What are my responsibilities as a Sponsor Licence holder?

30 Jan 2024, 46 mins ago

Employers holding a sponsor licence are required to undertake a number of responsibilities as part of their sponsor licence duties.

Holding a sponsor licence comes with many benefits and can give employers a significant advantage in the UK market by enabling them to hire from a wider pool of candidates. However, these benefits come with certain commitments.

Whilst sponsor licence duties can feel like a minefield, these commitments can be broadly simplified into monitoring duties, reporting duties and record-keeping duties.

Monitoring duties essentially mean having the correct systems in place to know where your sponsored workers are, be it on annual leave or off-site at a meeting, and to comply with their visa conditions, such as ensuring that your sponsored workers are paid the correct salary and do not remain in the UK beyond the validity of their visa.  

Reporting duties cover promptly notifying the Home Office of numerous important changes affecting any workers who you sponsor, including the termination of their employment or a change of their job role, or those impacting your business directly, such as a change of address. Given that reporting takes place via the online Sponsor Management System, you must ensure that you always maintain key personnel on the licence so that the online management system can be quickly accessed as required.

Record-keeping duties are also vital. The Home Office may conduct unannounced spot checks to ascertain that your HR files are in order and contain the necessary right to work checks, up-to-date contact details, employment contracts and more.

If you require assistance with applying for or maintaining a sponsor licence, please do not hesitate to get in touch with a member of our UK Inbound Team.

How Gherson can assist

Gherson’s Immigration Team are highly experienced in advising on UK visa matters. If you have any questions arising from this blog, please do not hesitate to contact us for advice, send us an e-mail, or, alternatively, follow us on XFacebookInstagram, or LinkedIn to stay-up-to-date.

The information in this blog is for general information purposes only and does not purport to be comprehensive or to provide legal advice. Whilst every effort is made to ensure the information and law is current as of the date of publication it should be stressed that, due to the passage of time, this does not necessarily reflect the present legal position. Gherson accepts no responsibility for loss which may arise from accessing or reliance on information contained in this blog. For formal advice on the current law please do not hesitate to contact Gherson. Legal advice is only provided pursuant to a written agreement, identified as such, and signed by the client and by or on behalf of Gherson.

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