Failure to comply can lead to:
Navigating your sponsor licence obligations all the way through to a UKVI compliance inspection doesn’t have to feel like a maze.
Our business immigration team steps in to guide you, handling everything from initial checks and record‑keeping to reporting changes and preparing you for on‑site and digital audits. It handles:
Proactive compliance is more than a good practice, it safeguards your licence, keeps penalties at bay, and ensures you can keep hiring top global talent without disruption.
From the moment UKVI approves your sponsor licence application, you’re entrusted to uphold the integrity of the UK’s labour market. Your Sponsor Licence Duties ensure you prevent illegal working and maintain compliance under the UK’s immigration rules.
Compliance Alert: The Home Office rigorously monitors sponsor compliance, and even minor oversights, like a late report or missing record, can trigger severe consequences for your business and your sponsored employees. Many employers report anxiety over unannounced compliance visits, making proactive preparation essential.
You must be able to prove that every sponsored role is a genuine vacancy — meaning it matches the job description, SOC code, and salary level, and is not created simply to secure a visa.
Immediate Consequences: Failure to meet Sponsor Licence duties can result in suspension, revocation, fines, and loss of your ability to sponsor workers, sometimes with immediate effect.
Assign a Certificate of Sponsorship (COS) under your own Sponsor Licence via the Sponsorship Management System, ensuring every step stays compliant.
Accumulate five years of sponsored status with perfect record‑keeping (per Appendix D) to support your application for Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR).
Include your spouse and under‑18 children, conduct mandatory right to work checks, and report absences promptly to avoid a civil penalty.
From the moment UKVI grants your licence, you take on a legal duty for every overseas worker you sponsor. These compliance duties safeguard the UK labour market and protect your ability to continue sponsoring skilled workers.
Your duties start on licence issue day, whether you used pre‑licence priority service or the standard route, and continue until you formally surrender or UKVI terminates the licence.
A Y & J Compliance Shield: Our proprietary system prepares you for UKVI audits with mock compliance reviews, HR process mapping, and documentation trails, helping reduce risk of licence suspension or revocation.
Real-World Example: An HR manager failed to report a sponsored worker’s unpaid leave exceeding 10 days. During a surprise UKVI compliance visit, the omission was flagged, leading to a licence downgrade and increased monitoring.
How to Avoid It: Use automated reminders and mock audits to catch reporting deadlines before UKVI does. To check your licence status at any time, use the Register of Licensed Sponsors or follow our “How to Check Your Sponsor License Number” walkthrough.
Before granting a Sponsor License, the Home Office might also do a pre-licence compliance visit to ascertain the readiness of your organisation for the grant of licence. This would include checks on your HR systems, genuine vacancy needs and ability to meet sponsor duties from day one.
Keep all right-to-work evidence, payroll records, contracts, absence logs, and CoS assignment evidence for:
Reporting changes accurately and within strict deadlines is critical. UKVI looks for patterns of compliance, and even a single missed report can trigger audits or licence downgrades.
Report first‑day no‑shows or early terminations to UKVI within 10 working days, filing a “cease to sponsor” note in SMS.
Notify any unauthorised absence of 10+ days within the same 10‑day window.
Submit change of circumstances for:
Alert UKVI to organisational updates (company name, branch openings/closures, mergers) within 20 working days.
Log TUPE’d transfers (when staff are transferred to a new employer under the Transfer of Undertakings [Protection of Employment] Regulations) or other Restructuring & Role Changes for Employers as soon as they occur.
Tip: Failure to report within deadlines (10 days for most worker events, 5 days for unexplained absences) can lead to licence downgrades and affect sponsored employees’ visas.
Your pool of COS must be used within 90 days of allocation. Unrestricted allocations expire on 31 March annually—request your next batch from 5 January in SMS. Always link each COS to the correct Skilled Worker Visa application to avoid a Sponsor Licence downgrade or even a Sponsor Licence Suspended status.
To keep in line with our Sponsor Licence Guidance for Employers, appoint and maintain:
For details, see our comprehensive guide to Key Personnel. Ensure every role‑holder meets suitability checks and is recorded under your Sponsor Licence Number in the Register of Licensed Sponsors.
Minor breaches can trigger a Sponsor Licence downgrade from A to B. While downgraded, you cannot allocate any new COS until you fund and implement an action plan agreed with UKVI.
More serious or repeated failures lead UKVI to suspend the sponsor licence. All sponsorship activity pauses, and you’ll have 20 working days to respond or challenge the suspension notice.
If issues remain unaddressed, UKVI may revoke your licence entirely. Existing visas are curtailed to 60 days, and you face a six‑month cooling‑off period before you can reapply.
Employing someone without the right to work risks civil penalties, fines of up to £30,000 per illegal worker, on top of licence action and reputational harm.
The real cost of non-compliance includes business disruption, reputational damage, employee anxiety, and loss of growth opportunities, especially when the Home Office arrives for an unannounced audit.
Managing sponsor compliance manually can be time-consuming, error-prone, and high-risk — leading to missed deadlines, costly fines, and added stress on HR teams. Our integrated HRMS software solves these problems by automating compliance tasks and saving you time and resources.
Here’s how our powerful HRMS works for you:
Pain-Point Callout: Manual spreadsheets and fragmented systems leave room for costly mistakes. Our HRMS integrates compliance into your daily operations, freeing up HR resources and reducing the risk of Home Office penalties.
Your sponsor licence is only as strong as the people managing it. The Home Office requires that you nominate specific Key Personnel who will be legally responsible for compliance.
Senior person in your organisation responsible for overall compliance. This is usually a director or HR head — they carry legal accountability.
The main point of contact between your organisation and UKVI for all communication.
Senior person in your organisation responsible for overall compliance. This is usually a director or HR head — they carry legal accountability.
A secondary, limited-access user who can assign CoS but cannot make wider changes in SMS.
Before granting a sponsor licence, UKVI may conduct a pre-licence compliance visit to check:
Employers report that pre-licence visits are often pre-scheduled with short notice (typically a few days), so have your HR files and processes audit-ready in advance.
Once licensed, you remain subject to announced, unannounced, or even digital desktop audits at any time. Inspectors may:
Many businesses fail audits not because of deliberate non-compliance, but due to poor record-keeping or staff being unprepared for interviews.
UKVI sponsor licence compliance means meeting every duty set by UK Visas and Immigration for licensed sponsors. You must carry out thorough right‑to‑work checks, manage each Certificate of Sponsorship (COS) correctly and keep all records audit‑ready. Moreover, you prepare for a UKVI Sponsor Licence Compliance Inspection under ongoing UKVI Scrutiny to prove that your HR processes and reporting remain spot on.
Our commitment to excellence is backed by the best.
We take pride in being featured and officially accredited by top business, immigration, and legal platforms. Our work continuously meets the highest criteria of trust, credibility, and results, earning us major accolades and high-level media attention. These accolades are more than just badges; they serve as evidence that clients are in capable, safe hands when they choose us.
Chief Executive Officer
The driving force behind the company, Yash has years of legal experience and an uncompromising focus on client success. His leadership is the catalyst for integrity, innovation, and results.
Head of Operations
With a keen eye for process excellence and attention to detail, Diana makes every client experience seamless, efficient, and treated with care—from initial contact to final resolution.
Chief Operating Officer
Anik combines strategic mind with operational acumen to drive scale of impact and efficiency in service delivery. His systems philosophy runs the engine smoothly.
Business Relationship Manager
Amin heads the frontlines of client interaction. He is driven by a consultative mind and profound knowledge of immigration options, matching clients with solutions that best meet their objectives.
