Bringing your partner or children to the UK: dependant rules by visa route

If you are in the UK on a work or study visa, your partner and children may be able to join you as your “dependants”. But there is no longer one dependant visa, and no longer one page describing it - the old address gov.uk/dependant-visa has been taken down. GOV.UK now keeps the dependant rules on each visa route’s own page, and those rules genuinely differ: who counts as family, how much money you must show, what it costs, and on some routes whether your family can come at all. Read the page for the visa you actually hold. A general article - including this one - is only a starting point.

Start with the page for your own visa

• Skilled Worker – gov.uk/skilled-worker-visa/your-partner-and-children
• Health and Care Worker – gov.uk/health-care-worker-visa/your-partner-and-children
• Student – gov.uk/student-visa/family-members
• Graduate – gov.uk/graduate-visa/your-partner-and-children

Every figure below was taken from those GOV.UK pages and checked on 5 September 2026. Fees, surcharges and thresholds are reviewed regularly, so confirm the current amounts during your own application.

If you are a care worker, read this section first

Since 11 March 2024, care workers and senior care workers (occupation codes 6135 and 6136) can no longer bring a partner or children to the UK as dependants. This applies on both the Skilled Worker and the Health and Care Worker visa. Care work is one of the most common routes into the UK for Nepalis, so this is the single change that affects the most families - and older guides, agents and WhatsApp groups still talk as though it had not happened.

The exception is narrow. Your partner and children can still apply if you have been continually employed in the UK as a care worker or senior care worker, on a Skilled Worker or Health and Care Worker visa, since before 11 March 2024. Beyond that, only children qualify, and only in specific cases: a child born in the UK; or - for an application made from inside the UK - a child for whom you are the only living parent responsible, or whose other parent is also sponsored as a care worker or senior care worker.

If someone offering you a care job says your spouse can come too, do not take their word for it. Check it yourself on gov.uk/health-care-worker-visa/your-partner-and-children before you pay anyone anything. See also our guide to the Health and Care Worker visa.

A similar restriction now applies to other jobs the Home Office classes as “medium skilled” on the Skilled Worker route. Dependants are only allowed if you have been continually employed in the UK on a Skilled Worker visa in a medium-skilled job since before 22 July 2025, with the same narrow exceptions for children, plus prison officers (code 3314) who are extending or switching.

Who counts as a dependant

On the Skilled Worker and Health and Care Worker routes, a dependant is:

• your husband, wife, civil partner or unmarried partner;
• your child under 18 - including a child born in the UK during your stay;
• your child over 18 only if they already have permission to be in the UK as your dependant.

On the Student route it is your husband, wife or civil partner, your unmarried partner, and your child under 18. Parents, brothers, sisters and other relatives are not dependants on any of these routes - they need a visa of their own.

To prove a partner relationship you must show one of the following: a marriage or civil partnership recognised in the UK; that you have been living together in a relationship for at least 2 years; or that you have been in a relationship for at least 2 years but cannot live together, for example because you work or study in different places. A child must live with you (unless they are away in full-time education) and must not be married or in a civil partnership.

Skilled Worker dependants

• Allowed? Yes - unless you are a care worker, senior care worker, or in a medium-skilled job, as described above.
• Money they must show - £285 for your partner, £315 for one child and £200 for each additional child. This is on top of the £1,270 you must show for yourself. The money must have been available 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 all been in the UK on a valid visa for at least 12 months, or if your employer confirms on your certificate of sponsorship that it will cover your family’s costs for the first month.
• Fee - each person applies separately and pays their own fee. From outside the UK it is £819 for up to 3 years or £1,618 for more than 3 years; from inside the UK, £943 or £1,865. If your job is on the immigration salary list it is £628 or £1,235, the same whether you apply from inside or outside. Your dependant pays for the same length of time as you, even if they apply a year later.
• Immigration Health Surcharge - £1,035 per person per year, or £776 a year for an applicant who is under 18 at the time of application.
• Work and study - your partner or child can work in any job except as a professional sportsperson or sports coach, can study, and can travel in and out of the UK. After 5 years they may be able to apply for indefinite leave to remain in their own right. They cannot claim most benefits (public funds) or the State Pension.

None of this replaces your own salary requirement, which is normally at least £41,700 a year or the going rate for your occupation code, whichever is higher.

Health and Care Worker dependants

• Allowed? Yes for clinical roles - doctors, nurses and other health professionals are not affected by the care worker restriction. For codes 6135 and 6136, see the care worker section above.
• Money they must show - the same as the Skilled Worker route: £285 for a partner, £315 for one child, £200 for each additional child, on top of your own £1,270, with the same 28-day rule and the same exemptions.
• Fee - £324 per person for up to 3 years, or £628 per person for more than 3 years. The fee is the same whether they apply from inside or outside the UK. This is the cheapest of the routes here.
• Immigration Health Surcharge - none. Neither you nor your partner or children pay the surcharge on this visa, and you can use the NHS free of charge from the date the visa starts. You still pay for prescriptions, dental treatment, eye tests and assisted conception.
• Work and study - the same as Skilled Worker dependants.

