The Care Route Reality Pack

Both code lists, the family rules, the money, and where settlement is heading.

Which of these is you

• I am in Nigeria hoping to be sponsored. Start at "The two lists". Which list your job sits on decides whether this route exists for you at all.
• I am a nurse or midwife in Nigeria. Start at "How a nurse enters from Nigeria". The door is open, and it only opens by your own hand.
• I am already in the UK and want to move into a care job. Start at "The two lists", second half, and read the three-month condition.
• I want to bring my partner and children. Start at "Family: the four exceptions", then "Adaeze's real bill".
• Somebody has offered me a certificate of sponsorship. Start at "Check any employer in ninety seconds". Do that before you send one naira.

The two lists

Codes you can apply on from outside the UK (Health and Care Worker visa):

Codes that appear only under extend, update or switch:

Read that twice, because it is the single most expensive misunderstanding in this market. The two codes everybody in Nigeria is being sold, care worker and senior care worker, are not on the list you can travel in on. They appear where somebody is already in the UK and changing or renewing their permission. Switching into 6135 or 6136 from another visa also requires that you have already been working legally in that job, for that sponsor, for at least 3 months. That switching door runs until 22 July 2028, and the government has said it will keep the arrangement under review to respond to compliance problems in the sector, so treat the date as policy, not as a promise. Source: explanatory memorandum to HC 997, 1 July 2025.

Note what is on the first list, though: 6131, nursing auxiliaries and assistants. That is a real door from outside the UK for people whose plan was care.

A third group, closed to new files:

Usable on extension only where the certificate of sponsorship was obtained before 22 July 2025 and the person has held Health and Care Worker or Skilled Worker permission continuously since.

Source: gov.uk, Health and Care Worker visa, your job.

How a nurse enters from Nigeria

Every registered nursing code sits on the outside-the-UK list above, and Nigeria sends the UK more nurses than any country except India. In the year to March 2026, 1,614 nurses trained in Nigeria joined the UK nursing register, the official list of everyone allowed to practise there. The honest other half: that number fell by roughly a third in one year, and international joiners from every country together fell by nearly half, so the door is open and narrower than it was. A clean, complete file matters more than it did two years ago. Source: NMC register data report, 2025 to 2026.

Nobody may recruit you from Nigeria. You may still knock. Nigeria is on the UK's red list for health recruitment, so no UK health or care employer may actively recruit there, and no agency or middleman may do it for them. The same code of practice says an employer may consider a direct application you make on your own behalf, with no third party in the middle. Read that as instructions: the legal way in is your own application, sent by your own hand, and anybody selling "nursing slots in the UK" is selling a service the employer is barred from accepting. Source: Code of practice for the international recruitment of health and social care personnel in England.

The pathway, in order:

The sponsorship system was built for exactly this order: the government's guidance to employers says a hospital may sponsor you before your UK registration is complete, provided the English requirement and the CBT are already passed, and it sets a temporary lower salary floor for that pre-registration window only. Sources: NMC, trained outside the UK and Home Office guidance for sponsors, section SK9.

The plans that do not work. You cannot switch into this visa from a visit visa, at all, and not from a short-term study visa either. A full student visa can switch only once the course is completed, or where the job starts after the course ends, or after 24 months of a full-time PhD. Studying in the UK first is a real road, just a longer and more expensive one; it is not a shortcut, whatever the person selling it says. Source: gov.uk, Health and Care Worker visa, switch to this visa.

One thing a nurse can do tonight: run the pre-application checklist on the NMC page linked above, and write down which nursing code in the table fits your registration.

Check any employer in ninety seconds

Before an interview, before a fee, before a flight. The government publishes the full register of licensed sponsors as a spreadsheet, updated most working days:

1. Open the register of licensed sponsors.
2. Tap the CSV file, "Register of Worker and Temporary Worker licensed sponsors". It is about 10MB, so use wifi.
3. Search the employer's exact registered name. On a phone, use "find in page" in your browser menu.
4. Read the columns beside the name: the category of workers they are licensed to sponsor, and their rating.
5. Not on the register means they cannot sponsor you. There is no second opinion on this.

Then send this to whoever is offering you the job, before money moves:

Hello,

Before we go further, please confirm three things in writing: your organisation's exact registered name as it appears on the Home Office register of licensed sponsors, the occupation code the certificate of sponsorship would be issued under, and the salary that would be stated on it.

