Sponsor Duties and Compliance
Frequently Asked Questions

Your duties are based on the principle that sponsorship is a privilege, not a right. You are expected to play a part in ensuring the immigration system is not abused. Your core duties include:

• Reporting duties
• Record-keeping duties
• Complying with immigration laws and all parts of the sponsor guidance
• Complying with wider UK law, such as employment law
• Not engaging in behaviour that is not conducive to the public good

Failure to comply with these duties can lead to sanctions such as having your Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS) allocation reduced, your licence being downgraded, suspended, or revoked.

Your responsibility for a worker begins on the day you assign a Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS) to them. It ends when one of the following occurs:

• You withdraw the CoS before it's used in an application.
• The worker's immigration permission expires.
• The worker's permission lapses while they are outside the UK.
• You inform the Home Office that you have stopped sponsoring the worker.
• For a Scale-up Worker, months after their visa becomes effective.

You must report certain changes within working days of the event. These include:

• A worker not starting their role within days of the date on their CoS.
• A worker being absent from work without your permission for more than consecutive working days.
• A worker's salary being reduced from the level stated on their CoS.
• Significant changes to the employment, such as a change of job role (within the same occupation code) or a promotion.
• A change in the worker's normal work location.
• Any instance where you stop sponsoring the worker (e.g., they resign, are dismissed, or gain settlement)

These changes must be reported using the 'Report migrant activity' function in the Sponsorship Management System (SMS).

You are no longer required to report if a worker moves to a "hybrid working" pattern (a mix of remote and office work). However, you must still report any changes to their main office work location or new client sites and keep records of their working patterns. You must report if a sponsored worker will be working entirely remotely with little or no requirement to attend a workplace.

You must keep specific documents for each worker you sponsor, as listed in Appendix D of the sponsor guidance. These can be stored in either paper or electronic format, ensuring all parts of the document are clearly visible. If you sponsor a child under , you must also keep a copy of a consent letter from their parent(s) or legal guardian.

A genuine vacancy is a role that:

• Requires the jobholder to perform the specific duties described and meets all route requirements.
• Does not include dissimilar or predominantly lower-skilled duties.
• Is appropriate for the business in terms of its model, plan, and scale.

A role created primarily to enable a foreign national to come to the UK, or one with an exaggerated job description, is not a genuine vacancy.

A Level 1 User must use the SMS to report significant changes within 20 working days. Changes to report include:

• Replacing your Authorising Officer or Key Contact.
• Amending your organisation’s name, address, or contact details.
• Changes to your organisational structure, such as new branches.
• Stopping trading or entering an insolvency procedure.
• A merger, takeover, or similar change.
• A change in your organisation’s size (from small to large or vice versa) or charitable status.

You must inform the Home Office within 20 working days.

• Administration: The appointed insolvency practitioner must be made your Authorising Officer. Your licence may be retained depending on the outcome.
• Liquidation/Sequestration: You must notify the Home Office, and your licence will be revoked.
• Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA): If a CVA results in a change of ownership, your licence will be revoked. If there is no change in ownership, you can keep your licence.

Your sponsor licence is not transferable. Your Level 1 User must report the change via SMS within 20 working days.

• If you are taken over:The new owner must apply for their own sponsor licence within 20 working days if they do not already have one and wish to continue employing the sponsored workers. Your licence will either be revoked or made dormant
• TUPE or similar protection:If workers transfer to a new sponsor under TUPE (or similar) protection, they do not need to make a new visa application, provided the new sponsor has a valid licence and accepts responsibility for them.

Yes, you can surrender your licence if you no longer wish to sponsor workers and have no sponsored workers employed. This is done via your SMS account. If you surrender your licence while the Home Office is taking compliance action against you, you may be subject to a “cooling-off period” of 12-24 months before you can re-apply.Compliance and Enforcement

A compliance check is used to verify you are meeting your sponsor duties. This can happen at any time and may be announced or unannounced. The check can involve:

• Requesting documents or information from you.
• Visiting your premises to inspect records and systems.
• Conducting a ‘digital compliance inspection’ via video conference.
• Interviewing you, your staff, and your sponsored workers. You must co-operate fully with any compliance checks.

Your licence can be downgraded from an A-rating to a B-rating for relatively minor breaches, such as having inadequate processes in place to comply with your duties. If downgraded, you cannot sponsor new workers and must pay for and adhere to a time-limited action plan to regain your A-rating. Failure to meet the action plan’s requirements will lead to revocation.

Your licence may be suspended if the Home Office believes you are breaching your duties, pose a threat to immigration control, or are acting in a way that is not conducive to the public good. During suspension, you cannot assign any new CoS, but you must continue to comply with all sponsor duties. The suspension allows for further investigation, after which your licence could be reinstated (as A-rated or B-rated) or revoked.

Revocation is the most serious sanction.

• Mandatory Revocation:Your licence will be revoked for serious issues, such as knowingly giving false information, having an unspent conviction for a relevant offence, ceasing to trade, or paying a sponsored worker less than stated on the CoS.
• Discretionary Revocation:Your licence will normally be revoked for actions like failing to comply with your sponsor duties, employing an illegal worker, or failing to co-operate with a compliance check. Your licence may be revoked for issues such as having a civil penalty for employing an illegal worker or if an SMS user discloses their password.

If your licence is revoked, any CoS you have assigned become invalid, and any visa applications based on them will be refused. The immigration permission of workers you are currently sponsoring will normally be shortened to 60 calendar days, during which time they must find a new sponsor and make a new application or leave the UK. If a worker was knowingly involved in the reason for revocation, their permission will be cancelled with immediate effect.