Apply for a Sponsor Licence with Expert Immigration Lawyers

To be eligible for a sponsor licence businesses must be operating in the UK and have the correct HR procedures in place to hire foreign workers. It is essential the employer can demonstrate why the role needs to be filled by a sponsored worker rather than a settled worker and there is a genuine business need for the recruitment.

As a part of their application, UK employers must also show that they:

• Do not have any unspent criminal convictions for crimes such as fraud or money laundering
• Have not broken UK immigration law at any point
• Do not have a history of failing to carry out their sponsorship duties

To evaluate your application, UKVI may need to visit your business facilities and speak with your employees. By doing this, the Home Office will be able to establish that you:

• Are a genuine organisation operating lawfully in the UK
• Are dependable and only employ reliable personnel
• Are capable of carrying out your sponsorship duties
• Can offer legitimate employment with appropriate rates of pay to your workers

There may also be additional eligibility criteria you must follow depending on the nature of your business and what type of visa type your foreign workers will hold in order to be able to work for you.

There are two types of sponsor licence that businesses can obtain: worker and temporary worker licences. Businesses can apply to have a licence that covers one or both of these types.

Worker licences

Worker licences cover most types of long-term employment in the UK. These include foreign workers on the following types of UK visa:

• Skilled Worker visa
• Senior or Specialist Worker visa
• Minister of Religion visa
• International Sportsperson visa

Temporary worker licences

Temporary worker licences mostly cover short-term and temporary types of employment in the UK. These include foreign workers on the following types of UK visa:

• Scale-up Worker visa
• Creative Worker visa
• Charity Worker visa
• Religious Worker visa
• Government Authorised Exchange visa
• International Agreement visa
• Graduate Trainee visa
• Service Supplier visa
• UK Expansion Worker visa
• Secondment Worker visa
• Seasonal Worker visa

If you are planning to sponsor overseas workers using a Sponsor licence, you will need to satisfy a number of eligibility requirements, including the following:

• The job which you plan to fill must comply with UK regulations regarding minimum wage and working time. Failure to do so can result in the refusal of the worker’s visa or the loss of your sponsor licence
• The job in question must meet the specific eligibility criteria for the visa for which the worker is applying

Note that, if you are seeking to hire overseas care workers, you will first need to try to hire a ‘displaced’ worker before you can hire someone new. A worker is classed as ‘displaced’ if their previous employer has lost their sponsor licence or if their current sponsor can no longer offer them enough work.

When trying to recruit a displaced worker, you should contact your regional partnership. In the event that there are no suitable displaced workers available, you will need to ask the regional partnership to contact UK Visas and Immigration in order to let them know that you tried, unsuccessfully, to recruit a displaced worker.

When applying for a Sponsor licence, you will need to provide a number of documents in support of your application. The exact documents vary depending on the type of organisation and work, but you will generally need to provide at least 4 documents which provide evidence of the following:

• That you are a real and genuine business
• Your business trades legally in the UK (or, in the case of the UK Expansion Worker route, has an existing ‘footprint’ within the UK)
• Your business satisfies the particular criteria for the visa route in question
• Your business has the capacity to provide genuine roles for the prospective overseas employees and to comply with sponsor obligations

These documents could take a number of forms, including:

• Certificate of VAT registration
• Evidence of registration with HMRC
• Recent corporate bank account statement
• Liability insurance certificate

Note that the specific evidence varies depending on the nature of your business and the visas which you intend to sponsor. For example, if you plan on sponsoring Skilled Worker visas, you will need to provide the following information as part of your application:

• Your reasons for applying for a Sponsor licence
• The sector(s) in which your company operates
• Your usual operating hours
• A hierarchy chart for your company
• In the case of a business with 50 employees or less, you must also provide the name and job title of each employee
• Vacancies you intend to fill using sponsored overseas workers
• In the event that you already have a worker in mind, information on how you selected that employee

In general, it is best to provide as much evidence as possible in support of your application.

For further information on the exact documents which you will require, contact London Immigration Lawyers today on 0204 502 8582 for bespoke Sponsor licence advice.

There are a number of steps which you will need to complete when applying for a Sponsor licence.

Firstly, you will need to gather the necessary documents (listed elsewhere in this article). If you do not provide the full list of required documentation, your application is likely to be unsuccessful.

Next, you should submit your application online, via the UK government website. As part of this process, you will be given a submission sheet which you will need to return to the email address provided when you are filling in the online application. You will also be asked to send scans of your supporting documents to this email address. In the event that you are unable to send these documents via email, you should contact UK Visas and Immigration to let them know and seek further guidance.

