How to sponsor a worker in the UK

To sponsor a worker in the UK, you need a sponsor licence from the Home Office before you can hire anyone from overseas. That single fact catches most employers out: you can't find the right person, offer them the job, and sort the paperwork after. The licence comes first, and it takes weeks.

This guide walks through what sponsorship actually involves, from getting the licence to the moment your worker starts. It covers who can sponsor, the steps in order, what it costs in 2026, and how long each stage takes. If you're weighing up whether sponsorship is worth it for a single hire, the honest answer is at the bottom.

What does it mean to sponsor a worker?

Sponsorship is how a UK employer takes legal responsibility for a worker who needs permission to work in the country. You hold a licence, you issue that worker a Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS), and they use it to apply for their visa. In exchange, the Home Office expects you to keep records, report changes, and make sure the role and the pay genuinely meet the rules.

Most sponsored hires come through the Skilled Worker visa. It replaced the old Tier 2 (General) route, so if you've heard sponsorship called "Tier 2 sponsorship", that's the same thing under an older name.

Can I sponsor a worker?

Almost any genuine UK organisation can sponsor, whether you're a limited company, a charity, a care provider, or a startup with your first hire. There's no minimum size and no minimum trading history that automatically rules you out. What the Home Office checks is that you're a real, lawfully operating business, that you have people in place to manage the licence, and that the job you're sponsoring is genuine and meets the skill and salary requirements.

The job matters as much as the business. To sponsor someone on the Skilled Worker route, the role has to sit at the required skill level and pay at least the general salary threshold of £41,700 a year, or the going rate for that specific occupation, whichever is higher. Some roles have lower thresholds, including new entrants at the start of their careers (£33,400) and eligible health and care roles (from £25,000). If the job pays below the floor or sits below the skill level, you can't sponsor it, however much you want to hire the person.

The steps to sponsor a worker

There are five stages, and the order isn't flexible.

1. Apply for a sponsor licence. You submit an online application, pay the fee, and send supporting documents that prove your organisation is genuine. You also name the people who'll run the licence, including a senior Authorising Officer. Our sponsor licence key personnel guide explains who can hold each role, because naming the wrong person is a common reason applications get refused.
2. Wait for the decision. The Home Office reviews the application and may ask for more documents or visit your premises before deciding.
3. Assign a Certificate of Sponsorship. Once you're licensed, this isn't a paper certificate; it's an electronic record you create through the Sponsorship Management System (SMS), confirming the job, the salary, and the worker's details.
4. The worker applies for their visa using the CoS, pays their application fee and the Immigration Health Surcharge, and proves their identity and, where required, their English.
5. The worker starts. Once the visa is granted, they can start on or after the date on their CoS. Your job doesn't end there: you carry ongoing duties to report and record things for as long as you sponsor them.

For the full document list and a step-by-step of the licence application itself, our free checklist covers what you need before you apply:

Download the Sponsor Licence Application Guide

How much does it cost to sponsor a worker?

Sponsorship isn't a single fee, it's a stack of them, and some are legally yours to pay while others fall to the worker. Here's what an employer pays in 2026.

• Sponsor licence, small sponsor: £611 (employer, once every four years).
• Sponsor licence, large sponsor: £1,682 (employer, once every four years).
• Certificate of Sponsorship: £525 per worker (employer).
• Immigration Skills Charge, small sponsor: £480 for the first year, then £240 per further six months (employer).
• Immigration Skills Charge, large sponsor: £1,320 for the first year, then £660 per further six months (employer).
• Skilled Worker visa, up to three years from outside the UK: £819 (usually the worker).
• Immigration Health Surcharge: £1,035 per year (usually the worker).

The licence fee is a one-off you pay once every four years. The CoS fee and the Immigration Skills Charge (ISC) are paid each time you sponsor someone. Three of these are non-negotiable employer costs: you cannot legally pass the licence fee, the CoS fee, or the ISC on to the worker, and doing so can cost you your licence.

The ISC is the one that scales painfully. A small sponsor hiring one worker on a three-year visa pays £1,440 in ISC alone; a large sponsor pays £3,960 for the same hire. Multiply that across a hiring plan and it's the number that reshapes budgets.

To model your own numbers before you commit, our calculator runs the full cost of a licence and a sponsored hire:

Try the Sponsor Licence Calculator

How long does it take to sponsor a worker?

Budget two to three months end to end, though it varies. A standard sponsor licence application takes around eight weeks for the Home Office to process, and you can pay £750 for priority processing to cut that to roughly ten working days if there's capacity. After that, the worker's visa application usually takes about three weeks from outside the UK, or eight weeks in country, with priority options to speed it up.

The part employers underestimate is the front end: gathering documents, naming the right personnel, and getting the application right first time. A refusal doesn't just cost the fee, it costs the weeks. Our full timing guide breaks the stages down.

What are my duties once I'm sponsoring someone?

The licence is the start, not the finish. As a sponsor you have to keep specific records on every worker, report certain changes to the Home Office within set deadlines (a worker leaving, a change of role, a change of salary), and make sure you're only sponsoring genuine roles at the right pay. The Home Office can audit you at any time, and sloppy records are the most common reason licences get suspended or revoked. Our sponsor duties and compliance guide sets out exactly what you're signing up to.

Is it worth sponsoring for a single hire?

Sometimes the honest answer is that one hire doesn't justify the setup. But for most employers who reach for sponsorship, the alternative isn't a cheaper hire, it's no hire at all, because the person they want is overseas or on a visa that's about to end. Framed that way, the licence fee is the price of access to a candidate pool the competition can't reach.

How to sponsor a worker: FAQs

Do I need a sponsor licence to hire someone from overseas?

In almost all cases, yes. If the person doesn't already have the right to work in the UK through another route (settled status, a family visa, a graduate visa, and so on), you need a licence to sponsor them. Check their existing status first, because someone who can already work here doesn't need sponsoring.

How much does it cost to sponsor a worker in the UK?

For an employer in 2026, the core costs are the sponsor licence (£611 for a small sponsor, £1,682 for a large one), the £525 Certificate of Sponsorship fee per worker, and the Immigration Skills Charge (£480 or £1,320 for the first year depending on your size). The worker usually pays their own visa fee (£819 for up to three years from outside the UK) and the £1,035-a-year health surcharge.

Can I sponsor a worker as a small business or startup?

Yes. There's no minimum company size. You do need to show you're a genuine, lawfully trading organisation and that you have the people in place to manage the licence. Startups sponsor workers regularly.

How long does it take to sponsor someone?

Roughly two to three months in total: about eight weeks for the licence (or around ten working days with £750 priority processing), then about three weeks for the worker's visa from outside the UK.

Can I ask the worker to pay the sponsorship costs?

No, not for all of them. You cannot legally recoup the sponsor licence fee, the Certificate of Sponsorship fee, or the Immigration Skills Charge from the worker. The worker can choose to pay their own visa application fee and health surcharge, but this can't be a written condition of the job.

What's the difference between sponsoring a worker and the old Tier 2?

None in practice. The Skilled Worker visa replaced Tier 2 (General). "Tier 2 sponsorship" is just the old name for what's now Skilled Worker sponsorship.

Sponsorship, without the guesswork

Sponsoring a worker is a sequence of deadlines and records that don't forgive being late. Miss a reporting window or lose track of a document, and the licence you spent weeks getting is the thing at risk.

Borderless Immigration has secured more than 500 sponsor licences for UK employers, and it puts the whole thing in one place: the licence application, every Certificate of Sponsorship, every reporting deadline, every record the Home Office can ask for. Book a demo to see how it would work for your first hire, or your fiftieth.