What is a Sponsor Licence?

A sponsor licence is the Home Office permission a UK employer needs before it can hire someone from outside the UK. No licence, no overseas hire. And since free movement ended, "outside the UK" includes the EU.

If you're an HR professional staring down your first sponsored hire, this page is the map. It covers what the licence actually is, whether you need one, what it costs, how long it takes, and what you sign up to once you hold one, with links to the detailed guide for each step.

What a sponsor licence actually is

A sponsor licence (you'll also see it written as a sponsorship licence; same thing) is formal approval from UK Visas and Immigration, the Home Office department that runs the system, for your organisation to employ workers who need a visa. It's granted to the employer, not the worker. Once licensed, you can assign a Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS), the digital document a candidate needs before they can apply for their work visa.

Think of it as a two-part deal. The licence proves your organisation is genuine, solvent, and capable of meeting its obligations. In return, the Home Office hands you a share of its border control: you vouch for the people you sponsor, and you report to UKVI when things change.

More than 600 employers run their sponsorship on Borderless Immigration, and over 500 of them secured their licence through the platform, from application to approval.

Do you need a sponsor licence?

You need one if you want to employ someone who doesn't already have the right to work in the UK. That covers most candidates from overseas, including EU nationals who arrived after 1 January 2021.

You don't need one to employ people with settled or pre-settled status, Indefinite Leave to Remain, a Graduate visa, or a dependant visa with work rights. A right to work check tells you which side of the line a candidate sits on, and our Right to Work Check Checklist walks you through running one properly.

The trigger is nearly always a person, not a plan: you've found the ideal hire, and they need sponsorship. That's normal. Most employers apply for their first licence with a named candidate waiting.

Types of sponsor licence

There are two categories, and you can hold either or both:

• A Worker licence covers long-term skilled employment. The Skilled Worker visa is the big one, and it's what most employers mean when they talk about sponsorship. It also covers routes like Senior or Specialist Worker for intra-company transfers.
• A Temporary Worker licence covers specific short-term schemes: seasonal work, creative workers, charity workers, and similar.

Most employers only ever need the Worker licence. The sponsor licence application guide covers how to choose in more detail.

One sector note: care providers can still hold and use a sponsor licence, but new overseas recruitment for care worker roles ended on 22 July 2025. Existing sponsored care workers can still be sponsored and switch employers.

What a sponsor licence costs

The application fee is, at the time of writing, £611 for small or charitable sponsors and £1,682 for medium or large ones. You're usually small if at least two of these apply: turnover of £15 million or less, total assets of £7.5 million or less, 50 employees or fewer.

Two things worth knowing before you budget. First, the fee must come out of your pocket: asking the sponsored worker to cover it can cost you the licence. Second, the licence fee is the start, not the total. CoS fees, the Immigration Skills Charge, and visa fees stack on top, and they're where the real money sits.

The Sponsor Licence Calculator totals the full bill for your organisation, including the costs that arrive after approval.

Calculate your sponsor licence costs →

How long a sponsor licence takes

Most applications are decided in under eight weeks. If that's too slow for your start date, you can pay £750 for a decision within 10 working days, though the Home Office caps how many priority slots it releases each day, and they go first come, first served.

The sponsor licence timeline guide maps the full journey, including what can slow it down (a pre-licence visit, missing documents, follow-up questions).

How to get one

The short version: check you're eligible, choose your licence type, nominate the people who'll manage it, apply online, pay the fee, and submit your supporting documents within five working days.

The long version, with every document and every trap, lives in the sponsor licence application guide. Start there if you're ready to apply, or take the whole process with you:

Download the Sponsor Licence Application Guide & Document Checklist →

Eligibility and requirements

There's no minimum size and no minimum trading history. A two-person startup can hold a licence. What the Home Office actually tests is that your organisation is genuine and operating lawfully in the UK, that the role you're hiring for is genuine and skilled enough to qualify, and that the people running your licence are suitable (no unspent convictions for immigration offences, no history of failed sponsorship).

You'll also need to show you can pay the salary you're offering. For most Skilled Worker roles in 2026 that means at least £41,700 a year, or the going rate for the job, whichever is higher.

The eligibility guide covers the requirements in full, and the Appendix A documents guide lists exactly what paperwork proves it.

Your duties once you're licensed

This is the part employers underestimate. A sponsor licence isn't a certificate you frame and forget; it's an ongoing compliance commitment, and the Home Office enforces it. In the first quarter of 2026 alone, 1,545 sponsor licences were revoked, the highest quarterly figure on record.

The duties come down to three habits. Keep records (right to work checks, contact details, salary evidence) for every sponsored worker. Report changes (a worker doesn't turn up, changes role, or leaves; your organisation moves or restructures) through the Sponsorship Management System, usually within 10 or 20 working days depending on the change. And run the licence through named people: an Authorising Officer who carries legal responsibility, plus Level 1 and Level 2 users who do the day-to-day.

Get these wrong and the consequences run from a downgraded rating to suspension to revocation, and revocation usually means your sponsored workers have 60 days to find a new sponsor or leave the UK. The sponsor licence duties and compliance guide covers how to stay on the right side, and the Home Office Audit Checklist shows you what an inspector would look for in your records today.

Download the Home Office Audit Checklist →

Where the official sponsor licence guidance lives

The Home Office publishes its full rulebook as the "Workers and Temporary Workers: guidance for sponsors", in three parts on GOV.UK. Part 1 covers applying, part 2 covers sponsoring workers day to day, and part 3 covers compliance and enforcement.

It runs to hundreds of pages and changes several times a year, often with real consequences buried in a version note. The guidance is the law of sponsorship in practice, so when it moves, your processes need to move with it. That's a workload issue for a licensed sponsor, and it's why we track every guidance change and translate what it means for employers, in plain English, as it happens.

Sponsor licence FAQs

Is a sponsor licence the same as a sponsorship licence?

Yes. "Sponsor licence" is the Home Office's term; "sponsorship licence" is what plenty of people search for. Same licence, same process.

How long does a sponsor licence last?

Indefinitely, as long as you meet your duties. Licences used to need renewing every four years, but the Home Office scrapped renewals in April 2024. The Home Office can still suspend or revoke a licence at any point.

What's the difference between a sponsor licence and a Certificate of Sponsorship?

The licence is your organisation's permission to sponsor. A Certificate of Sponsorship is the digital document you assign to one specific worker so they can apply for their visa. Licence first, then CoS, then visa.

Can a small business get a sponsor licence?

Yes, and thousands do. There's no minimum headcount or turnover. Small sponsors also pay the lower £611 fee.

Who pays for the sponsor licence?

The employer, always. Passing the licence fee (or the Immigration Skills Charge) to the worker is a breach that can end the licence.

Sponsorship without the second job

Getting the licence is the entry ticket. Holding it well, with the records, the reporting deadlines, and the guidance changes, is where sponsorship turns into someone's second job. Borderless handles both: licence applications in weeks, and a platform that tracks every duty after approval, with a 95% average compliance score among employers 90 days after joining.

Book a demo to see how it works.