Thank you, [your name]

An employer who genuinely holds a licence answers that in one message. Anybody who cannot answer it has told you everything.

English, and the level that changed

You must read, write, speak and understand English to at least level B2 on the CEFR scale. That level applies to new applicants from 8 January 2026. If you got your permission before that date and are extending, B1 is your level and you do not need to prove your English again.

You can prove it with a Secure English Language Test from an approved provider, a UK school qualification, a UK degree taught in English, or a degree from outside the UK taught in English assessed by Ecctis. Doctors, dentists, nurses and midwives whose professional body has already accepted their English assessment are exempt. Nigeria is not on the list of countries whose nationals are exempt, so plan for the test.

Source: gov.uk, Health and Care Worker visa, knowledge of English.

The money

• Salary floor: usually at least £25,000 a year, about ₦46m, or the going rate for your occupation code if that is higher. The floor is not the number; the going rate for your code often is.
• Your own funds: £1,270, about ₦2.3m, held for 28 days in a row with day 28 falling within 31 days of applying. You do not need to show it if you have been in the UK with a valid visa for at least 12 months, or if your employer certifies they will cover your costs for your first month.
• Visa fee: £324 per person for up to three years, about ₦600,000, or £628 for more than three years, about ₦1.16m. The fee is the same whether you apply from inside or outside the UK.
• Healthcare surcharge: you and your partner and children do not pay it on this route. That is the quiet advantage of the health and care route over every other work visa.
• Decisions: usually 3 weeks from outside the UK, usually 8 weeks from inside. You can apply up to 3 months before your start date.
• Employers of care and senior care workers in England must be registered with the Care Quality Commission.

Sources: gov.uk, Health and Care Worker visa overview and how much it costs.

What is not your bill. The employer's sponsor licence costs £611 for a small or charitable sponsor, about ₦1.1m, or £1,682 for a medium or large one, about ₦3.1m, and £750 more, about ₦1.4m, if they want a decision in 10 working days. gov.uk states that the employer must pay that fee themselves, and that their licence may be revoked if they ask the sponsored worker to pay the fee or any costs linked to the application. If a "processing fee" in that region appears in your conversation, that is not a fee, it is a warning.

Source: gov.uk, apply for a sponsor licence.

Family: the four exceptions

A care worker or senior care worker, codes 6135 and 6136, may bring a partner or children only if one of these is true:

1. You have been continuously employed in the UK as a care worker or senior care worker on a Health and Care Worker or Skilled Worker visa since before 11 March 2024.
2. The child was born in the UK.
3. You are the only living parent responsible for the child and are applying for the child to stay.
4. The child's other parent is also sponsored as a care worker or senior care worker.

For other medium-skilled jobs the same four-part test runs off 22 July 2025 instead of 11 March 2024.

Everybody else on this route, nurses, midwives, doctors, radiographers, social workers, nursing auxiliaries, brings family in the normal way.

Who counts as family: your husband, wife, civil partner or unmarried partner; your child under 18, including a child born in the UK during your stay; and your child over 18 who already has permission as your dependant.

Dependant money: £285 for your partner, £315 for one child, £200 for each additional child, each held 28 days with day 28 inside 31 days of applying, on top of your own £1,270. Roughly ₦526,000, ₦581,000, ₦369,000 and ₦2.3m.

Dependant fees: £324 per person for up to three years, £628 per person for more than three years. Roughly ₦600,000 and ₦1.16m.

Visiting is legal; switching is not. Your family coming to see you is normal and allowed: a Standard Visitor can stay up to 6 months, and seeing family is a listed purpose of that visa. The trap is turning a visit into staying. A partner or child already in the UK as a visitor, a short-term student, a Parent of a Child Student, a seasonal worker, a domestic worker, or on immigration bail cannot switch into dependant status. Where one of the four exceptions is yours, the dependant application is made from Nigeria, before anybody boards a plane to stay. Flying your wife over on a visit visa to "sort it out there" is the most common way this goes wrong. Source: gov.uk, Standard Visitor.

Source: gov.uk, Health and Care Worker visa, your partner and children.

Adaeze's real bill

Adaeze is a registered mental health nurse, code 2235, with a five-year certificate of sponsorship from an NHS trust. Husband, two children. Because she is a nurse and not a care worker, the four exceptions above are not her problem; her family comes with her.