Note that care worker and senior care worker now appear only on the list of occupation codes you can extend, update or switch into on this visa. A first application in those codes from outside the UK is not possible.

Student dependants

• Allowed? Only for two groups: a government-sponsored student starting a course lasting longer than 6 months, or a full-time student on a postgraduate course at RQF level 7 or above lasting 9 months or longer. If that postgraduate course starts on or after 1 January 2024, it must be a PhD or other doctorate (RQF level 8), or a research-based higher degree. So a self-funded PhD student can bring dependants; someone starting a taught one-year master’s now cannot. If you are on any other Student visa, assume the answer is no until the GOV.UK page tells you otherwise.
• Money they must show - each of them separately needs £845 a month for up to 9 months if you are studying in London, or £680 a month for up to 9 months outside London. This is in addition to the money you must show for your own course fees and living costs, and the same 28-day rule applies. They do not need to show it if they have already been in the UK on a valid visa for at least 12 months.
• Fee - £558 per person, whether they apply from outside the UK or from inside it.
• Immigration Health Surcharge - £776 per person per year. This is the discounted student rate, and it covers a student’s dependants as well as the student.
• Work and study - the Immigration Rules (Appendix Student, ST 39.3) allow a student’s dependant to work, including self-employment and voluntary work, except as a professional sportsperson or sports coach. Work is not permitted for a dependant in the “continuing dependant” category where the student has been granted less than 9 months’ permission, or is studying below degree level. Study is allowed. No public funds.

One point the public page does not spell out: if your family were already here as your dependants and you are moving from one course of 6 months or more to another, they may be able to continue as dependants even though a new dependant could not be added today. That is at ST 31.1(d) of Immigration Rules Appendix Student. It is worth taking advice before assuming it applies to you.

Graduate route dependants

• Allowed? Only for people who are already here. A partner or child can stay with you on the Graduate route only if they were already your dependant on your Student or Tier 4 (General) visa - or if they are a child born in the UK during that Student, Tier 4 or Graduate permission. They must be in the UK to apply. You cannot bring anyone new from Nepal on this route.
• Money they must show - none. Appendix Graduate sets no funds requirement for dependants.
• Fee - £937 per person, plus the Immigration Health Surcharge at £1,035 a year: £1,152.50 for an 18-month visa, £2,070 for 2 years, or £3,105 for 3 years.
• Work and study - work is permitted, including self-employment and voluntary work, except as a professional sportsperson or sports coach. Study is allowed. No public funds.

If you finish your degree and then want to bring your family from Nepal, the answer is not the Graduate visa - it is switching to a route that allows new dependants, usually a Skilled Worker visa. See our guides to the Graduate Route and to switching from Student to Skilled Worker.

If your partner is British or settled in the UK

None of the above applies to you. Joining a British citizen or someone with settled status is the family visa route, which has its own rules, its own fees and a minimum income requirement of £29,000 a year for a partner application. Different amounts apply if your partner receives certain disability or carer’s benefits, or if you first applied as a partner before 11 April 2024. Start at gov.uk/uk-family-visa.

Things that are true on every route

• Each family member makes a separate application and pays their own fee and surcharge. There is no family discount.
• A dependant’s permission normally ends on the same date as yours. Where a child’s parents have different expiry dates, the child gets the earlier one.
• Your partner or child cannot switch into being your dependant from inside the UK if they are here on a visit visa, a short-term student visa, a Parent of a Child Student visa, a seasonal worker visa or a domestic worker visa, or if they are on immigration bail. Bringing someone on a visitor visa and switching them here does not work.
• A child born in the UK does not automatically become British. You must apply for their dependant visa before they turn 18 if they are to stay, and before travelling in and out of the UK with them.
• If you are the first in the family to apply, you can get a family linking code that ties the applications together. Your family enter the same code when they apply.
• Decisions usually take about 3 weeks for applications made outside the UK and about 8 weeks inside it.

Rules change - always check GOV.UK

This area has changed more than any other in the last three years, and the changes have been sudden. The dependant ban for care workers arrived in March 2024, the restriction on medium-skilled jobs in July 2025, and the central GOV.UK dependant page has since been removed altogether. Figures and rules you read in community forums, from agents, or in older guides - including earlier versions of this one - may be wrong. Check the page for your own visa route, and for anything complicated, or where a refusal would be costly, speak to an OISC-regulated immigration adviser: gov.uk/find-an-immigration-adviser.