Business immigration services

Please contact us immediately to best ensure that your organisation retains its sponsor licence. Time is of the essence in these circumstances.

During a compliance check, the Home Office will assess your organisation’s systems and records for compliance with sponsor duties. A compliance check can consist of the Home Office requesting evidence of compliance processes in place via email or visiting your business premises.

If your organisation is notified of a Home Office compliance check,  review your HR systems, including your process for right to work checks. Ensure that business immigration compliance is documented and therefore demonstrable to the Home Office should they visit or request evidence of compliance. Personnel records for sponsored workers should be up-to-date and the actual job details, including job duties and responsibilities, of each sponsored worker should match those on their Certificate of Sponsorship.

In addition to reviewing documentation, a compliance check may include interviewing those in your organisation with responsibility for sponsorship and interviewing sponsored workers.

The Home Office may suspend or revoke your organisation’s sponsor licence if they are not satisfied with your compliance processes or sponsored worker records. Your organisation’s sponsored workers would have to find other sponsors or leave the UK. You might not be eligible to reapply for a sponsor licence before waiting for a ‘cooling off’ period to expire, depending on the reasons for the compliance action.

We offer a range of immigration compliance review services, including mock Home Office compliance checks to best ensure that your organisation is able to retain the ability to sponsor workers.

If you are the business owner, consider the SponsorpreneurTM strategy, where you set up a UK entity and that entity sponsors you for a Skilled Worker visa. The UK entity will need a director or employee other than yourself, who is based in the UK, to act as the person responsible for sponsorship activity. Changes Immigration can introduce you to a suitable director. A UK corporate bank account is also required. Our contact can assist with setting this up.

Another option is a Global Business Mobility sponsor licence, which will allow the UK branch to transfer highly skilled employees from the overseas organisation under Senior or Specialist Worker visas, previously called ‘Intra Company Transfer’ visas.

If the UK branch has not started trading yet, an Expansion Worker sponsor licence is a good option to enable the relocation of the overseas team to establish business operations in the UK. The route is temporary and does not itself lead to indefinite leave to remain. Expansion Worker licence holders are expected to apply for Skilled Worker sponsor licences within 2 years and for their sponsored workers to switch to Skilled Worker visas.

If you’re not sure which UK business immigration strategy is best for your organisation, please get in touch. We can assess your organisation’s circumstances and advise on the best option.

If you work in tech, the arts or academia, you might be eligible for a Global Talent visa. Applicants must secure endorsement from the relevant industry body for their field of work, e.g. Tech Nation or Arts Council England. A Global Talent visa holder has very few restrictions on work in the UK. They must be able to demonstrate that they have earned money in their field in the UK to extend their visa or settle in the UK.

If you have an innovative, viable, and scalable business idea, the Innovator Founder visa could be a good option for you. Your business plan must be endorsed by one of three approved UK endorsing bodies. You would then use the endorsing letter to support an Innovator Founder visa application. The endorsing body monitors your business’s performance against the business plan. Business criteria must be met to qualify for extension or settlement.

It is important to obtain immigration advice before you start operating your new business in the UK. Changes Immigration can help you build a strategy that aligns with both your business goals and personal objectives.

A UK employer may benefit from a statutory defense from civil penalty (a fine) for illegal working if they check a worker’s right to work in line with Home Office guidance. A right to work check must be conducted before the worker starts work in order to establish the statutory defense. Evidence of temporary immigration permission usually requires a rechecking in order to maintain the statutory defense.

The appropriate right to work checking process will depend on the worker’s documentation, e.g. British passport or eVisa.

An employer must be in the worker’s presence, either physical or virtual, when conducting a check.

In respect of manual checks on hardcopy documents such as British passports, an employer must check the worker’s original documents and ensure that the documents are genuine, belong to the holder and have not been tampered with.

For eVisas, the employer must request the worker’s share code to confirm that their immigration permission has not expired and allows them to do the work in question, e.g. full-time versus part-time.

Different right to work check procedures apply where the worker is unable to provide documents, is a student, or has an outstanding immigration application. Changes Immigration can advise you on the correct right to work check processes for each worker.

Changes Immigration cannot help you find a sponsor. If you are not eligible for a non-sponsored work or business visa, your first step is to secure a job offer from a UK employer.

Once you have a job offer, Changes Immigration can assist you and the employer with a sponsor licence application, assigning a certificate of sponsorship to you and your Skilled Worker visa application.