What she must hold for 28 days: £1,270 for herself, £285 for her husband, £315 for the first child and £200 for the second. That is £2,070, about ₦3.8m, sitting untouched with day 28 inside 31 days of the application.

What she pays in fees: her certificate runs more than three years, so it is £628 each, four times, which is £2,512, about ₦4.6m.

No healthcare surcharge for any of the four of them.

So the honest arrival number, before flights and before a single suitcase, is about ₦8.4m of money that must be in an account and money that leaves it.

The detail that changes that number most is not the family size, it is the length of the certificate. On a three-year certificate the same four people pay £324 each, £1,296 in total, about ₦2.4m, and the whole bill lands nearer ₦6.2m. Ask what length your certificate will be issued for before you plan the money, because about ₦2.2m of your budget is decided by that one line.

And the comparison that matters for anybody reading this in a care home uniform: her cousin on code 6136, same family, same salary, cannot bring them at all unless one of the four exceptions fits him. On the care codes, the family question is not a price. It is a closed door with four named keys.

Can I bring my mother or father

Under the Adult Dependent Relative rules, the applicant must be the parent, grandparent, son, daughter, brother or sister of the person in the UK (ADR 4.1), and that person must be a British citizen, settled in the UK, in the UK with protection status, or an EEA national with limited leave under Appendix EU (ADR 4.2). A worker on temporary permission is not on that list, so on the day you land, this route is not open to you.

Even where the sponsor qualifies, the relative must require long term personal care to perform everyday tasks because of age, illness or disability (ADR 5.1), and that care must be unavailable or unaffordable where they live (ADR 5.2). The sponsor signs a maintenance undertaking confirming the applicant will not have access to public funds, for five years from arrival where settlement is granted, and the government may seek to recover public funds from the sponsor if any are claimed (ADR 6.4 and ADR 6.5).

Source: gov.uk, Immigration Rules Appendix Adult Dependent Relative.

Said plainly: bringing a parent is a route for settled people whose parent cannot be cared for at home at any price. It is not a route for a new arrival who misses their mother, and anybody charging you to try it today knows that.

The half that stays open: your mother can visit you. A Standard Visitor can stay up to 6 months per visit, and seeing family is a listed purpose of that visa. The same page draws the one boundary: a visitor must not live in the UK through frequent or successive visits or make the UK their main home. So the honest shape of it is visits, birthdays, the grandchild's first months, and home again. Visit, yes. Move in, not while you are on a temporary visa. Source: gov.uk, Standard Visitor.

Humanitarian routes, honestly

You claim asylum in the UK when you arrive, not from Nigeria. gov.uk's own instruction is to apply when you arrive in the UK or as soon as you think it would be unsafe to return to your own country, and it points everybody coming for another reason to the ordinary visa routes. There is no application form in Lagos.

Refugee family reunion is closed. The page says it plainly: your partner or child cannot apply to join you through family reunion, applications are no longer being accepted. Applications made before 3pm on 4 September 2025 are still being processed, with decisions expected within 12 months. The alternative gov.uk names is an ordinary family visa.

Sources: gov.uk, claim asylum in the UK and gov.uk, family reunion.

Anyone selling you a humanitarian route out of Nigeria is selling nothing, at a very high price.

If a sponsor licence goes

Certificate cancelled, permission cut to 60 days, or to whatever remains if that is less. The full order of operations, including every regional support email and the message that gets an employer moving, is in the SIXTY pack.

Source: gov.uk, employees: if your visa sponsor loses their licence.

Settlement: the rule, the pipeline, and our read

The rule today. After 5 years on this visa you may apply to settle permanently. Nothing about that has changed yet. The most recent statement of changes, HC 259 of 9 July 2026, whose main provisions took effect on 3 August 2026, contains no earned settlement provisions at all.

Source: Statement of changes to the Immigration Rules: HC 259, 9 July 2026.

What has actually been proposed. The government's consultation "A Fairer Pathway to Settlement" ran from 20 November 2025 to 12 February 2026 and proposed that the default qualifying period rise from 5 years to 10, with reductions for some groups: five years off for people employed in a specified public service occupation for 5 years, five years off for earnings above £50,270 for 3 years, about ₦92.7m a year, and seven years off above £125,140, about ₦230.8m. It also proposed B2 English, earnings above £12,570, about ₦23.2m, and no outstanding government debt. The consultation states these changes would apply to everyone in the country today who has not already received indefinite leave to remain. It closed on 12 February 2026, the responses are still being analysed, and the government's response has not been published.

