Published 12 September 2026 · Last checked 30 October 2026 · Information, not immigration advice.
If your employer's sponsor licence has been revoked, what happens to your visa now depends on the job you were sponsored to do. Since September 2026 the Home Office has told its staff not to cut short the visa of a care worker or senior care worker for that reason alone. For everyone else, a 60-day clock still applies.
Updated 3 November 2026. The government has announced that, from 1 February 2027, care workers whose sponsor loses its licence will get up to 120 days to find a new job: see the next section. That is not law yet, and nor is the Budget's talk of six months for the highest-skilled, which we explain below. On 14 October we corrected this page for a change we should have caught sooner: since 11 September 2026, the Home Office has told its staff not to cut short care workers' and senior care workers' visas for that reason alone.
On 11 September 2026 the Home Office updated the guidance its caseworkers follow when deciding whether to cancel someone's permission to stay. It now says they "must not cancel" the permission of a care worker or senior care worker on the Skilled Worker route, which includes the Health and Care Worker visa, where "the sole reason for cancellation would be the revocation of the sponsor's licence".
Which jobs this covers. The guidance names four occupation codes, the numbers the Home Office uses to classify jobs: 6135 and 6145 for care workers, and 6136 and 6146 for senior care workers. Every sponsored job has a code, chosen by the employer when it sponsored you. If you are not sure which one applies to you, a regulated adviser can check it from your paperwork.
In practice, if your employer's lost licence is the only problem, the Home Office's own instruction is that your visa should not be cut short to 60 days. Three things it does not mean are worth being clear about.
A longer-term process has now been announced. In its settlement plans published on 2 November 2026, the government said that from 1 February 2027 care workers who lose their job because their sponsor's licence was removed "will have up to 120 days to get a secure job offer", and then a further 60 days to sort out their visa and employment status. After that, it says, the visa will be cut short. This is a plan, not yet a rule, and the government has not said whether it will replace the September arrangement above or sit alongside it.
The same announcement matters for settlement. If you joined the care route before May 2025, not being sponsored when you reach five years does not, on what has been announced, close your route: here is what the government decided.
The guidance does not mention partners or children who are here as your dependants. If your family's visas depend on yours, include them when you ask for advice.
None of this changes the most useful advice on this page. Your visa may now last longer, but the job it was tied to has gone, and the way back to sponsored work is still a new employer with a licence. Time left on your visa is time to use, not time to wait.
If you were sponsored as a nurse, a social worker, or in any job other than the four care roles above, the usual approach still applies. Two separate things happen, and keeping them apart is the difference between panicking early and running out of time late.
First, your employer loses their licence. That is a decision about them, not about you. At that moment you lose the right to work for that employer, including any supplementary employment you were doing elsewhere on the same visa.
Then, separately, the Home Office curtails your permission to stay, which means it cuts your visa short. You will be sent a curtailment letter. Where you were not involved in whatever cost your employer its licence, the guidance says it will normally be appropriate to leave you with 60 days, or your existing visa expiry date if that comes first.
This is the part people get wrong. If you had four weeks left on your visa when the curtailment decision was made, you do not get 60 days. You get four weeks. Check the expiry date on your current permission before you plan anything around the number 60.
Heard there is now six months? Not yet. In the Budget on 28 October 2026 the government said it will "work towards" giving the highest-skilled workers a curtailment period of up to six months, with the length depending on how long they had been in their previous "highly-paid job". It is planned for 2027, and the government has not yet said who will count. On that wording, do not assume it will cover your job. Until new rules are published, the 60 days, or the date on your letter, is what applies.
Your letter will tell you. The Home Office's guidance requires a cancellation decision to state the date your permission now expires. Go by that date rather than counting 60 days yourself.
In practice there is often a gap between your employer losing its licence and your letter being issued. The Home Office does not always issue curtailment notices promptly after a revocation, and that gap can run to weeks. That is time you can use, but it is not time you can rely on: the letter can arrive at any point, and the date on it is what counts.
