Get your sponsor licence or CoS on the fast track

If you want to employ non-British workers, your business will need a sponsor licence. This licence is granted by the UK government and is valid for 10 years (renewable after). For more details on the application process and requirements, check out 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 now have no expiry date and are valid indefinitely provided you maintain compliance. For more details about the renewal process, check out our guide on the sponsor licence renewal process.

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.

You pay the government either £574 or £1,579, depending on the size of your business. If you want the government to process your application faster, you pay the government priority fee of £500. Check out our detailed guide on sponsor licence cost.

No, you only pay the application fee once to obtain your sponsor licence.

There are different government fees each time you sponsor a worker:

- A one-off Certificate of Sponsorship assignment fee (£525)
- The Immigration Skills Charge (either £364 or £1000 per year, depending on the size of your business)

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

You are a small sponsor provided 2 of the following apply:

- Your annual turnover is less than £10.2M
- Your total assets are less than £5.1M
- You have 50 employees or less

The government application fee for a small sponsor is £574. The government application fee for a large sponsor is £1,579.

Standard applications take 10-12 weeks to be processed. Priority applications are approved within 2 weeks.

Due to Home Office constraints, there are a limited number of priority spaces each weekday. Most days these spaces are unavailable within moments. Borderless has very good success securing your priority application, however due to the above, we cannot guarantee you will obtain a priority space.If unsuccessful, your priority fee will be 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 have submitted your information and payment to Borderless, your application fee is non-refundable, so please ensure you wish to proceed before submitting to us for review.The government priority fee will be refunded if we are unable to secure you a priority slot.

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.

We are GDPR compliant and process all data accordingly in a secure fashion.