Businesses that want to employ foreign workers in the UK should apply for a sponsorship licence. Sometimes, there just aren’t any candidates who fit right into the position you’re looking for, so there’s often a necessity to look outwards and recruit overseas talents. In many ways, recruiting foreign employees into your workforce helps expand the skillset and improve the capacity of your business overall. Besides, it’s also a great opportunity to fill gaps, explore cultural diversity, and knowledge and meet new people who can contribute more to your company.
Sponsorship licences are general categories under the Worker Licence and Temporary Worker licence groups. The kind of job that the organisation is hiring someone for largely determines the kind of sponsorship licence that you’ll have to apply for as the employer. For this reason, there are plenty of duties and obligations you need to fulfil during the process of employment. For foreign employees, a sponsorship licence can also lead to the path of indefinite leave to remain, allowing you to secure permanent residence in the UK and gradually transition into full citizenship.
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What you need to know about Sponsor Licences
Not all migrants usually need to be sponsored for them to work in the UK. But even so, most of these migrant workers who plan to enter the country for career purposes need sponsorship, especially if they aren’t able to obtain any other permits. They can opt to transfer from the Skilled worker visa to several types like the Tier 4 and Tier 2 Student visas. Upon approval, the sponsor licence will then have a four-year-long validity period where you can always choose to renew whenever you prefer.
Qualifications for Sponsorship Licence
Before you apply for a Sponsorship Licence, it’s first crucial to determine whether your organization is qualified. UK-based employers would first need to complete an application form if they plan on recruiting overseas talent into their current team.
To be eligible, there should be no instance in your company’s history where you neglected your duties as a sponsor. Besides this, the organisation should also not have any criminal convictions for any immigration offences or crimes.
It’s worth noting that the sponsorship licence application is quite complicated and would need employers to supply accurate information regarding their respective companies. While the new UK immigration system doesn’t require sponsors to do a Resident Labor Market Test anymore, you will still need to submit sufficient evidence to prove to the Home Market that you need foreign talent for your team.
How to Apply for a Sponsor Licence
Every year, many sponsorship licence applications get rejected due to mistakes and errors that are overseen along the way. Some of these mistakes include filling in the wrong information or failing to provide the right things or the required documentation during the application process. Remember that employing someone on a sponsorship licence is costly since you’ll have to pay various government fees. You can’t afford to commit mistakes if you want to cut down on expenses.
That said, here is a simple guide you can follow when applying for a sponsorship licence.
1. Provide the right documentation.
One of the most crucial things you need to prioritise during this process is settling your documents. These documents usually include employers’ liability insurance, VAT certificate, bank statements, evidence of PAYE registration, and more. You will usually need to submit four documents and need more than one UK resident to fill in the key personal roles in the management system for the sponsor. Try to make sure that the employees you plan on sponsoring will be compensated fairly and must be able to meet the standard English requirements and obtain sufficient points to be eligible.
2. Submit your sponsorship licence application online.
It’s always wise to double-check and ensure that you have all the relevant documentation and information ready before you even submit your online application for a sponsorship licence. Fill in the required details in the form, submit it, and pay the needed fee. The authorising personnel will then sign this and mark the submission sheet. You are typically given roughly five days to submit all the needed documents to the Home office and until midnight on its 5th working day to follow up on the other documents through email.
3. Email all the important documents alongside a detailed letter.
Send all the documents required for your application to the Home Office along with a detailed letter via email. The COVID pandemic has changed the way of dealing with things since it’s more recommended to go through with this online now. The application process may also last for at least two months, so you’ll have to be patient enough to see through it.
