Key facts
- Care workers who entered the route before May 2025 and earn at least £25,000 a year can qualify for settlement after five years.
- Mahmood said applicants must have spent five continuous years without relying on benefits.
- The Home Office estimates about 500,000 people will wait longer than five years for settlement, which officials say will save billions from the welfare bill.
- The Home Office reversed its refusal to let care worker Rasika Samarasinghe's wife and three children stay as his dependants.
- Mahmood says family members of British citizens will retain existing settlement pathways, but how that applies to broken marriages is unclear.
UK Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood offered qualifying care workers a five-year route to settlement in the week of November 2, 2026, easing part of her earned settlement plans after pressure from Labour MPs and unions. Under the revised plans, care workers who entered the route before May 2025 and earn at least £25,000 a year can qualify after five years, rather than the 15 originally proposed. Others face another five-year visa before settlement.
Mahmood told MPs that applicants must have spent five continuous years without relying on benefits. Last year she proposed adding up to 10 years to the settlement qualifying period for benefit claimants. She says family members of British citizens will retain existing settlement pathways, but how that protection applies to people whose marriages have broken down or who claimed benefits remains unclear.
Aneisha Williams, a 39-year-old supermarket worker from London, was months from qualifying for indefinite leave to remain after 10 years in the UK. She said claiming housing benefit could delay her settlement for years under the plans. "I was due to qualify in a couple of months – now it could be another 10 years," she said. Research has found most people on the existing 10-year route are Asian or Black.
Ashley, a civil servant from Sheffield who asked to use a pseudonym, arrived from the US in 2017 and moved to a spouse visa after marrying a British man in 2025. She expected to qualify in 2027 under the 10-year long-residence route, which the government plans to end. With transitional arrangements unclear, she fears waiting until 2030, by which time she estimates she will have spent £25,000 on visa and healthcare charges.
Rasika Samarasinghe, who arrived from Sri Lanka in October 2022 and earns just over £25,000 caring for elderly people, is planning a double celebration. The Home Office reversed its refusal to let his wife, a teaching assistant, and their three children, aged 12, nine and eight, remain in the UK as his dependants. After sending the family "go home" letters, the Home Office told them the refusal should be disregarded. The Guardian understands similar decisions affecting other care workers' families have also been reversed. "I feel free now," Samarasinghe said.
The government began restricting care workers' family visas after the Home Office estimated in 2023 that about 120,000 dependants had joined 100,000 care worker applicants. Care workers have been barred from bringing family since March 2024, and overseas recruitment was banned from July 2025. A Home Office spokesperson said it did not routinely comment on individual cases, but that applications initially rejected could be approved following a review.