Sources: Earned settlement consultation and A Fairer Pathway to Settlement.

What a minister has said out loud. In her speech of 5 March 2026 the Home Secretary said the qualifying period for settlement should move, as a norm, from 5 years to 10; that rule changes would apply to people in the UK today who have not yet received settled status; and that the point of settlement will vary, with some earning it at or earlier than 5 years, naming public servants such as doctors and nurses.

Source: Home Secretary's speech on immigration, 5 March 2026.

One change that is already law. From March 2027, people applying to settle must meet a higher English standard, A level rather than GCSE level, announced on 5 March 2026 with a full year's notice. If settlement is in your plan, that is a study project, not a form.

Source: gov.uk, higher standard of English now required to settle in the UK.

What changed in July. The Prime Minister changed on 20 July 2026, and the new Prime Minister kept the Home Secretary in post. Continuity of the minister is continuity of the plan, until something is published that says otherwise. Source: gov.uk, government ministers.

Our read, 19 August 2026. The ten-year baseline happens, and health and care workers are the likeliest group to keep a shorter path, because the public service reduction is the one concession the government has argued for in its own words rather than been pushed towards. The change of Prime Minister has not moved this: the same Home Secretary holds the same plan. Moderate confidence on the shape, low confidence on the date, and a brand new government re-checking big plans makes the date likelier to slip, not less. What would prove us wrong: a statement of changes that lands the ten-year baseline with no public service reduction at all.

What to do with that read. If you are near five years, count your qualifying days and apply at the earliest date you lawfully can. Start the English work now, because March 2027 is not far. And treat any promise of settlement in five years, made by anybody selling you a route today, as a promise about a rule that has not been written.

The question people actually ask

"They did not keep my passport at the biometrics appointment. Is that normal now?" Your permission is digital. gov.uk states that eVisas have replaced physical immigration documents, that you get one automatically when your application succeeds, and that you view and share it through a free UKVI account. If you were issued a vignette sticker, it stays valid until it expires. Whether a particular visa centre keeps your passport is the centre's process, not an immigration rule, so your appointment confirmation is the page that answers it. What matters is that the status itself lives in your UKVI account, so set that account up and check that your name, date of birth and passport details are right the moment your decision arrives.

Source: gov.uk, eVisa.

Who this pack does not work for

If you are in Nigeria waiting for a care worker certificate, the codes 6135 and 6136 are not on the outside-the-UK list, and no agent can put them there. The twelve-month version that does work: aim at 6131, nursing auxiliaries and assistants, which is on the outside list, or finish the registration your profession needs, and get your B2 English done while you apply. Same sector, real door.

If your whole plan depends on your family travelling with you on a care code, and none of the four exceptions fits, this route asks you to go alone for now. Decide that with your eyes open rather than discovering it after the certificate is issued.

If you are hoping to bring a parent soon, the Adult Dependent Relative rules are not open to you until you are settled, and even then they are narrow. Plan visits, not relocation.

If you already have permission on a code from the closed third group, your route is extension, and only where your certificate predates 22 July 2025 and your permission has been continuous. Check your dates before you make plans that assume otherwise.

What quietly goes wrong

• Paying an agent for a care worker certificate to travel on from Nigeria, when that code is not on the outside-the-UK list.
• Paying any part of the employer's licence or sponsorship costs. That request can cost them their licence, which then costs you your job.
• Treating £25,000 as the salary answer when the going rate for your code is higher.
• Bringing a partner over on a visit visa and planning to switch them into dependant status, which the rules do not allow.
• Taking a care job in England with an employer who is not registered with the Care Quality Commission.
• Assuming your English is fine because you have always studied in English. Nigeria is not on the exempt list, and B2 has been the level since 8 January 2026.
• Planning around a settlement rule that has not been written, or paying somebody who promises one.

One thing to do now

Find your own occupation code on one of the two lists above, then search your employer's exact name on the register. Both in one sitting, tonight.

Naira figures on this page were converted at the 18 August 2026 rate (£1 = ₦1,844).