The sponsor licence rating system decides whether UK employers can keep recruiting overseas talent or face serious operational restrictions. Understanding the A-rated sponsor licence meaning and B-rated sponsor licence consequences is crucial for maintaining compliance.
- A-Rating: Your organisation is compliant, and you can assign new Certificates of Sponsorship to bring in overseas workers.
- B-Rating: Your organisation has breached its duties, you cannot assign new Certificates of Sponsorship, and you must follow a Home Office action plan to correct the issues.
- Key Risk: If you fail to implement the action plan in full or you continue to repeat breaches, the Home Office may revoke your licence and put all your sponsored roles at risk.
A Y & J Solicitors helps employers avoid downgrades, respond effectively to Home Office audits and restore their A-rating through structured compliance support.
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Why Sponsor Licence Ratings Matter for UK Employers and Workers
The Home Office uses the sponsor licence rating system to measure how much it trusts you as an employer. As a result, it checks whether you’re following your sponsor duties properly and preventing illegal working. Importantly, these ratings aren’t kept behind closed doors. They publish them on the public Register of Licensed Sponsors, where anyone can see them, and authorities keep a close eye on them throughout your licence period.
If you’re an employer and the Home Office downgrades your sponsor licence to B rating, you’ll immediately lose the ability to recruit new overseas staff. The Home Office could also affect your licence renewal. On top of that, you’ll face more frequent audits and much closer scrutiny from the Home Office. If you’re a worker being sponsored, a downgrade can make it harder to get a Certificate of Sponsorship, extend your visa or even feel confident in your job security.
That’s why this blog walks you through what A-ratings and B-ratings actually mean. We’ll explain how downgrades happen, what action plans involve and what you can do at each stage. We’ll also show you where A Y & J Solicitors can step in if your licence is at risk.
What is an A-rated Sponsor Licence
When you first apply for a sponsor licence and pass all the checks, the Home Office will usually grant you an A-rating straight away. This rating tells everyone that the Home Office is satisfied with how you’ve set up your HR and compliance systems. The A rated sponsor licence meaning is straightforward: you’re fully compliant and trusted to sponsor overseas workers.
What A-Rated Sponsors Can Do
With an A-rating, you can assign new Certificates of Sponsorship within the allocation you’ve been given. You’re free to sponsor new hires from overseas or people already in the country, as long as you meet the route rules. You can also extend sponsorship for your existing workers, provided you follow the immigration rules. This is precisely why the flexibility you get with an A-rating matters so much: It allows you to bring in the talent you need without unnecessary delays or restrictions to hold you back.
Duration and Monitoring
The Home Office can grant your sponsor licence for several years, currently up to 10 years, according to current guidance. But here’s the thing: your A-rating isn’t guaranteed for that entire period. You need to actively maintain it. The Home Office expects you to meet your duties consistently, and they can review your compliance whenever they choose.
Ongoing Duties
Keeping your A-rating means staying on top of accurate record-keeping for every sponsored worker. You need to report important changes through the Sponsorship Management System within the deadlines they set. You must carry out thorough right-to-work checks using the Employer Checking Service when appropriate. And you need to be ready for Home Office compliance visits, whether they give you advance notice or turn up unannounced. Think of your A-rating as both your starting point and your standard to protect. Once you lose it, the consequences for recruitment and daily operations can hit immediately and hard.
What is a B-Rated Sponsor Licence and When Downgrades Happen
A B-rating is basically a downgraded, probationary status that tells you the Home Office has serious concerns about how you’re handling compliance. It’s not quite a revocation yet, but it’s an urgent warning that you need to take seriously. Understanding the B rated sponsor licence consequences is essential for every employer.
When Downgrades Occur
Downgrades usually happen after a compliance visit or audit where the Home Office finds major breaches in how you’re operating. The Home Office can also trigger downgrades after running investigations based on intelligence or data matching that brings your failures to light. One thing to remember: the Home Office doesn’t hand out downgrades lightly. If you’ve been sponsor licence downgraded to B rating, it means you’ve failed to meet your core duties in a way that’s raised genuine red flags.
