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Care homes can no longer recruit people on care worker visas
Immigration rules in the UK have been changed. This means from 22 July 2025, no social care visas are being issued to new applicants from abroad.
As a result, care homes can no longer sponsor new staff from abroad on health and care worker visas.
Can care homes still use overseas care workers?
There is a transition period in place until 2028.
During this time, visa extensions for foreign care workers already working in the UK are permitted.
So care homes can sponsor overseas care workers already in the UK who are here on a different visa, such as a graduate visa.
However they will need to have been working as a care worker or senior care worker for at least three months.
This option will end on 22 July 2028.
Why were the rules relaxed for care worker visas?
Immigration rules were relaxed back in 2022 to fill care staffing shortages partly due to Brexit and the pandemic.
Care workers were placed on the shortage occupation list and made eligible for the Health and Care visa.
This allowed long-term residence in the UK leading to settlement, on a minimum salary of £20,960 a year.
This meant that the number of overseas care workers in the UK rose from 20,000 in 2021-22 to 105,000 in 2023-24, according to figures from Skills for Care.
In March 2024, the government prevented care workers bringing dependants with them. This led to the number of foreign care workers falling significantly.
The system was further tightened up in April 2025, with the government stopping providers in England recruiting from overseas unless they have first tried to employ someone from within the UK.
What is the minimum salary for sponsored overseas care workers?
Certificates of Sponsorship issued after 9 April 2025 now have a minimum salary threshold for Skilled Workers of £25,000 per year. This is £12.82 per hour.
The government said it wants to move away from a dependence on overseas care workers.
Government says vacancies are largely driven by poor pay
It claims care vacancies are “largely driven by historic levels of poor pay and poor terms and conditions”.
It plans to tackle this through a fair pay agreement which would agree minimum pay thresholds and conditions for people working in care.
The Nuffield Trust called the government’s policy “hugely risky”, with its deputy director of policy, Natasha Curry saying: “While plans for a fair pay agreement for care workers show ambitions to make the sector a more attractive workplace for UK citizens, these reforms won’t kick in for years, so there is going to be a void where social care employers will struggle even more to fill vacancies.”
Martin Green, chief executive of Care England said: “International recruitment wasn’t a silver bullet, but it was a lifeline. Taking it away now, with no warning, no funding, and no alternative, is not just short-sighted – it’s cruel.”