As part of the application process, you will also need to pay a licence fee. The exact cost will depend on a number of factors, such as the type of worker you are hiring and the size of your company.

In general, a sponsor licence costs £1,682 for large companies and £611 for small companies. It costs £611 for a Temporary Worker Sponsor licence.

You will generally be considered a small company if you satisfy at least 2 of the following criteria:

• You have an annual turnover of less than £15 million
• You have total assets of less than £7.5 million
• You have 50 or less employees

In most cases, you should receive a decision within 8 weeks. Note that, in some cases, you may be visited by UK Visas and Immigration during this time.

Some applicants will have the option of paying for an expedited decision, in which case you should receive a decision within 10 days of applying. However, this option is only available for the minority of applications.

In the event that your application is unsuccessful, you can submit a request for a review of the decision. Note that this is only an option if you believe the refusal was due to either a mistake or your supporting documents not being considered properly.

For more information on the cost of sponsor licences and which type of licence you should apply for, contact London Immigration Lawyers today on 0204 502 8582.

It takes up to 8 weeks to process a sponsor licence application. If your application is successful, you will receive a sponsor licence number and rating. At this point, you will finally be able to issue certificates of sponsorship for suitable international workers.

Your sponsor licence will be valid indefinitely and will not need to be renewed as long as you continue to meet the requirements and duties expected of you. The Home Office may carry out regular checks to ensure that this is the case.

If you have a licence to sponsor Scale-up Workers or UK Expansion Workers, it will be valid for 4 years.

If your application is rejected, you may be able to request a review if you believe that there has been a mistake in the processing of your application, or that your supporting documents have not been considered.

Sponsor licence fees vary based on the type of licence and the nature of your business.

For medium or large sponsors, the fees are as follows:

• Worker licence: £1,682
• Temporary worker licence: £611
• Worker and temporary worker licence: £1,682
• Adding a Temporary worker licence to an existing Worker licence: No fee

For small or charitable sponsors, the fees are as follows:

• Worker licence: £611
• Temporary worker licence: £611
• Worker and temporary worker licence: £611
• Adding a Worker licence to an existing Temporary worker licence: No fee
• Adding a Temporary worker licence to an existing Worker licence: No fee

Businesses are considered to be a small sponsor if they are a registered charity or at least two of the following apply:

• Annual turnover is £10.2 million or less
• Total assets are worth £5.1 million or less
• Businesses have 50 employees or fewer

The Sponsorship Management System (SMS) is a software that lets you carry out your daily business activities as a licensed sponsor. You can also use it to report any changes to the UKVI and to assign new CoS to job applicants.

You need to regularly access your SMS to review your licence details, manage your international workforce duties, and keep up to date with any changes sponsor duties that may be coming up.

You will also need to select some members of your staff to manage the sponsorship management system (SMS). Your employees must be covering the following roles:

• Authorising officer. This is a senior role, responsible for the action of the other members of the staff. This person will also be the leading representative using the SMS.
• Key contact, who will manage communications between your company and the UKVI.
• Level 1 user, who is responsible for the daily management of the licence through the SMS.

Eventually, you can appoint a level 2 user, with limited access to the SMS, to support the other sponsorship management roles.

These roles can either be filled by the same person or different members of your staff.

Certificates of sponsorship are digital records which are assigned to each overseas worker which you sponsor. They provide information on the worker and the job role for which they have been sponsored.

You can assign a certificate of sponsorship to a worker by applying online, via the UK visa sponsorship management system.

If you do not already have sponsor status, you will not be able to access this system.

Note that the granting of a certificate of sponsorship does not automatically mean that your prospective employee’s visa application will be successful. They will need to provide their certificate of sponsorship as part of their visa application and will also need to satisfy all of the additional eligibility criteria associated with their visa type.

There is a fee which you will be required to pay when assigning a certificate of sponsorship to a worker. This fee is generally £525 in the case of workers and £55 in the case of temporary workers.

One of the conditions for maintaining your sponsor status is to assign people within your company to manage the company’s sponsorship duties. You will need to provide evidence of this when applying for your licence.