Typical Triggers
The common triggers are things like weak or missing records, late or completely missed reports of important changes, and mistakes in your Certificates of Sponsorship such as getting the salary or job details wrong. If there are patterns that suggest you’re offering non-genuine roles or that you don’t have proper control over your processes, that’ll also lead to a downgrade. Sometimes a single serious breach is all it takes. This is among the most common reasons for sponsor licence suspension.
What Changes Immediately at B-Rating
Once the Home Office downgrades you to B-rating, you immediately lose the ability to issue new Certificates of Sponsorship for any new workers. In many situations, the Home Office will also impose restrictions or subject your existing workers’ visa extensions to much closer scrutiny. On top of all that, the Home Office will require you to follow a mandatory sponsor licence action plan UK, which comes with a fee you need to pay and strict deadlines you need to meet. What this means in practice is that your international recruitment gets frozen. And your existing sponsored workers may start feeling genuinely uncertain about their future with you.
Direct Comparison Table – A-Rating vs B-Rating
It helps to see the practical differences between A-rating and B-rating side by side. This way, you can quickly understand just how much impact the sponsor licence rating system actually has.
| Feature | A-Rating | B-Rating |
| Status | Fully compliant | Non-compliant but the Home Office gives you a chance to improve |
| Ability to Assign New CoS | You can issue new CoS and extend existing sponsored workers | You cannot issue new CoS while the Home Office rates you B |
| Ability to Extend Existing Workers | Yes, as long as you follow immigration rules | Might be possible in limited circumstances, depends on the guidance |
| Rating Visibility on Register | The Home Office lists you as A-rated on the public register | The Home Office lists you as B-rated on the public register and monitors you more closely |
| Home Office View of Risk | Routine risk level with standard audit patterns | High risk, with increased scrutiny |
| Main Actions Required | Ongoing compliance with your sponsor duties | You must follow a paid Home Office action plan |
This table makes it clear that a B-rating isn’t just some minor administrative hiccup. It genuinely affects every part of how you operate as a sponsor and how secure your workers feel in their roles.
Common Reasons Sponsors are Downgraded from A to B
It’s useful to understand why downgrades actually happen. That way, you can spot your own risks early and take steps to avoid them.
Poor Record Keeping
A lot of downgrades come down to poor record keeping. This might mean missing copies of passports, BRP or eVisa records. It could be that you have no proper evidence of right-to-work checks. Or it might be that your contact information or job details for sponsored workers are completely out of date. The Home Office expects you to keep full and accurate records at all times. Home Office officers can issue an immediate downgrade when they find missing documents.
Late or Missing Reports via SMS
The Home Office requires you to report key events through the Sponsorship Management System, and there are tight deadlines attached to these reports. If you fail to report non-starters, early terminations, long absences or job changes on time, you’re risking a downgrade. The same goes for not reporting changes to your own organisation’s structure, address or key personnel. The Home Office provides detailed guidance on using the SMS.
Incorrect Certificates of Sponsorship
Mistakes in your Certificates of Sponsorship can frequently cause downgrades. This includes using the wrong Standard Occupational Classification code, listing a salary that’s below the required going rate or minimum threshold, or giving a job description that doesn’t actually match the role you’re sponsoring. Even what seems like a small error can have serious consequences. The Home Office treats inaccurate CoS as clear evidence that your compliance systems aren’t up to standard.
Systemic HR Weaknesses
Downgrades also happen when the Home Office finds systemic weaknesses in how your HR team operates. This could mean you have no central way of tracking your sponsored workers, your managers haven’t properly trained your staff on how to use the Sponsorship Management System, or you don’t have an internal compliance manual or regular audits in place. The Home Office wants to see that you’ve got robust systems running. Our Sponsor Licence Guidance for Employers offers comprehensive advice on these issues.
