Sponsor Duties and Compliance

Sponsor Duties and Responsibilities

Throughout your sponsorship licence, you will have special duties to follow to prevent illegal working in the UK and to ensure that the workers that you employ can obtain a Skilled Worker Visa.

Duties start from the date your licence is issued until you relinquish it, and your responsibility to each sponsored employee begins when you assign the Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS). These include pre-employment, during employment and post-employment responsibilities.

• Ensuring overseas workers have the skills and qualifications to perform their jobs, that they qualify for sponsorship, and there is a genuine vacancy in the sponsoring organisation
• Conducting right-to-work checks on workers
• Record-keeping duties of certain documents proving the employee’s right to work
• Monitoring overseas workers to ensure compliance with immigration responsibilities
• Informing the Home Office if visa sponsorship duties are breached
• Reporting to the Home Office if a sponsored worker’s employment contract or any professional registration is terminated earlier than displayed on their CoS.

Failure to comply can result in the Home Office taking action such as downgrading your Sponsor Licence from an A-rating to a B-rating for minor breaches, suspension, or revocation of your sponsored workers’ visas, for a serious breach. In some cases, non-compliance will be reported to the police or relevant authorities.

What Are the Duties of Sponsor Licence Holder?

All EU citizens (except Irish nationals) arriving in the UK must be sponsored by their employers, and are required to apply for the relevant work visa.

Businesses and Sponsor Licence holders must have an efficient system in place to carry out their sponsor duties effectively, and to ensure that their organisation is operating lawfully, in order to avoid revocation of their licence, a civil penalty, reputation damage, and even criminal charges.

Sponsor licence duties can be divided into the following main categories:

Record Keeping Duties

Employers with Sponsor Licences must maintain up-to-date and accurate records of all overseas workers. All records must be thorough and readily available for inspection in the case of Home Office visits. Records must include sponsored workers’ ID documentation, valid passports, immigration files, employee payslips, history of absences, and staff handbooks.

Monitoring Duties

It is important to keep track of sponsored workers’ immigration status and attendance, to ensure that migrant workers employed by your organisation are adhering to the terms of their work visa and wider UK law.

Monitoring activities include conducting follow-up and documented right-to-work checks to avoid criminal charges for illegal working, ensuring workers’ contact details are up-to-date, and taking note of poor compliance.

Reporting Duties

Sponsor reporting duties include reporting any significant changes regarding an organisation and its sponsored workers to the Home Office through the SMS. Events must be reported within 10 or 20 days of the event taking place, depending on the Sponsor License change of circumstances, and the licence holder must confirm that it is taking responsibility for each sponsored worker.

Significant changes of circumstances within a sponsor organisation that must be reported include:

• Changes to the organisation’s name or company address
• Change of Authorising Officer and key personnel
• If a sponsored worker does not start their role on the date they were assigned for any reason (such as a missed flight)
• There has been a merger, acquisition or change of business ownership
• Change of location of the employment
• If you stop sponsoring a worker for any reason, or their employment ends before the date on their CoS
• When a sponsored worker fails to report for work or is absent from work for more than 10 consecutive days
• If the sponsored worker no longer works for your organisation
• Any substantial changes to the nature of your business

Immigration Law Compliance

Sponsor licence holders must ensure they only hire foreign workers who meet all requirements of the Worker and Temporary Worker Sponsor Guidance and UK immigration laws. Sponsored workers must be fully qualified and experienced to do their job, as well as be able to provide professional accreditations before they apply for a Skilled Worker Visa and begin work as a sponsored employee.

Compliance with UK Laws

All Sponsor Licence holders are required to comply with wider UK law generally, including immigration law and employment law. This means that all UK employers must meet the National Minimum Wage requirements and must provide paid holiday entitlement. Minimum pay can be no less than £12.21 per hour as of April 2025.

Acting in Public Good

All sponsor licence holders have a duty to conduct business in a way that is in line with the Home Office’s core values and public good. Organisations must ensure that they avoid codes of practice that are not beneficial to and harmful to society.

