The UK closed its overseas care worker route on 22 July 2025. Ireland did not. As of August 2026, Ireland operates a quota of 1,495 employment permits for care workers, extended by 1,000 places in May 2026, at a salary threshold roughly €16,000 lower than the UK equivalent. If you were planning on Britain, the door next to it is open.
This guide is for care workers and home carers specifically. If you are a nurse or a doctor, the rules are different and the comparison runs the other way in places — that is covered separately.
What happened to the UK care worker visa in July 2025?
On 22 July 2025 the UK Home Office closed overseas recruitment for care workers and senior care workers, the two occupations that had carried the largest share of health and care migration. Around 220,000 people had come through that route since 2020.
The closure was not the only change that day. The same package raised the Skilled Worker salary threshold to £41,700 a year and lifted the minimum qualification level to degree equivalent, which the Home Office estimated would remove between 100 and 180 occupations from general eligibility.
What survives is narrow:
- Already in the UK on a care visa: transitional arrangements let you extend or switch, running to 2028.
- Applying from outside the UK: no route. Not a harder route, not a longer wait — no route.
- Other health professions: doctors, nurses and allied health professionals are unaffected and the Health and Care Worker visa remains open to them.
Be careful with agencies still advertising UK care sponsorship to overseas applicants. As of August 2026 that offer cannot be delivered from abroad, and any fee paid for it is a fee paid for nothing.
Is Ireland still recruiting care workers from abroad?
Yes, and it expanded rather than contracted. Ireland's care worker and home carer route runs through the General Employment Permit with a dedicated quota. As of August 2026 that quota stands at 1,495 permits, following an extension of 1,000 places in May 2026.
The reason is structural. Ireland depends on foreign-trained health staff more than any other OECD country: 51.8% of nurses working in Ireland qualified abroad, and the Health Service Executive reported over 6,500 funded posts unfilled at the end of 2025. A country in that position cannot afford the door the UK just shut.
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UK and Ireland care routes side by side
| United Kingdom | Ireland | |
|---|---|---|
| Overseas care recruitment | Closed since 22 July 2025 | Open, quota of 1,495 permits |
| Salary threshold | £41,700 general Skilled Worker threshold | €16.12 per hour, roughly €32,691 a year |
| Qualification needed before arrival | Degree level for most Skilled Worker applications | None; QQI Level 5 obtainable within two years of starting |
| Permit type | Health and Care Worker visa, care roles closed | General Employment Permit |
| Family reunification | Yes on Skilled Worker | Not automatic on the General Employment Permit |
That last row is the one people discover too late. Ireland's General Employment Permit, which is the one care work uses, does not carry automatic family reunification. The Critical Skills Employment Permit does, but care work does not qualify for it. If bringing your family is non-negotiable, that changes which route you should be looking at, and it is worth knowing before you spend money on an application.
Can care workers already in the UK switch or extend?
Yes, within the transitional arrangements. Extension and in-country switching remain available to people who held a care visa before the closure, running to 2028.
There is a second scenario worth planning for, because it is common. Between July 2024 and June 2025 the Home Office revoked 1,948 sponsor licences in the care sector, more than double the 937 revoked the year before. If your employer loses its licence you generally have 60 days to find a new sponsor, though the precise period depends on your remaining leave.
Sixty days is not long to find an employer, prove your qualifications and complete a new sponsorship. Workers who already hold independent confirmation that their certificates are genuine move through that window considerably faster than those starting the checks from zero.
What else remains open in the UK
The care closure did not close the UK entirely, and it is worth knowing what survives before writing the country off.
Clinical roles are unaffected. Doctors, nurses, midwives and allied health professionals remain eligible under the Health and Care Worker visa. If you hold a nursing qualification rather than a care certificate, you are in a different and considerably better position — the UK reported around 27,000 nursing vacancies in its most recent workforce data.
Senior care worker roles are closed too. Both occupations went on 22 July 2025, so a promotion in title does not reopen the route.