So do not wait for the letter before you start looking. Start the day you hear about the revocation. If the letter is slow, you have gained time. If it is fast, you have lost nothing.
You cannot keep working for the sponsor who lost their licence. You can look for a new employer with a valid licence, and you can apply for a new Certificate of Sponsorship. Whether you can start work before your new application is decided depends on your circumstances and the timing — this is one of the things worth asking a regulated adviser about rather than guessing.
If you leave the UK during this period, returning may be harder than staying. Take advice before you book anything.
All of the following are free. None of them will charge you to find you a job, and none of them should ever ask you for a fee for a Certificate of Sponsorship.
The Department of Health and Social Care funds regional partnerships across England to support international care workers whose sponsor has lost its licence. Its current guidance, published in April 2026, describes an employment support service that includes introductions to employers who are recruiting, help with your CV and interviews, and referral on to immigration advice, housing and health and wellbeing support.
Each partnership has a contact point for displaced workers. Your local council's adult social care pages will name the partnership covering your area, and the DHSC publishes the scheme guidance on GOV.UK.
If you need it, use it soon. The government says it expects 2026 to 2027 to be "the final year of funding" for these partnerships, and the money has to be spent by the end of March 2027.
An honest word about this route. It is the right first call and it costs you nothing — but it is not a guarantee. Analysis by the Work Rights Centre of Home Office data found that, of displaced care workers signposted to this support by May 2025, only around 3.4% had found new employment through it. Use it, and keep looking on your own at the same time.
Immigration advice in the UK is regulated. Anyone giving it must be qualified and registered — with the Immigration Advice Authority (the regulator formerly known as the OISC) or as a solicitor or barrister. Many charities and law centres give regulated advice free of charge.
GOV.UK maintains the official search: find an immigration adviser. Check anyone who offers you immigration help against that register before you pay them anything, or tell them anything.
Acas gives free, impartial advice on employment rights, unpaid wages and dismissal, and runs a national helpline.
Citizens Advice is free, independent and local, and covers benefits, housing and debt as well as work — useful if the loss of income is the immediate problem.
The Work Rights Centre is a charity supporting migrant workers, and has done much of the published research on what actually happens to displaced care workers.
The Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority investigates labour exploitation and illegal charging in the UK, and you can report to them in confidence.
The register of licensed sponsors tells you whether a company can legally sponsor you. If they are not on it, nothing they promise you is deliverable.
For recruitment agencies, NHS Employers maintains an ethical recruiters list, and the government's code of practice for international recruitment sets out what an ethical recruiter may and may not do.
It is not lawful to charge a work-seeker a fee for finding them work, and it is not lawful for an employer to charge you for a Certificate of Sponsorship. If someone asks you for hundreds or thousands of pounds for a job or a CoS, that is not a fee — it is the signal to walk away, and to report it.
Be especially careful of anyone who finds you while you are on this clock. People whose sponsor has just lost its licence are exactly who this behaviour targets.
We can help you use the days you have left well — checking whether a role actually offers sponsorship before you spend an evening applying, and telling you honestly where you stand against it.
We cannot change an immigration outcome, and we will never suggest otherwise. We are not immigration advisers and nothing on this page is immigration advice. For advice on your own position, use the GOV.UK adviser search above.
Sources and last check. Rules and support schemes in this area change, and this page is re-checked and re-dated when they do. Last checked 30 October 2026 against the Home Office caseworker guidance Cancellation and curtailment of permission (version 12.0, published 11 September 2026); GOV.UK guidance on updating a Skilled Worker visa if you change job or employer, finding an immigration adviser and the register of licensed sponsors; the Department of Health and Social Care's international recruitment regional fund guidance for 2026 to 2027 (April 2026); published analysis by the Work Rights Centre; the Home Office's government response on earned settlement (2 November 2026), page 39, for the 120-day plan; and, for the six-month plan, HM Treasury's Budget 2026 (28 October 2026). If you spot something here that is out of date, please tell us — we would rather fix it than leave it.
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