If the Home Office has any cause for concern regarding Sponsor Licence holders and their duties, it has the authority to visit the sponsor organisation’s premises unannounced at any time for a full compliance inspection visit.

How to Comply with Your Sponsor Duties

Overview

It is important to have processes and procedures in place to ensure that any employer complies with the duties of being a Sponsor Licence holder.

Take Note of When Sponsorship Duties Begin and End

The day the CoS is assigned is when your Sponsor Licence duties responsibilities will begin. Your Sponsor Licence duties end when you surrender your licence, or if your licence has been revoked or suspended.

When you assign a CoS, the sponsored worker must apply for their visa within a 3-month period. Any changes to a migrant worker’s start or end date prior to applying for the visa must be reported via SMS.

Have a Robust Documentation System in Place

It’s important to make sure that your business has an efficient system in place to help you keep up-to-date, such as monitoring sponsored employees for any changes to their circumstances, including absences.

The Sponsor Licence holder must keep an organised file of sponsored employee contact details for every worker, which should include their UK residential address and personal contact details. Level 1 users need to be made aware of any significant organisational changes, and a sponsor management file should be kept that includes your Sponsor Licence application and any supporting documents.

Reporting Changes to the Organisation?

Organisational changes regarding sponsored workers or the size of your business must be reported by a Level 1 user within 10 working days to the Home Office. All other organisational changes must be reported within 20 working days of the change, via SMS.

Reports regarding changes of overseas workers must include the foreign workers’ contact details, such as their personal home address, telephone number and email.

Failure to report significant changes to the Home Office can lead to a thorough review of the Sponsor’s compliance and may result in a downgrade in their Sponsor Licence rating where a 3–month action plan will be implemented. A subsequent Home Office visit may be arranged to assess whether the action plan is being adhered to.

In some cases of non-compliance, a Sponsor Licence may be suspended or revoked. If revoked, all migrant workers employed by the organisation will have 60 days to leave the UK or switch to another visa.

Complying with Immigration Rules & UK Law

Sponsors are required to undertake many of the responsibilities of Immigration Officers, in compliance with the Migration Act 1958. If a Sponsor does not comply with immigration laws, the consequences can include criminal charges, costly fines, the Sponsor Licence being revoked, and reputational damage, which may impact the long-term success of a business.

As of 2024, sponsors are no longer required to renew their sponsor licences. However, they must continue to meet the relevant guidelines and responsibilities expected of them in order to retain their licences.

Appointing Key Personnel

All key personnel must be permanently based in the UK and must not be contractors or consultants for a specific project. There are three key personnel with assigned Sponsor License responsibilities who will be named on the Sponsor Licence. These are the:

• The Authorising Officer is a senior member of staff who takes overall responsibility for sponsorship. The Authorising Officer does not have automatic access to the SMS but is responsible for those who do have access. The role of the Authorising Officer should include monthly checks of the CoS assigned to all foreign workers.
• The Key Contact is the sponsored licence holder’s main point of contact with the Home Office and is responsible for all correspondence regarding UK visas and immigration. Key contacts can be legal representatives.
• A Level 1 SMS User maintains up-to-date records of UK visas and immigration, noting any changes to licences and individual sponsorship They are responsible for reporting most changes and managing the service day-to-day.

There must be at least one Level 1 User who is employed by the organisation and has complete access to the SMS unless the Sponsor Licence holder is surrendering their licence.

Compliance Checks

The Home Office may want to check that the information you have provided for your Sponsor Licence is up-to-date and accurate and that you are complying with the requirements via compliance checks and audits.

