Scale-up Worker Earnings Rules Will Count Neonatal Leave From August 2026
10 Jul 2026
If you are on the Scale-up Worker visa and have taken, or plan to take, neonatal leave, a rule change from 3 August 2026 protects how that leave is treated for your earnings requirement.
Statement of Changes HC 259, published on 9 July 2026, updates Appendix Scale-up, the rules covering the Scale-up Worker route. The earnings provisions in SCU 8.2 and SCU 18.3 list types of leave that do not count against you when the Home Office checks whether you have met the earnings requirement for permission or settlement. The change instruction is short but direct: "after 'parental,' insert 'neonatal,'" in both paragraphs.
In practice, this means neonatal leave now sits alongside parental leave as an allowable gap in your paid work when your earnings are assessed. Before this change, only parental leave was explicitly listed, which meant neonatal leave was not clearly protected in the same way.
This applies to Scale-up Worker earnings checks under Appendix Scale-up from 3 August 2026. If neonatal leave has affected or will affect your paid work history, check the updated Appendix Scale-up wording, or speak to your sponsor or an adviser, before you submit your next Scale-up Worker application.
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