UK Health and Care Worker Visa 2026: Who Still Qualifies

The UK Health and Care Worker visa still exists and still offers the cheapest visa fees and a healthcare surcharge exemption. But one route through it has closed completely, and thousands of people are still being sold it. If you are a care worker applying from Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, India, Pakistan or the Philippines, read the next section before you speak to any agency.

Care Worker Recruitment From Overseas Is Closed

Since 22 July 2025, new visa applications for care workers (SOC 6135) and senior care workers (SOC 6136) from outside the UK have been closed. This is not a pause, a quota or a backlog. It is a closure written into the Immigration Rules.

The only remaining route into those two occupations is an application for permission to stay, made from inside the UK, by someone who either already holds Skilled Worker permission in a care role, or has been lawfully employed by their sponsor for at least three months before the certificate of sponsorship was issued. That in-country transition itself ends on 22 July 2028.

Said plainly: if you are outside the UK, no care home or domiciliary agency can lawfully sponsor you as a care worker, at any price. Anyone offering to arrange it is either working from outdated information or taking your money for something that cannot be delivered. The 2028 date is when the in-country transition closes, not when overseas recruitment reopens.

One more detail worth knowing, because scam documents get it wrong: older material refers to SOC codes 6145 and 6146. The current codes are 6135 and 6136. A 2026 offer letter quoting the old codes tells you something about who wrote it.

Who Can Still Use This Route

The visa remains fully open to qualified doctors, nurses, midwives, allied health professionals and other health roles at degree level. Since 22 July 2025 new entrants to the Skilled Worker route generally need a job at RQF Level 6 — degree level — and roughly 180 occupations were removed from eligibility.

You need a job offer in an eligible occupation code, a certificate of sponsorship from a Home Office-licensed sponsor, salary meeting both the cash floor and the occupation’s going rate, English at B2, and £1,270 in maintenance held for 28 consecutive days unless your sponsor certifies it.

Salary Thresholds

You must clear both the cash floor for your route option and the stated percentage of your occupation’s going rate. The health and care options:

Option	Who it covers	Salary floor	Going rate
F	Health/care occupation on a national pay scale	£31,300	100%
G	Health/care with a relevant PhD	£28,200	90%
H	Health/care with a STEM PhD	£25,000	80%
I	Health/care on the Immigration Salary List	£25,000	100%
J	Health/care new entrant	£25,000	70%
A	Standard Skilled Worker, for comparison	£41,700	100%

In practice the going rate binds, not the floor. NHS roles sit on national pay scales, so your Agenda for Change band point is the number that matters. From April 2026 the Band 3 entry point is £25,760, which clears the £25,000 health and care floor.

Note the general threshold for comparison: £41,700, up from £38,700 in July 2025. The health and care concession is substantial and it is the reason this route is worth pursuing if you qualify for it.

English: Two Different Requirements, Often Confused

The visa requires CEFR level B2 across reading, writing, speaking and listening for new applications, raised from B1 on 8 January 2026. Approved test providers include the IELTS SELT Consortium, LanguageCert, Pearson, Trinity College London, and PSI Services for tests taken outside the UK. Results are valid for two years and the unique reference number must be quoted or your application can be refused.

The NMC requirement for nurses is separate and considerably higher: IELTS Academic at 7.0 in reading, listening and speaking with 6.5 in writing, or OET at grade B with C+ in writing.

Do not conflate the two. And note the useful consequence: doctors, dentists, nurses and midwives who have already passed an English assessment accepted by their UK regulator do not need a separate visa language test. One test, correctly chosen, covers both. Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, India, Pakistan and the Philippines are not on the majority-English-speaking exemption list, so you rely on that regulator route, a degree taught in English, or a test.

Can You Bring Your Family?

For doctors, nurses, allied health professionals and other degree-level health roles: yes, partners and children can come.

For care workers and senior care workers: no new dependants since 11 March 2024, and that restriction was extended on 22 July 2025 to all roles below degree level. Narrow exceptions apply where the worker has been continuously employed in the role since before the relevant date, where a child was born in the UK, where the worker is a sole parent, or where the other parent is also a sponsored care worker.

Dependant maintenance, where allowed: £285 for a partner, £315 for a first child, £200 for each additional child, held 28 consecutive days.

What It Costs — and Who Must Pay

Fees rose 6.5% for applications made on or after 8 April 2026.

Item	Cost
Health and Care Worker visa, up to 3 years	£324 per person
Health and Care Worker visa, over 3 years	£628 per person
Standard Skilled Worker, for comparison	£943 / £1,865
Immigration Health Surcharge	Exempt (normally £1,035 per year)
Certificate of sponsorship	£525 — employer pays
Immigration Skills Charge	£480–£1,320 per year — employer pays
Maintenance funds	£1,270
Settlement (ILR) application	£3,226

The surcharge exemption is the single biggest financial advantage of this route. For a five-year visa with a partner and one child, it is worth well over £15,000, and it applies to your dependants too. NHS access starts from the visa start date.

Now the part that matters most. Since 31 December 2024 for Skilled Worker, sponsors are prohibited from recovering from you:

• The sponsor licence application fee
• The certificate of sponsorship fee
• The Immigration Skills Charge
• Legal fees for obtaining or maintaining the licence or the certificate
• Associated administrative costs, including priority service fees

So if an agency in Lagos, Accra, Nairobi, Manila, Delhi or Lahore asks you for £3,000, £8,000 or £15,000 for a “certificate of sponsorship” or a “sponsorship slot”, that is precisely the conduct the rules prohibit. It is also one of the most common triggers for a sponsor losing its licence — which would take your visa down with it.