Home Office Action Plans – What They Are and How They Work
When the Home Office downgrades you to B-rating, they’ll send you a written sponsor licence action plan UK. Knowing how these plans work is absolutely essential if you’re facing a downgrade.
How the Action Plan is Issued
After the Home Office downgrades you to B-rating, UKVI sends you a written notice that clearly sets out where you’ve gone wrong. That notice will include your action plan and a fee that the Home Office requires you to pay. The Home Office sets out this fee in their current guidance, and they require you to pay it within a very tight deadline, usually just 10 working days. If you don’t pay the fee or you don’t accept the action plan, you’re looking at immediate revocation of your licence.
What an Action Plan Contains
Your action plan will spell out the specific steps you need to take. Typically, this means updating your HR processes and record keeping, training your staff properly and designating responsible Level 1 users, correcting any missed reports and cleaning up the data in your SMS, and creating robust internal checklists that actually work. The Home Office designs each plan specifically around the breaches they’ve found in your case. It’s not a generic, one-size-fits-all document.
What Happens if the Sponsor Pays and Accepts the Plan
If you pay the fee and accept the plan, you’ll enter a defined period to get everything sorted, usually around three months. During that time, UKVI may carry out a follow-up visit to check that your improvements are genuine and actually functioning in practice. This is your opportunity to prove you can meet your duties properly. If you keep failing, you will face revocation and potential licence suspension.
What Happens if They Do Not Pay or Do Not Accept
If you don’t pay the fee or you refuse to accept the action plan, the Home Office will most likely revoke your licence. That means your sponsored workers could have their leave curtailed, and they may need to find a new sponsor quickly or leave the UK altogether. Current guidance also makes clear that the Home Office can only B-rate your licence and place it under an action plan a limited number of times within a rolling 10-year period. If you keep failing, you will face revocation.
What a B-Rating Means for Recruitment and Existing Sponsored Workers
A B-rating affects new hires and your current staff in different ways. It’s important to understand both angles so you can plan properly and communicate clearly. The B rated sponsor licence consequences extend to every aspect of your workforce management.
Impact on New Recruitment
While you’re B-rated, you cannot assign new Certificates of Sponsorship for most routes, including the Skilled Worker visa. In practical terms, this freezes your international recruitment completely. Your hiring plans will grind to a halt. You also run the risk of losing good candidates to other employers who still hold an A-rating and can move quickly. For any business that depends on overseas talent, this can become a genuinely serious operational problem.
Impact on Existing Sponsored Workers
In most cases, your existing sponsored workers can carry on working while the Home Office keeps your licence at B-rating and hasn’t suspended or revoked it completely. Extensions or changes to employment applications may still occur, though they will undergo a much more rigorous scrutiny than usual. Your employees may feel insecure during this time, so it’s very important to be extra precise in communication with them to win their confidence. If employees are planning restructuring or role changes, this becomes even more complex.
What Happens if the Licence is Revoked
If you fail the action plan later on and the Home Office decides to revoke your licence entirely, the Home Office will usually give your sponsored workers a short window of time to either find a new sponsor or leave the UK. This is a serious risk you need to understand properly and communicate honestly with your team about.
How to Upgrade Back from B-Rating to A-Rating in Practice
Getting back to an A-rating is definitely possible. But it’s going to take focused effort and genuine improvements to your compliance processes. Understanding how to upgrade from B rating to A rating is essential for recovery.
Immediate Steps After Receiving a B-Rating Notice
Start by reading the letter carefully and thoroughly. Pay the sponsor licence action plan UK fee within the time limit they’ve given you. Appoint someone senior in your organisation, such as your Authorising Officer, to lead the compliance improvement project from start to finish. Speed and clarity matter here. If you let things drag on or get confused about what needs doing, you’ll only make a bad situation worse.
During the Action Plan Period
Take every single requirement in the plan and map it to a concrete action someone in your team needs to complete. Update your HR policies, contracts and processes so they properly reflect your sponsor duties. Train your Level 1 users and HR staff on how to manage sponsor duties and use the SMS correctly. Run an internal audit to find and fix not just the gaps UKVI spotted, but any other weak points you can identify.
