Getting a sponsor licence

Who needs one

Any UK employer that wants to employ someone on a Skilled Worker or other sponsored visa

Licence fee

£574 (small or charity) or £1,579 (medium or large)

Per worker

£525 certificate plus the Immigration Skills Charge of £364 or £1,000 a year

Processing

About 8 weeks; a priority service exists for £500

A sponsor licence is the Home Office's permission for your business to employ migrant workers. Over 100,000 UK organisations hold one. The application is mostly about proving you are a genuine business with the HR systems to track the people you sponsor; once granted it lasts four years and comes with duties that are policed by compliance visits and, increasingly, by licence suspensions.

Who can apply

Any organisation that is genuinely operating and lawfully trading in the UK: companies, partnerships, sole traders, charities, public bodies. You need a UK presence and a genuine vacancy at the right skill level; you cannot get a licence to sponsor yourself as the sole director of a company with no other activity, and the Home Office refuses applications where the role looks created for the visa. People involved in the business must have no unspent convictions for immigration or certain other offences, and the organisation must not have had a licence revoked in the last 12 months.

The application

1. Choose the routes. Most apply for Skilled Worker; the same form covers Global Business Mobility, Scale-up, Minister of Religion and the temporary routes.
2. Appoint key personnel. An Authorising Officer (a senior person responsible for the licence), a Key Contact and at least one Level 1 User who operates the online Sponsorship Management System. One person can hold all three roles; they must be employees or office holders, not a contractor, though a regulated legal representative can be a Level 2 User.
3. Gather the documents in Appendix A. Usually four: evidence of employers' liability insurance, your latest accounts or VAT registration, a business bank statement, and proof of PAYE registration. Start-ups and regulated sectors have variations. Documents are uploaded within five working days of submitting the form.
4. Submit and pay £574 if you are a small company under the Companies Act (turnover under £15 million, under 50 staff, or a charity) or £1,579 otherwise.
5. Wait about eight weeks. Some applicants receive a pre-licence compliance visit, in person or by video, where the officer checks your HR systems and interviews the Authorising Officer. The £500 priority service aims for ten working days but has limited daily slots.

The Certificate of Sponsorship

Once licensed you assign a Certificate of Sponsorship to each worker through the Sponsorship Management System, paying £525 each. Defined certificates are for workers applying from outside the UK and are requested one at a time; undefined certificates are for in-country applications and come from an annual allocation you request with the licence. The certificate states the job title, occupation code, salary, hours and start date, and the worker has three months to apply using it.

The Immigration Skills Charge

Paid when you assign the certificate, for the whole period of sponsorship: £364 a year for small sponsors and £1,000 for others, so a five-year Skilled Worker certificate costs a large employer £5,000 in charge alone. The charge rose in late 2025; check the live figure. Exempt: PhD-level occupations, Graduate switchers, students switching, and workers sponsored for under six months. The charge and the licence fee cannot be recovered from the worker; doing so is a breach that leads to revocation.

Sponsor duties

• Record keeping: right-to-work checks, contact details, absence records and the recruitment evidence for each sponsored worker, as set out in Appendix D.
• Reporting through the system within ten working days: a worker not turning up, more than ten days' unauthorised absence, a change in salary or job, resignation or dismissal, or a change in the sponsor's own circumstances such as a change of ownership.
• Compliance: paying the stated salary, not using sponsored workers as a labour supply to third parties, keeping key personnel current, and cooperating with visits.

Breaches lead to a downgrade to a B rating with an action plan (£1,476), suspension, or revocation, which also cancels the visas of every worker you sponsor. Revocations have run at several hundred a quarter since 2024, concentrated in the care sector.

Renewal

Licences granted or renewed since 2024 no longer need renewing; earlier ones expire after four years and the renewal fee is the same as a new application. Keep the Authorising Officer and Level 1 User details current, because a licence with no valid key personnel is suspended.