Extending

This page explains the restrictions on extending your working holidaymaker visa and how you may be able to extend your stay in the United Kingdom under other categories.

The working holidaymaker visa is a short-term immigration category. If you come to the United Kingdom on a working holidaymaker visa, you will be allowed to stay for a maximum of two years. When your visa expires, you will be expected to return to your home country. You will not be allowed to extend your visa as a working holidaymaker.

However, once you have been in the United Kingdom for 12 months on a working holidaymaker visa, you may be able to stay longer by switching to a different category.

You may be able to stay here by switching to work permit employment, but only if the occupation involved is on our list of shortage occupations. The employer will need to apply for a work permit for you. See Work permits for more information. If the occupation is not on our list of shortage occupations, you will not be able to switch to work permit employment while you are still in the United Kingdom. This will apply until work permits are replaced later this year by Tier 2 of our points-based system for managing applications to work, train or study in the United Kingdom.

You may also be able to stay by switching to a visa for innovators if you meet the requirements.

We have now closed the Highly Skilled Migrant Programme to applications from people who are already in the United Kingdom, so it is no longer possible to stay in this country by switching into this category. The Highly Skilled Migrant Programme has been replaced by Tier 1 (General) of the points-based system. It is not possible to switch into this category if you are here as a working holidaymaker.

Applications for permission to come to the United Kingdom, or to extend a stay here, are normally decided according to the immigration rules in place at the time we make our decision on the application. You should bear in mind that the rules may change and many of our rules about working in the United Kingdom will change as new tiers of the points-based system are introduced this year.