Evidence and Readiness for Reassessment
Maintain accurate and detailed records of each change you make. If you create a new process, ensure it becomes operational and is not just printed in a policy document kept in some filing system. Be ready to show solid proof of all this during a follow-up visit. The Home Office will be testing whether your improvements are real and sustainable. Simply having nice documentation won’t be enough on its own.
Outcomes
If UKVI is satisfied with what you’ve done, they can upgrade your licence back to A-rating. If there are still minor issues that need addressing, you might receive a second and final B-rating within the allowed period. But if serious problems remain, the Home Office may revoke your licence outright. Bringing in a specialist firm like A Y & J Solicitors during this period can significantly improve your chances of a successful upgrade.
How Many B-Ratings are Allowed and When Revocation Becomes Likely
The Home Office won’t let you keep getting downgraded over and over without eventually taking harder action. The sponsor licence rating system has built-in limits.
Under current guidance, the Home Office can only B-rate you a limited number of times during a rolling licence period before they’ll stop downgrading and move straight to revocation instead. If you’re repeatedly getting B-ratings or repeatedly failing to meet your action plans, the Home Office sees that as evidence of deeper, systemic problems with how you’re running things.
When they revoke a licence, they often add a cooling-off period during which your organisation can’t even apply for a new licence. And following recent updates, both the cooling-off period and the level of scrutiny from the Home Office have become much tougher. You can learn more about UK employer sponsorship rules from official guidance.
Separate Ratings for Licence Types and Special Cases
The Home Office applies sponsor licence ratings at the individual licence type level, not across your entire organisation as one blanket rating.
Separate Licence Types
Worker licences, Temporary Worker licences and Student sponsor licences are all different categories. The Home Office applies ratings separately to each licence type. So depending on what issues they find, enforcement might affect one category, or it might affect several. For instance, your Worker sponsorship could be affected while another category you hold remains untouched. Specific Student sponsor guidance is available for education providers.
UK Expansion Worker Provisional Rating
If you’re using the UK Expansion Worker route, you might be given a provisional rating initially, particularly when your Authorising Officer is based outside the UK. Once you meet the necessary conditions, this should convert to an A-rating. But just like any other route, failures can still lead the Home Office to refuse your application or downgrade your rating. If you need faster processing for your initial application, consider the pre-licence priority service.
What Workers Should Do if Their Employer is Downgraded
If you’re a sponsored worker and the Home Office has downgraded your employer’s sponsor licence to B rating, you need to understand exactly what that means for your own situation.
How to Find Out
Check the Register of Licensed Sponsors yourself to confirm what rating your employer currently holds. You can check your sponsor licence number to verify their status. You should also ask your employer directly for information about their action plan and the timeline they’re working to. You have every right to know since it directly affects your legal status in the UK.
Key Questions to Ask
Ask your employer what specific concerns the Home Office has raised. Find out what steps they’re taking to fix those problems. And ask whether they expect any of this to impact existing sponsored staff like you. Getting honest answers will help you assess your own level of risk properly.
Possible Actions
If you’re close to needing an extension or you’re planning a change of employment, it’s worth seeking independent legal advice. If the Home Office looks likely to revoke the licence, consider what your options might be, perhaps by looking for other sponsors in your sector who could take you on. A downgrade doesn’t automatically mean you’ll have to leave the country. But it is a clear signal that you should get informed and start preparing for different scenarios.
How A Y & J Solicitors Can Help
A Y & J Solicitors offers practical, structured support for sponsors who are facing downgrades, dealing with action plans or feeling the pressure of compliance challenges.
