Sponsorship Licence

The following information is given in order to provide you with a generalised overview of the criteria required for the sponsorship licence. However if you wish for us to assess whether your organisation/academic institution qualify for a sponsorship licence, or you wish to engage our services and/or require further information regarding this particular application, please complete the 'Contact Box' on this page to enable a member of our team to contact you and advise you further.

Before a migrant can apply to come to, or remain in the UK to work or study, they must have a sponsor. The sponsor is usually an organisation/academic institution in the UK that wishes to employ or provide education to migrants. The sponsor must have a sponsorship licence in place to allow them to commence the process of employing/providing education to migrants.

During the process of obtaining a sponsorship licence the UK Border Agency will rate the sponsor as either 'A' or 'B' rated, based on the information that has been provided to the UK Border Agency during the sponsorship licence application. The rating reflects whether the sponsor has all the necessary systems in place to meet the duties that are imposed on them as a sponsor. The rating will appear on the published register of licensed sponsors, it is therefore imperative that at first instance an 'A' rated sponsor is granted, otherwise the sponsor will be given an action plan which will set out the steps the sponsor must take in order to gain an 'A' rating. Since 6th April 2011 it has become more significant to becoming an 'A' rated sponsor as opposed to a 'B' rated sponsor, as 'B' rated sponsors will now not be allowed to assign any certificates of sponsorship to new migrants.

A certificate of sponsorship is a virtual document, the sponsor when applying for the licence needs to estimate the number of certificates of sponsorship they expect to assign each year. Once a certificate of sponsorship is issued to a migrant, they will require the reference number, to enable them to apply for entry clearance or leave to remain in the UK. It should be noted that each certificate of sponsorship can only be used once to support a migrants application for leave regardless of whether that application is successful or not. If the migrants application for leave to remain fails and they wish to re-apply a new certificate of sponsorship needs to be issued to the migrant. It is therefore extremely important that the certificate is issued to a migrant who definitely wants to take the position and meets all the immigration requirements.