Compliance checks and audits can typically include (but not be limited to) the following:

• Confirmation that record-keeping and reporting systems are operational, being utilised fully and are being operated by the right key personnel
• Confirmation that immigration statuses of foreign workers are being sufficiently monitored to prevent illegal working
• Checking that the organisation is following the guidelines of a specific visa or sponsorship route
• Checking that employee pay in within the guidelines
• Checking that information entered into the SMS and CoS’s are accurate and up to date
• Confirming that general business practices are legal, safe, and within the expected guidelines

Organisations are usually notified in advance about a compliance visit by the Home Office, and can organise a time that works for them; however, they could be given short notice or the Home Office can turn up unannounced. Typically, an email will be sent to the key contact or Authorising Officer notifying them about compliance audit visits.

If you would like to know more about immigration compliance and reporting to the Home Office and would like to carry out internal audits of key sponsor licence personnel, contact our dedicated team of IAS legal advisors at +44 (0)333 414 9244, or get in touch online today.

Failing to Comply with Your Sponsor Duties

Failure to comply with sponsor duties can result in serious repercussions that may put both your organisation and your employees at risk. You may also risk any future chances of holding a sponsor licence again, depending on the severity of the infraction.

Failure to comply with sponsor duties can variably result in the following:

• Your sponsor licence may be downgraded to a B rating. If this happens, you will have to follow an action plan from the Home Office to get it back up to an A rating again. You cannot hire any new foreign workers while at a B rating.
• In serious cases, such as failure to bring your rating back up to an A rating, you may have your sponsor licence revoked. If this occurs, foreign employees may have their period of leave curtailed and have to find an alternative sponsor, apply for another visa, or leave the UK.
• If you have knowingly employed illegal workers, you may receive a civil penalty of up to £20,000 for each worker.
• You could face a criminal conviction and/or imprisonment on serious charges such as possessing a false identity document, knowing employing an illegal worker, or on human trafficking charges.

For these reasons, it’s essential that you perform your due diligence in complying with your sponsor licence duties.

Downgrading Your Sponsor Licence

If the Home Office have found that you have not been keeping your sponsor licence responsibilities, they may downgrade your licence from an A rating to a B rating.

You will not be able to issue any new certificates of sponsorship while at a B rating. You will also have to pay £1,476 for an action plan from UKVI in order to upgrade back to an A rating. This must be paid for within 10 days of your downgrade, otherwise you may lose your licence.

If you follow all the necessary steps in the plan, you will be upgraded to an A rating again. However, if you fail to do so, you will remain at B rating and have to pay the fee again.

If you still have to make improvements after paying the fee again, you will lose your licence.

Suspending Your Licence

Your licence may be temporarily suspended for less serious infractions, such as failing to keep appropriate records or appointing insufficiently qualified key personnel.

Your business will be removed from the register of sponsors. You must continue to meet all sponsor duties during your suspension, however.

As a result of a suspension, UKVI may reinstate your licence, downgrade it to a B, or revoke it entirely. You may have the opportunity to apply for an administrative review within 20 days of the suspension being delivered, which may help to influence the result if you believe your licence has been unfairly suspended.

How IAS Can Help?

At IAS, we offer a thorough mock compliance visit audit service to help you as a Sponsor Licence holder be fully prepared for any visits from Home Office.  We also offer expert sponsor guidance on the immigration system, best practices for reporting migrant activity, and what to do if you get your licence revoked.

Our experienced and helpful in-house legal team will guide you through all the fundamental steps you must take in order to ensure that your organisation is lawfully operating and that you, as a responsible employer, are fully compliant with your Sponsor Licence duties.

Get in touch with our qualified team today and speak to one of our trusted in-house legal advisors who are here to assist and guide you on best practices for hiring overseas staff.

We also provide a comprehensive HR Sponsor Licence and Compliance training course to equip you with the knowledge and tools you need to safely employ foreign workers and stay compliant with all UKVI regulations. Our courses are fully remote and can either be taken as a guided seminar with one of our expert lawyers, or as a self-guided online course.

If you have any questions regarding your Sponsor Licence holder duties and compliance with immigration rules as a UK employer, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us and get in touch with one of our dedicated team of legal advisors at IAS on 0333 305 9375.