We provide pre-audit and preventive work, including comprehensive sponsor licence health checks that identify potential gaps before UKVI ever shows up for a visit. This includes a full review of your HR systems, your record keeping practices and how you’re using the SMS. If the Home Office has already downgraded your licence, A Y & J Solicitors can help by reviewing the Home Office decision letter and designing a realistic action plan in detail to address the Home Office concerns. On top of all that, A Y & J Solicitors provides ongoing compliance support to help you keep your licence at A-rating and reduce the risk of future problems.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is an A-rated sponsor licence?
An A-rated sponsor licence is the standard compliant rating. It allows the sponsor to assign new Certificates of Sponsorship and extend existing sponsored workers, subject to immigration rules. The A rated sponsor licence meaning represents full compliance with Home Office requirements.
What is a B-rated sponsor licence?
A B-rated sponsor licence is a downgraded, probationary rating. It means the sponsor has breached duties and must follow a Home Office action plan. The sponsor cannot issue new CoS while rated B. The B rated sponsor licence consequences include frozen recruitment and increased scrutiny.
How does a sponsor licence get downgraded from A to B?
Usually, downgrades happen after compliance visits or audits where the Home Office finds serious violations. The most frequent triggers are inadequate recordkeeping, delays or absences in submitting reports, and issuance of incorrect Certificates of Sponsorship.
Can a B-rated sponsor issue new Certificates of Sponsorship?
No. A B-rated sponsor cannot issue new Certificates of Sponsorship for new workers. Extensions for existing workers may be possible in limited circumstances.
What is a Home Office sponsor action plan?
Once the Home Office downgrades your licence, it sends the sponsor licence action plan UK, a document defining steps the sponsor must take to remedy the compliance topics. There is a fee and a tight deadline to accept and pay.
How long does a sponsor have to fix issues after a B-rating?
The action plan period is typically around three months. The sponsor must implement all required measures and be ready for a follow-up visit within this time. Understanding how to upgrade from B rating to A rating requires swift, comprehensive action.
How many times can a sponsor be B-rated before losing the licence?
Under current guidance, the Home Office can only B-rate a sponsor a limited number of times within a rolling four-year period. Repeated failures lead to revocation, not endless chances.
What does a B-rating mean for existing sponsored workers?
Existing sponsored workers can usually continue working while the licence is B-rated unless the Home Office has suspended or revoked it. However, UKVI could now subject any extension or change of employment to closer scrutiny, and as a result, applicants may face more detailed checks.
Can a sponsor get back to A-rating after a downgrade?
Yes. If the sponsor pays the action plan fee, implements all required measures, and passes a follow-up visit, the Home Office can upgrade the licence back to A-rating. This is how to upgrade from B rating to A rating successfully.
How can A Y & J Solicitors help if a sponsor licence is downgraded or at risk?
A Y & J Solicitors reviews the decision letter and action plan, designs a remediation roadmap, trains HR staff, supports internal audits, and prepares sponsors for follow-up visits. This structured approach improves the chances of a successful upgrade.
Speak to A Y & J Solicitors Solicitors if Your Licence is at Risk
Keeping your sponsor licence at A-rating is absolutely essential if you’re a UK employer who relies on overseas talent. A downgrade to B-rating brings immediate recruitment restrictions, increased scrutiny from the Home Office, and the genuine risk of full licence revocation if you don’t follow your action plan correctly. Understanding how the sponsor licence rating system works, acting quickly when issues come up, and putting robust compliance systems in place are the best ways to protect your licence and keep your business running smoothly.
A Y & J Solicitors is an SRA-regulated legal firm recommended by the Legal 500 that has broad experience in sponsor licence compliance. The firm has assisted over 5000 successful immigration applications with a success rate of 98%. Whether you need preventive compliance assistance, help with responding to a B-rating, or simply need advice on protecting your immigration status as a sponsored worker, A Y & J Solicitors will give practical guidance customised to your personal situation.
Get Expert Help
A Y & J Solicitors is an immigration law firm which specialises in Sponsor Licence applications and compliance. We understand the immigration laws and are result-focused professionals. You can connect with us at +44 20 7404 7933 today for assistance with your visa application or any other UK immigration law concerns. We’re here to help!