A degree changes the calculation. The Skilled Worker route now requires qualification at degree level for most occupations. Applicants who hold a relevant degree may find eligible roles outside care, though the £41,700 threshold still applies.
What does not work is waiting for the route to reopen. The closure was part of a policy package, not a temporary suspension, and nothing published since points to reversal.
What the Irish route asks of you
Ireland's care permit is not a formality, and it helps to know the shape of it before committing.
It is employment-led: you need a job offer from an Irish employer before anything else happens. The employer applies for the permit, not you, and the employer carries the permit cost.
The qualification requirement — QQI Level 5 in healthcare support — is satisfied within two years of taking up the role rather than before applying. In practice that means arriving with demonstrable experience and completing the formal certificate while employed. For anyone who learned care work by doing it, that sequencing is what makes the route reachable at all.
The documents you will need to have in order:
- Passport with adequate remaining validity
- Evidence of experience, ideally with contactable references
- Any existing care or health training certificates, and confirmation they can be traced to the issuing institution
- A signed contract or offer letter stating salary, hours and duties
Why verification matters before you apply
Whichever country you choose, someone will ask whether your training is real before they hire you.
Here is the gap almost nobody explains. Booka is credentialing infrastructure that verifies a degree directly with the issuing institution — primary source verification — which UK ENIC and NARIC Ireland do not perform. Those bodies compare your qualification to the local academic framework. They tell an employer what level your certificate sits at. They do not confirm the certificate exists.
That distinction matters to you for a practical reason. Employers in both countries have been burned. Over 700 NHS nurses have been under investigation over potentially fraudulent qualifications, and in June 2025 a doctor was convicted in Ireland for attempting to register with fake diplomas. An employer who has seen one forged certificate treats the next applicant with suspicion, and that suspicion costs honest candidates time.
The Verifier Agent contacts your training institution directly and returns documented confirmation, normally within 5 to 15 days. Arriving with that already settled separates you from the noise.
How long the Irish route takes
Plan on months, not weeks, and on a sequence rather than a single application.
Finding an employer is the step with no fixed duration and the one people underestimate. The permit is employment-led, so nothing else starts until an Irish employer has offered you a role.
Verifying your certificates normally resolves in 5 to 15 days when the issuing institution responds, and it is the one step you can complete before you have an offer. Doing it first is what shortens everything after.
The permit application is filed by the employer once the offer is in place. Processing times published by the Department of Enterprise vary with volume, and applications filed when the quota is under pressure take longer.
Arrival and registration follow the permit decision.
Where people lose the most time is not the official processing. It is document legalisation and chasing an institution abroad for confirmation that a certificate is genuine — steps that sit entirely outside any government timeline and that nobody starts early enough.
Four mistakes that cost people the application
Paying for a UK care sponsorship from abroad. As of August 2026 that cannot be delivered. Any agency still selling it is selling something that does not exist.
Assuming the Irish permit brings your family. The General Employment Permit does not carry automatic family reunification. Discovering this after arrival is common and there is no quick fix.
Buying a QQI Level 5 before departure because an agency said it was mandatory upfront. It is not; it can be completed within two years of starting.
Arriving with certificates nobody can trace. A qualification that cannot be confirmed with the institution that issued it is, from an employer's point of view, indistinguishable from one that does not exist.
What to insist on, in either country
- A written contract before you travel, stating salary, hours and duties.
- No placement fee charged to you. The employer pays for recruitment. An agency charging you to secure the job is inverting the rule.
- A licensed agency, verifiable with the competent authority in your country.
- Nobody holds your passport. This is unlawful in both the UK and Ireland.
- Digital copies of every document, stored where you can reach them from outside the country.
As of August 2026 the figures above reflect the rules in force. Both governments have adjusted thresholds more than once in the past two years, so confirm the current position before you file. The outcome of any immigration application depends on the receiving country's requirements.