Health and Care Worker visa: who qualifies and what it costs
The fee is £324 for up to three years and £628 beyond, the same inside or outside the country, with no immigration health surcharge for you or your family.
Health and Care Worker visa cost for your household
Total to pay when you apply
£2,512
Health and Care Worker, over 3 years · Home Office fees of 8 October 2026
| Person | Fee | Surcharge |
|---|---|---|
| Main applicant | £628 | £0 |
| Partner | £628 | £0 |
| Child 1 | £628 | £0 |
| Child 2 | £628 | £0 |
| Application fees | £2,512 |
| Health surcharge (5 years) | £0 |
| Total | £2,512 |
No immigration health surcharge for Health and Care Worker visa holders and their dependants.
Calculated in your browser: nothing you type is sent anywhere. Not legal advice; not affiliated with the Home Office.
Published by Radif Partners · How we calculate · Home Office fees of 8 October 2026, rules checked 13 October 2026
The Health and Care Worker visa is a version of the Skilled Worker visa for qualified doctors, nurses, health professionals and adult social care staff sponsored by the NHS, an organisation supplying services to the NHS, or an adult social care provider. It keeps the Skilled Worker points test, but three things change. The application fee falls to £324 for up to three years and £628 for longer, whether you apply from abroad or switch inside the country. Neither you nor your partner and children pay the immigration health surcharge, which is £1,035 a year per adult on other work routes. And the salary test for most of the 30 health and education codes of Table 3 uses the national pay scale for the role, with a floor of £25,000. UKVI aims to decide within 3 weeks from outside and 3 weeks from inside. A family of four applying for five years pays £2,512 in all, against £24,582 on the standard Skilled Worker route.
Which jobs and which employers qualify
Eligibility is set by the four-digit occupation code on your certificate of sponsorship, not by the job title on the offer letter. The higher skilled codes open to a first application include doctors (2211 and 2212), the seven nursing codes from 2231 to 2237, physiotherapists, occupational and speech therapists, psychologists, pharmacists, radiographers, paramedics, dental practitioners, social workers (2461), laboratory and pharmaceutical technicians, and nursing auxiliaries (6131). Health service managers (1171) and care home managers (1232) are on the list too. Care workers and senior care workers (6135 and 6136) can only come onto the route by switching inside the country, as the care worker visa page explains.
The employer matters as much as the code. It must be the NHS, a body providing medical services to the NHS, or an organisation providing adult social care, and it must already hold a worker sponsor licence. In England a care provider sponsoring codes 6135 or 6136 also has to be registered with the Care Quality Commission and carrying on a regulated activity. Private households cannot sponsor. The sponsor register search shows whether a given trust, practice or care company is licensed and for which routes.
Fees: lower, flat and without a surcharge
Each person pays £324 for a grant of three years or less and £628 for a longer one, and the price does not change when you apply from inside the country: on the standard Skilled Worker route an in-country application costs £943 for the shorter grant. The bigger saving is the surcharge. Over five years an adult on another work route pays £5,175 up front and a child £3,880; here the line is zero, and NHS treatment is available from the day the visa starts (prescriptions, dental care and eye tests are still charged as for anyone else).
Two costs remain. You need £1,270 of savings held for 28 days unless you have been in the country for 12 months or your sponsor certifies maintenance on the certificate, plus £285 for a partner, £315 for a first child and £200 for each further child. A criminal record certificate is required from outside the country for most codes, with exceptions for 2113, 2114, 3111 and 6132.
The salary test runs on pay bands
For nurses, allied health professionals, pharmacists, social workers and most other Table 3 roles, the going rate is the full-time salary of the NHS pay band the job sits in, in the nation where you will work, and the floor is £25,000. These rates assume a 37.5-hour week, so a part-time post is compared with a pro-rated band. Doctors follow their own grade scales on a 40-hour basis (see the doctor visa page).
| Agenda for Change band | England | Scotland | Wales | Northern Ireland |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Band 5 | £29,970 | £31,892 | £30,420 | £28,407 |
| Band 6 | £37,338 | £39,912 | £37,898 | £35,392 |
| Band 7 | £46,148 | £48,788 | £46,840 | £43,742 |
| Band 8a | £53,755 | £60,126 | £54,550 | £50,952 |
Ten codes are treated differently: the "Health and Care ASHE salary jobs" listed at SW A1.1 of the rules (among them biochemists, physical scientists, laboratory and pharmaceutical technicians, care home managers and care workers), when the employer is an NHS body, a regulated care provider or a similar organisation. These jobs use options F to J of the salary table, the figures that otherwise apply only to workers first sponsored before 4 April 2024: a floor of £31,300 for a standard job and £25,000 for a job on the Immigration Salary List, against the lower going rate of the code.
Timing, switching and settling
You can apply up to three months before the start date on the certificate, and within three months of receiving it. The published standard is 3 weeks for a decision from abroad and also 3 weeks inside the country, where a Skilled Worker in-country case is quoted at 8 weeks; the processing times page dates the decision from your appointment. If you are already here on another visa, you can switch unless you hold a visit, short-term study, seasonal worker or domestic worker visa, and a student must normally have finished the course first.
The visa lasts up to five years per grant and can be renewed as long as the job continues. Time on it counts towards indefinite leave to remain exactly like Skilled Worker time: 5 continuous years with no more than 180 days abroad in any 12 months. You may also take up to 20 hours a week of extra work in another eligible job, and overtime in your sponsored job has no limit.