Sponsor Licence Application: A Step-by-Step Guide for UK Employers

A sponsor licence is Home Office permission for a UK employer to hire people from overseas, for example on the Skilled Worker visa. You apply online, pay £611 (small or charitable) or £1,682 (medium or large) and send the Appendix A documents. Most applications are decided in under 8 weeks, and compliance duties follow.

This guide follows GOV.UK’s sponsorship guidance for employers and the Home Office’s detailed sponsor guidance. We’re not immigration advisers, so we focus on the employer’s process. Where you need advice on a particular case, use an OISC-regulated adviser or a solicitor.

Do you need a sponsor licence?

Usually yes, if you want to employ someone from outside the UK. That includes citizens of the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland who arrived after 31 December 2020. You don’t need one for Irish citizens, people with settled or pre-settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme, or people with indefinite leave to remain.

A licence lets you sponsor. It doesn’t guarantee that any worker will get a visa.

Which licence type do you need?

There are two kinds of licence, and you can apply for one or both:

• Worker: skilled or long-term roles, including Skilled Worker and Senior or Specialist Worker (Global Business Mobility).
• Temporary Worker: specific temporary routes, such as Scale-up, Creative Worker, Graduate Trainee and UK Expansion Worker.

If you’re an overseas business that isn’t trading in the UK yet, read our guide to the UK Expansion Worker visa first. That route has its own licence rules.

Who is eligible for a sponsor licence?

GOV.UK and Part 1 of the sponsor guidance say you need:

• A genuine organisation operating or trading in the UK. If you have no operating or trading presence in the UK, the Home Office will refuse the application.
• No unspent convictions for immigration offences or certain other crimes, such as fraud or money laundering, among the people involved.
• Appropriate HR systems to monitor sponsored workers, and suitable people to manage the licence.
• Jobs that are eligible for sponsorship.

You can’t get a licence if one was revoked in the last 12 months (24 months if revoked more than once). You usually can’t apply within 6 months of a refused application, apart from some exceptions.

Who needs to be named on the application?

You allocate three roles in the sponsorship management system (SMS):

Role	What GOV.UK says it does
Authorising Officer	A senior and competent person responsible for the actions of staff and representatives who use the SMS
Key Contact	Your main point of contact with UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI)
Level 1 user	Responsible for all day-to-day management of your licence using the SMS

One person can hold all three roles, or you can split them. The people in these roles usually need to be paid employees or office holders, based in the UK most of the time. They can’t be contractors or consultants hired for a specific project. At least one Level 1 user must be an employee, partner, director or settled worker. Your Key Contact can be a UK-based legal representative who is qualified to give immigration advice.

GOV.UK says no new Level 2 users can be appointed. Existing Level 2 users must be changed to Level 1 or deactivated before 9 March 2027. The sponsor guidance also says multi-factor authentication is becoming mandatory for SMS users from 3 September 2026.

What documents do you need (Appendix A)?

Appendix A (version 04/26) says most organisations must send at least 4 documents. These are made up of:

1. any mandatory documents for your type of organisation (for example, a regulator registration your sector legally needs)
2. any mandatory documents for the route you’re applying for
3. other documents to make up the total of 4

The “other documents” list includes:

• proof of HMRC registration as an employer for PAYE, showing your employer PAYE reference and Accounts Office reference
• proof of registration for Corporation Tax or VAT (you can give your VAT number for an online check)
• evidence of employer’s liability insurance of at least £5 million from an FCA-authorised insurer
• proof you own or lease your business premises
• evidence of recent business activity, such as client invoices or contracts

Skilled Worker applicants normally need to send extra information about the organisation and the jobs, on top of the 4 documents.

Deadlines that catch people out

After the online form, you send the signed submission sheet and documents by email within 5 working days. If a mandatory document is missing, the application is invalid: it’s rejected and the fee refunded. If UKVI asks for anything else, you get 5 working days to reply. If you miss that, the application is refused and the fee isn’t refunded. Your Authorising Officer and Key Contact need to be available while the application is being considered.

How much does a sponsor licence cost?

From GOV.UK’s fee table:

Licence	Small or charitable	Medium or large
Worker	£611	£1,682
Temporary Worker	£611	£611
Worker and Temporary Worker	£611	£1,682

You’re usually a small sponsor if at least 2 of these apply: annual turnover of £15 million or less, total assets of £7.5 million or less, 50 employees or fewer.

You must pay the fee yourself. Asking the worker to pay can lead to your licence being revoked. Once you’re licensed, each Skilled Worker certificate of sponsorship costs £525 and the Immigration Skills Charge usually applies too. We work through the numbers in our Skilled Worker salary threshold guide.

How long does it take?

GOV.UK says most applications are decided in under 8 weeks. UKVI may visit your business first. If you have a virtual business with little or no office space, the guidance says a compliance check with your Authorising Officer is highly likely.

A priority service costs an extra £750 and aims for a decision within 10 working days. Only a small number of these are accepted each working day, first come, first served. You’ll be told how to request it after you apply.

If you’re approved, you get an A-rated licence and appear on the public register of sponsors.

What are your duties once you’re licensed?

GOV.UK’s list of sponsor responsibilities includes:

• Checking that workers have the skills, qualifications or professional accreditations the job needs, and keeping copies.
• Assigning certificates of sponsorship only for jobs that are suitable for sponsorship.
• Keeping records for each sponsored worker, including evidence of right to work checks, attendance and up-to-date contact details.
• Reporting to UKVI if a sponsored worker isn’t complying with their visa conditions, for example if they stop coming to work.
• Reporting significant changes within 20 working days, such as stopping trading, insolvency, a substantial change to the business, or a merger or takeover.
• Following UK employment law for the jobs you offer.

If you fall short, your licence can be downgraded to a B-rating. While B-rated you can’t assign new certificates, except to existing workers who are extending their stay. To get back to an A-rating you must follow a UKVI action plan, which costs £1,579. You can have only 2 B-ratings while a licence is valid. A licence can also be suspended or revoked. There’s no appeal against revocation, and you must wait at least 12 months before reapplying.

Why are sponsor licence applications refused?

The sponsor guidance (Part 1, version 08/26) points to these common reasons:

• Missing documents. A missing mandatory document makes the application invalid. Missing other documents, or missing the 5-working-day deadline for a UKVI request, leads to refusal.
• No UK operating or trading presence.
• Unsuitability. For example, the Home Office isn’t satisfied you understand your sponsor duties or have the HR systems to meet them, or the roles don’t look likely to be eligible.
• Criminal convictions, unpaid civil penalties or past non-compliance among the people involved. An unpaid civil penalty means the application is always refused. A paid one may still mean a cooling-off period of 12 months to 5 years.
• A poor compliance visit. If UKVI has significant doubts about your ability to meet your duties, refusal is likely.
• Dishonesty, including false statements or holding back information.

There’s no right of appeal against a refusal. You can ask for a review only if the refusal came from a caseworker error or your documents weren’t considered.

How our sponsor licence support works

Many refusals and downgrades come from the operational side: HR files that aren’t set up, missing right to work evidence, no attendance records, or payroll that doesn’t match the salary on the certificate. That’s the part we handle. We help you prepare the process, get your HR records and payroll ready for compliance, and keep them running once you’re licensed.

We aren’t regulated to give immigration advice, so we work alongside your regulated adviser, OISC-registered or a solicitor, who advises on eligibility and individual cases. For more on how this fits together, see our sponsor licence service.