Check any UK visa sponsor

How to check whether a company can sponsor a visa

1. Search the legal name. Type the company name in the box above. The register uses the registered legal name, so if a brand name finds nothing, try the name on your contract or the company’s Companies House record.
2. Check the status. Active means the company is on the register we last checked. Removed means it was on the register and has since dropped off it.
3. Check the routes. Each entry lists the routes the company is licensed for, such as Skilled Worker. The route should fit the job you are being offered.
4. Look at the rating. An A rating is a full sponsor licence. A B rating means the company has been downgraded and has to improve before it can issue new certificates of sponsorship.
5. Ask the employer. A listing shows a company is allowed to sponsor. It does not show that it will sponsor you, or that your job qualifies. Ask whether it will assign you a certificate of sponsorship.

What a sponsor licence is

A sponsor licence is permission from the Home Office for a UK organisation to employ someone from outside the UK. According to GOV.UK, you will usually need one to employ a person from outside the UK, including citizens of the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland who arrived after 31 December 2020. It also covers unpaid work, such as running a charity.

A licence is not needed for some groups, including Irish citizens, people with settled or pre-settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme, and people with indefinite leave to remain. Sponsoring someone does not guarantee that they will get a visa. A licence usually stays valid for as long as the organisation continues to meet the eligibility requirements, and it can be lost if the organisation does not meet its responsibilities as a sponsor.

What the A and B ratings mean

Sponsors that are approved get an A-rated licence, which lets them start assigning certificates of sponsorship. A-rated sponsors are listed on the register.

An A rating can later be downgraded to a B rating if the sponsor stops meeting its responsibilities. While a sponsor has a B rating it cannot issue new certificates of sponsorship until it has made improvements and been upgraded back to A. It can still issue certificates for workers it already employs who want to extend their stay. A sponsor follows an action plan from UK Visas and Immigration to get back to an A rating, and a licence can be lost if the plan is not completed or if a second B rating is not resolved. For the full rules, see GOV.UK’s licence rating guide.

In practice, if you are a worker looking for sponsorship, an A-rated Active sponsor is the one that can issue you a new certificate. A B-rated sponsor may not be able to, so ask the employer directly.

Before you accept a sponsored job offer

• Get the offer in writing with the job title, pay and the visa route the employer intends to use.
• Check the company is Active on the register and licensed for that route.
• Ask about the certificate of sponsorship. The employer assigns it, and it is needed for your visa application. See GOV.UK’s certificates of sponsorship page.
• Check that the job is suitable for sponsorship. Not every job qualifies. The employer’s own guide is on GOV.UK under job suitability.
• Be careful with requests for money. Treat any request for payment in return for sponsorship with caution and check the current rules on GOV.UK before paying anything.
• Do not rely on one source. Check the official register on GOV.UK as well, and consider regulated immigration advice for your own case.

For employers: what sponsors have to do

If you are thinking about sponsoring workers, GOV.UK sets out five steps: check your business is eligible, check your job is suitable, choose the type of licence, decide who will manage sponsorship in your business, and apply online and pay the fee. UK Visas and Immigration may visit your business to check it is suitable. Start with the official guide for employers.

Sponsors take on continuing duties. They must check that sponsored workers have the skills or qualifications for the job and keep copies of the evidence, only assign certificates of sponsorship for suitable jobs, tell UK Visas and Immigration if a sponsored worker is not complying with visa conditions, and follow UK employment law. They also need HR systems to monitor workers’ immigration status, keep records including right-to-work checks, track attendance and keep contact details up to date. Significant changes to the business, such as insolvency, a merger or a change in the nature of the business, must be reported within 20 working days. See your responsibilities on GOV.UK.

Our free Employer Onboarding Pack includes a right-to-work check record and a payroll set-up form, and our payroll calendar covers the PAYE dates once the worker starts. GOV.UK also explains how to check a job applicant’s right to work and the penalties for employing illegal workers.

Where our data comes from and how it is kept up to date

The checker uses the Home Office’s Register of licensed sponsors for the Worker and Temporary Worker routes, which UK Visas and Immigration publishes on GOV.UK as a CSV file under the Open Government Licence v3.0. We download it every day, check that it has the expected columns and a sensible number of entries, and then update the search on this page. The “register published” date above is the date of the Home Office file we are using.

The official register only lists current licence holders, so a company that loses its licence simply disappears from the file. To make that visible, we compare each day’s file with the previous one. A company that goes missing is kept in our records and shown as Removed, with the date we noticed. Our records of removals start on the date shown in the line under the search box, so a company that was removed before then will not appear here. We do not know the reason for a removal, because the register does not say. We are not part of the Home Office and this is not an official service.