Your own visa fee, your dependants’ fees and your maintenance funds are not covered by the ban and may lawfully be yours to pay, though many NHS employers cover them.

Check the Sponsor Before You Commit

The Home Office publishes the register of licensed sponsors as a downloadable file, updated constantly. If an employer is not on it, they cannot sponsor you. Check the exact legal entity name, not a trading name, and check the rating.

This is not a formality. Around 3,100 sponsor licences were revoked in 2025, the highest since records began in 2012, with 1,516 in the final quarter alone. Of Skilled Worker sponsors revoked between early 2022 and early 2025, 33% were in care and health — the largest single sector.

When a sponsor loses its licence, your permission is curtailed and you typically have 60 days to find a new sponsor or leave the country. Care workers cannot easily do that now, because the route is closed to new overseas applications and in-country switching requires three months of lawful employment with the new sponsor.

The protection gap is documented. Research using Home Office data found that only around 80 potential victims on Skilled Worker visas were identified between 2022 and 2024, against more than 39,000 workers employed by non-compliant care businesses. The Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority lists care among its most-reported sectors for labour exploitation.

Professional Registration Costs

Nurses (NMC): application and qualification evaluation £140, computer-based test £83, OSCE £794, registration £153 — around £1,170 in total, more if you resit. The CBT is taken in your home country; the OSCE in the UK, usually within twelve weeks of arrival.

Doctors (GMC): full registration with licence to practise is £481 from 1 April 2026, with the annual retention fee also £481. A 50% income-based discount applies to doctors earning under £38,500 worldwide. Specialist registration through the portfolio pathway costs £1,974.

We could not retrieve current PLAB fees or an official NMC processing timeline, so we are not quoting either. Check both directly before budgeting.

Settlement: Do Not Bank On Five Years

As things stand today, the qualifying period for settlement remains five years. But a consultation on “earned settlement” closed in February 2026 having drawn over 200,000 responses, proposing a baseline of ten years, and fifteen years for workers below degree level. Implementation slipped from April 2026 to autumn 2026 and has not yet been laid before Parliament.

The Home Secretary has indicated the changes would apply retrospectively to people already in the UK. A separate confirmed change raises the English standard for settlement from 26 March 2027.

Anyone planning on the basis of “settle after five years” should treat that as genuinely at risk of changing mid-visa. Do not make irreversible financial decisions — selling property, committing to long school fees — on the current rule.

UK Health and Care Worker Visa FAQ

Can I apply from abroad as a care worker in 2026?

No. Overseas applications for care worker (SOC 6135) and senior care worker (SOC 6136) roles closed on 22 July 2025. The only route is an in-country application by someone already working lawfully for the sponsor for three months, or already holding Skilled Worker permission in a care role.

Should I pay an agency for a certificate of sponsorship?

No. Sponsors are prohibited from recovering the certificate of sponsorship fee, the licence fee, the Immigration Skills Charge and associated legal costs from workers. Being asked to pay for sponsorship is a warning sign about the sponsor as well as the agent.

Do I pay the Immigration Health Surcharge?

No. Health and Care Worker visa holders and their dependants are exempt from the surcharge, which is normally £1,035 per person per year, and get NHS access from the visa start date.

What English level do I need?

CEFR B2 for the visa, raised from B1 on 8 January 2026. Nurses face a separate and higher NMC requirement of IELTS Academic 7.0 with 6.5 in writing, or OET grade B. Passing the regulator’s assessment removes the need for a separate visa test.

Can care workers bring their families?

Not new dependants, since 11 March 2024. The restriction was extended on 22 July 2025 to all roles below degree level. Narrow exceptions apply for continuous prior employment, UK-born children and sole parents.

What happens if my employer loses its sponsor licence?

Your permission is curtailed and you typically get 60 days to find a new sponsor or leave. Around 3,100 licences were revoked in 2025, with care and health the largest affected sector, so check the official register before accepting any offer.

Is settlement still after five years?

Yes, as at today. But a proposed ten-year baseline — fifteen for below-degree-level workers — is pending, may apply retrospectively, and had not been laid before Parliament at the time of writing.

Your Next Step

Work out honestly which group you are in. If you are a nurse, doctor or allied health professional, this remains one of the best-value work visas the UK offers, and your first move is professional registration rather than job hunting — the NMC or GMC process is the long pole.

If you are a care worker outside the UK, this door is shut, and the most useful thing we can do is tell you so before someone charges you for it. Look instead at routes where sponsorship genuinely exists: our guides to nursing jobs in the USA with visa sponsorship, Germany’s skilled worker routes and high-paying jobs in the UAE cover live options, and our UK Skilled Worker visa guide covers the wider route.

Last reviewed: 22 September 2026, against Immigration Rules Appendix Skilled Worker (updated 3 August 2026), GOV.UK, NHS Employers, the House of Commons Library briefing updated 21 September 2026, the NMC and the GMC. UK immigration rules change frequently and several GOV.UK guide pages currently carry unreliable date stamps — always confirm against the Immigration Rules before acting. This is information, not immigration advice; for your own case, consult a regulated immigration adviser.

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