The specific roles which your company will need to fill are as follow:

• An authorising officer who will be responsible for all staff and representatives who use the sponsorship management system
• A key contact between your company and UK Visas and Immigration
• A level 1 user who handles the everyday management of your licence. They will primarily do so using the sponsorship management system

Note that these roles don’t all need to be filled by different people, provided that each role is filled and performed properly. However, whoever you select will need to satisfy numerous eligibility criteria, including the following:

• No unspent criminal convictions for any of the crimes listed in the government guidance (many of which relate to immigration, violent crime, and fraud)
• No fine from UK Visas and Immigration over the last year
• Not having acted as key contact for a company which lost its sponsorship licence over the last year
• Be based in the UK
• Have no history of sponsorship requirement non-compliance

When the designated licence managers are performing their management duties, they will primarily use the sponsorship management system, found online on the UK government website.

For more information on which of your employees are eligible to take on a sponsorship management role, contact London Immigration Lawyers today on 0204 502 8582.

When evaluating the suitability of your name sponsor licence application process, the UKVI will use a scoring system to decide whether to grant you a licence.

An A-rating is awarded to companies who are first granted a sponsorship licence application and have demonstrated their ability to meet their sponsorship duties. However, if the UKVI finds evidence that you are not reliable, you will be downgraded to B-rating.

If you are downgraded to a B-rating, you will not be able to grant any new CoS until you are upgraded to an A-rating again. You need to follow an ‘action plan’ provided by UKVI to upgrade your licence, which costs £1,682.

If you receive two or more B-ratings, you may be at risk of losing your licence.

Your rating usually applies to all the categories in which you are registered. It is based on:

• Your human resource system, to check and identify your job applicants’ eligibility to remain and work in the UK
• Any convictions or civil penalties held by you or your key personnel
• Your current migrant compliance, if you are already employing foreign workers
• Your ability to offer genuine employments which meet the skill level and appropriate salary criteria

You may have to pay an additional immigration skill charge for each foreign worker that you employ under either a Skilled Worker or Senior or Specialist Worker visa. The fee applies to migrants who are applying to work in the UK for 6 months or more, or for all internal UK applicants and is based on the size of your organisation.

The Immigration Skills Charge amounts are as follows:

For medium to large sponsors:

• For first 12 months: £1000

For small or charitable sponsors:

• For first 12 months: £364

If your employee will be in the UK for longer than 6 months but less than a year, you must pay for at least 12 months.

There are a number of duties which you will need to fulfill upon obtaining your Sponsor licence. Primarily, you will need to complete the following:

• Ensure that you only sponsor workers who have the necessary skills and/or experience for the role(s) in question
• Make sure that all of the roles which you are offering comply with the UK’s employment law
• Make sure that you only assign certificates of sponsorship for suitable job roles
• In the event that any of your sponsored workers are not complying with the terms of their visas, inform UK Visas and Immigration

You will also need to ensure that you have systems in place to allow you to monitor the immigration status of your workers, safely store copies of all required documents for your sponsored workers, track worker attendance, ensure that worker details are up to date, and report any problems to UK Visas and Immigration.

In the event that there are any changes to your business which have implications for your sponsor status (such as if the business stops trading, is involved in a merger, or undergoes a substantial change in nature) you will need to update UK Visas and Immigration within 20 working days.

As of April 2024, it is no longer necessary to renew your Sponsor licence every 4 years. Instead, the expiry date of all sponsor licences was automatically extended for another 10-year period. This  10-year duration also applies to all newly-granted Sponsor licences. For the time being, then, there will be no need to extend your Sponsor licence.

However, you should still make sure to stay compliant with the Sponsor licence rules and regulations, as outlined in this article. Failure to do so could result in your Sponsor licence being withdrawn or downgraded.

When revoking your sponsor licence, the UKVI will:

• Immediately curtail your migrant workers’ leave to stay, if they are believed to be involved in the reasons for the revocation of your licence
• Curtail the permission to remain in the UK to any other employees who are not directly involved to up to 60 calendar days
• Automatically reject any pending applications that you have sponsored
• Cancel the right to remain of any job applicant who has already been granted entry clearance in the UK but has not yet travelled to the country

If your sponsor licence is revoked, you must wait until the end of the cooling-off period before you can submit a new application.

There is no right of appeal against the refusal of a full sponsor licence application fee.

Once you receive a rejection letter, you must wait 6 months until you can submit a new request.

However, if you believe that the decision is due to a caseworker error or any mistake with your supporting documents or evidence, you can submit an “Error correction request form”.

This must be sent within 14 days from the date of your refusal. To receive professional assistance in this process, you can seek help from one of our immigration lawyers in London.