Care worker visa: the switch that stays open until 2028
Since 22 July 2025, codes 6135 and 6136 cannot be sponsored from abroad. You can still switch inside the country after three months working for the sponsor, if you apply before 22 July 2028.
Care worker code check (choose "Inside UK")
Minimum salary for this job
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This occupation code cannot be sponsored for a new Skilled Worker visa.
| Your pay per hour | £13.33 |
| Visa fee, up to 3 years (outside the UK) | £628 |
| Health surcharge, 3 years | none if Health and Care visa |
Care worker codes 6135 and 6136 are closed to applications from outside the UK (SW 6.1B).
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Published by Radif Partners · How we calculate · Home Office fees of 8 October 2026, rules checked 13 October 2026
A care worker or senior care worker (occupation codes 6135 and 6136) can no longer get a first visa from outside the country: rule SW 6.1B of Appendix Skilled Worker, in force since 22 July 2025, accepts these codes only in an application for permission to stay. Two groups still qualify. The first is anyone already sponsored as a Skilled Worker in one of these codes, who can extend or move to another sponsor. The second is someone in the country on another visa who has worked legally for the new sponsor in the care job for at least three months before the certificate of sponsorship is issued, and who applies before 22 July 2028. The job is on the Immigration Salary List until that same date, the employer in England must be registered with the Care Quality Commission, and the application goes through the Health and Care Worker visa, at £324 for up to three years with no health surcharge. Partners and children are restricted.
What closed on 22 July 2025
The checker above opens on code 6135, care workers and home carers. Left on "Outside UK", it returns a refusal on the code itself, because SW 6.1B makes these two occupations available only to people applying from inside the country. Switch the toggle to "Inside UK" and the salary test appears. The same rule covers 6136, senior care workers, whose example titles include senior community support workers, senior home care workers and senior residential care workers. A job abroad advertised as "care worker visa sponsorship" therefore cannot lead to a visa in these codes, whatever the recruiter says.
Nothing changed for people already on the route. Someone holding Skilled Worker permission in 6135 or 6136 (or the old SOC 2010 codes 6145 and 6146) keeps access to these codes for every later extension or change of employer, and is not caught by the 22 July 2028 deadline.
The three-month switch, step by step
The in-country route is narrow. You must already have permission to be here on a visa that allows switching: visitors, short-term students, seasonal workers, domestic workers in a private household and people on immigration bail cannot switch and would have to leave. You must then work legally for the employer that will sponsor you, in a care role, for at least the three months that end on the day it issues your certificate of sponsorship. Part-time care work done under another visa can count, provided that visa allowed it. The application itself must be dated before 22 July 2028: from that day, SW 6.1B(a)(ii) is no longer met.
A switch costs £324 for up to three years on the Health and Care Worker visa, with nothing added for the health surcharge, and UKVI aims to decide in 3 weeks. The Health and Care Worker visa page covers the rest of the route.
The sponsor: CQC registration and no private households
For a job based in England, the employer must be registered with the Care Quality Commission and currently carrying on a regulated activity; a licence alone is not enough. Private households and individuals cannot sponsor, except a sole trader sponsoring someone for the business. One exception protects long-serving staff: a worker first sponsored in the old care codes before 11 March 2024, continuously since, and staying with the same sponsor is not subject to the CQC condition (SW 6.1C). Before accepting an offer, look the company up on the register of licensed sponsors and on the CQC register.
Pay and family
Both codes sit on the Immigration Salary List until 22 July 2028. Under the general table that means at least £33,400, as the checker shows. A care job can, however, count as a "Health and Care ASHE salary job" in the sense of SW A1.1, for example when the care is provided under CQC registration in England or by a registered care service in Scotland or Wales, and those jobs may use options F to J: on the salary list that is £25,000 or the lower going rate of £25,000, whichever is higher. Ask the sponsor which option it relies on before the certificate is assigned.
Family is the hardest part. A care worker can sponsor a partner or children only if continuously employed in care on a Skilled Worker or Health and Care Worker visa since before 11 March 2024, or for a child born in the country, or as the only living parent responsible for the child, or when the other parent is also a sponsored care worker. A family switching alongside you cannot take dependant status from your care visa; they keep their own visas until those end. The dependants page sets out the general rules.