Get your sponsor licence or CoS on the fast track

If you want to employ someone who needs a visa to work in the UK, your business needs a sponsor licence from the Home Office. A licence has no expiry date: it stays valid unless the Home Office revokes it or you surrender it. For more on the application process and requirements, read our comprehensive guide to applying for a sponsor licence.

There are no maximum limits on how many workers you can employ, however, you’ll need to satisfy the Home Office that you have a genuine need which cannot be satisfied domestically.

If you don’t have a sponsor licence, you can only employ British or Irish citizens, or those with settled status or indefinite leave to remain.

Anyone is eligible for sponsorship provided they fall into a suitable job category (there are many!)

Sponsor licences no longer have an expiry date. A licence stays valid unless the Home Office revokes it or you surrender it, so keeping up with your sponsor duties is what keeps it in place. Licences for the Scale-up and UK Expansion Worker routes are the exception, and last up to four years. For background on the change, read our guide to sponsor licence renewal.

You must be a genuine business operating within the UK, and you as the employer must not have unspent criminal convictions or have had a previous licence revoked. Take our eligibility assessment to see if you qualify.

The Home Office fee for a Worker licence is £611 for small or charitable sponsors and £1,682 for medium or large sponsors. If you want a faster decision, you can pay an extra £750 for the priority service, which aims to decide within 10 working days. Priority places are limited each day. For the full breakdown, read our detailed guide to sponsor licence costs.

No. You pay the application fee once, when you apply for your licence.

There are separate government fees each time you sponsor a worker:
- A Certificate of Sponsorship assignment fee of £525 per worker
- The Immigration Skills Charge: £480 for the first 12 months for small or charitable sponsors, or £1,320 for medium or large sponsors, then £240 or £660 for each further six months

Use our fees calculator to see the total cost of sponsorship.

You can pay the small sponsor fee if your company is subject to the small companies regime in the Companies Act 2006, or if you have charitable status. For most companies that currently means at least two of these apply:
- Annual turnover of £15 million or less
- Balance sheet total of £7.5 million or less
- 50 employees or fewer

If you're not a company, you count as small if you employ no more than 50 people.

The government fee for a Worker licence is £611 for a small sponsor and £1,682 for a medium or large sponsor.

The Home Office says most applications are decided in less than eight weeks, and it may visit your business before it decides. With the priority service, it aims to decide within 10 working days.

No. The Home Office offers a limited number of priority places each working day, first come, first served, and they often go within moments. We have a good record of securing them, but we can't guarantee one. If we can't secure a place, your priority fee is refunded.

We’ll do the heavy lifting to assess your suitability, prepare your cover letter and add context and information to your application to maximise its chance of success.

Find the full list of documents in our detailed for sponsor licence documents.

Once you've submitted your information and payment to Borderless, our fee is non-refundable, so please make sure you want to go ahead before you send it to us for review. The government priority fee is refunded if we can't secure you a priority place.

The Borderless platform is an end-to-end technology platform, supporting UK businesses and sponsored candidates with a full recruitment, immigration and compliance solution. Explore our Platform pages to learn more.

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