listed group of majority English-speaking countries do not need to prove it. Neither do doctors, dentists, nurses and midwives whose regulator has already accepted an English assessment, which is the route most registrants use. There is more in our guidance on English Language Requirements.

What the Health and Care Worker Visa Costs

This is the cheapest of the work routes, mainly because of the surcharge exemption. The figures below are per person, and your partner and children pay the same application fee as you.

You do not have to show the £1,270 if you have been in the UK with permission for at least 12 months, or if your sponsor certifies on the certificate of sponsorship that it will maintain you during your first month. The same 12-month rule applies to dependants. Our post on UK visa maintenance funds explains how to evidence the money, and you can price a full application with our visa fee calculator. Employer costs, including the licence fee, certificates of sponsorship and the Immigration Skills Charge, are set out in our guidance on Visa Fees and Sponsorship Costs.

Bringing Your Partner and Children

Most people on this visa can bring a partner and children under 18 as dependants. They apply online, either with you or later, and each needs to show the funds in the table above unless they have already been in the UK with permission for 12 months or your sponsor certifies maintenance.

Two groups cannot. The first is care workers and senior care workers. If you were first granted permission in a care code on or after 11 March 2024, your partner and children cannot join or stay as your dependants. The second is workers in the other roles below degree level, such as nursing auxiliaries, ambulance staff and dental nurses, where the same restriction applies to anyone first granted permission on or after 22 July 2025.

There are narrow exceptions. A child born in the UK can apply. So can a child where you are the sole surviving parent or have sole responsibility for them, or where the other parent is also sponsored in one of the restricted codes, in both cases where the application is for permission to stay. Family members who already held dependant permission before the restriction applied to you can continue to extend. Our post on whether care workers can bring their family to the UK works through the common situations, and there is more in our guidance on Dependants and Family and our dependant visa service. GOV.UK sets out the dependant rules for this route.

Additional Work and the 20 Hour Limit

You can work extra hours, within limits, and the limits depend on what kind of work it is.

The second job has to be in a permitted occupation. That means a job on the Immigration Salary List, a job in an eligible occupation code at degree level or above, or a job in the same profession and at the same professional level as the one you are sponsored for. Work in the occupations below degree level is only open to you if you were granted Skilled Worker permission under the rules in place before 22 July 2025 and have held it continuously since. A care worker doing extra shifts for a second care provider is the common example, and it is permitted while the care codes stay on the Immigration Salary List.

Losing your sponsored job ends the right to do supplementary work, because the condition is that you carry on working for your sponsor. Check your position with our supplementary work checker, read GOV.UK on taking a second job, and see our guidance on Skilled Worker: Job Loss and Second Jobs for the full picture.

Settlement After Five Years

The Health and Care Worker visa leads to indefinite leave to remain. You need 5 years of continuous residence with permission on the Skilled Worker route, or a combination of that and certain other work routes, not counting time as someone else's dependant. Absences are limited under the continuous residence rules, and you must pass the Life in the UK test.

Your sponsor still has to be licensed at the date of decision and must confirm that it needs you for the foreseeable future on a salary that meets the settlement threshold. For health and education roles paid on national pay scales, and for jobs sponsored under the Immigration Salary List, that threshold is £25,000 a year plus the going rate. Other roles need £31,300, £33,400 or £41,700, depending on how the job was sponsored. Applications made on or after 26 March 2027 also need English at B2 in speaking and listening.

The settlement fee is £3,226 per person. Check your qualifying date with our ILR eligibility calculator, read our guidance on Indefinite Leave to Remain and Settlement, or ask us about the five year route to ILR. The government has consulted on an earned settlement model that would change qualifying periods. Nothing has been laid before Parliament, so the 5 year rules above are the ones that apply.

Detailed Guides on This Topic

• UK Health and Care Worker visa: a complete guide for applicants and employers walks through the application step by step.
• The 3-month experience rule for SOC 6135 and 6136 looks at switching into care work.
• Can care workers bring their family to the UK answers the dependant questions we are asked most.
• Sponsor licence revoked: what care workers can do next covers the 60 day window and the options within it.
• Unpaid travel time between care visits explains where care providers get minimum wage compliance wrong.

How Can WorkPermitCloud Help?

Health and care applications fail on small things. A certificate of sponsorship without the CQC registration number, three months of employment that cannot be evidenced, or a rota that pays the right annual total but not the right hourly rate. We check the position before anyone commits to it.

Our Health and Care visa service covers the worker's application from the job offer to the decision. For providers, we handle the sponsor licence, certificates of sponsorship and the record keeping the Home Office expects when it visits.

Conclusion

The Health and Care Worker visa remains the cheapest and fastest route into UK work for people in eligible health and social care jobs, and it still leads to settlement after 5 years. For care workers the route has narrowed to people already in the UK, with a three-month employment condition for anyone switching in and no dependants for anyone first sponsored on or after 11 March 2024. Check the occupation code, the employer's registration and the salary against the going rate before an application is made, because those three points decide most cases.

Glossary