Handling Sponsor Licence Refusal can be complex; errors may result in rejection.
If UKVI denies your support licence application, it might severely impact your company and hiring. You may also lose your entry fee.
The Home Office will refuse or reject your application if they decide not to grant you a support licence.
Typically, false applications result in rejections.
This usually happens because of small problems with the application that the individual can fix. For example, someone might have misplaced papers, or they might have paid the incorrect entry fee. The cost of applying for a sponsor licence will depend on how big your business is. The fee for the small support licence is currently £536. You may be able to get it if you are a charity or a small business. If not, donors of all sizes will have to pay £1476 for a permit.
Normally, we would refund the fee for a rejected application, allowing the candidate to submit a new one.
Certainly! When there are significant or fundamental issues with the application, sponsor rights are not granted.
Refusals mean applicants lose the licencing fee and wait 6–12 months to reapply.
A denied support licence application will outline available choices based on Home Office reasons for rejection. Licencing rejections often occur due to the following reasons:
Support your claim with four Appendix A documents, excluding UK government-recognized bodies or LSE Main Market traded businesses.
You may also need to provide more information. To sponsor skilled workers, provide details about your company, reasons for coming to the UK, and job positions to fill.
For online submission, include signed and stamped pages of the filing sheet by your authorizing officer. You must also include the papers mentioned in Appendix A and on that sheet. You should get in touch with UKVI if you can’t send the application sheet and related documents online. UKVI always has the right to ask for original papers or copies that have been confirmed. Mailed verified copies or those requested by UKVI must follow strict certification rules. If details can’t be verified or copies don’t meet requirements, they’ll be discarded. Consequently, this could lead to the rejection of the application.
UKVI will reject incomplete or incorrect support licence applications lacking necessary documents or meeting minimum requirements.
Along with your application, you will need to send a number of supporting papers, such as specific proof that you are a real business or group working legally in the UK. You need to send these within five business days of your first application. If you don’t meet this limit, your application might not be accepted.
The Home Office will reject the application if it requests more papers and the applicant does not send them within the time limit.
When applying for a sponsor licence, you need to follow many rules. One of the most difficult parts is making sure that you meet the standards listed in Appendix A. One of the most common mistakes people make when asking for a sponsor licence is not providing the right paperwork.
Any hard copies you send with your application must be either the originals or verified copies, unless you send them by email under COVID-19 special rules.
While it is sometimes possible, UKVI may also be able to check your paperwork online. If this is the case, you will need to include the website address in the cover letter.
Not getting or giving the needed paperwork could really slow down or reject your sponsorship application.
If they reject your application due to failing the sincerity test, the situation becomes a little more complicated.
If Home Office believes you tried but couldn’t meet the genuineness test, make a solid case explaining why that specific foreign worker is crucial for the role. In this case, there is no cooling-off time, and you can make a new application right away.
The Home Office can forbid an organisation from submitting another application for up to 5 years if they believe the organisation acted dishonestly, such as by sending in a document they don’t believe to be real or by presenting a role as being at the required skill level when it is actually at a lower level. This is called a “cooling-off period.”
If you think the Home Office is wrong about the facts of what they are saying, you could file an application to question the decision, along with reasons and proof of why they were wrong.
If you send fake or false papers, the Home Office may not accept your application. As a punishment, your company may have to wait a certain amount of time before you can renew their registration.
As part of the licence application process, background checks will be done on the key people you name to do your funding work. They must meet certain requirements for suitability. Past immigration violations or relevant criminal convictions of key employees or business owners could lead to licence denial by UKVI.
UKVI checks your site to ensure HR systems and hiring practices meet their job standards before granting a licence. If they find key employees aren’t reliable or can’t fulfil sponsor roles, they might reject the application.
If you discover a genuine error in how your application underwent processing, you can request a correction. For example, if they missed a piece of paperwork you sent in, you can do this. If this happens, you have to tell the Home Office about the mistake within 14 days of the refusal date.
The Home Office might reject the new application if the person who applied had a support licence in the past that authorities later revoked. Get help on how to apply for a new licence after taking legal action, as this will likely require a lot of planning and thought about how the company handles compliance and licences. Furthermore, individuals who previously received fines within the system for halting illegal work can anticipate an extended period to reconsider their decisions.
There are rules that say you have to meet certain conditions before you can apply for a sponsor licence. These conditions include being legal, suitable, and eligible. The validity standards cover the steps you need to take to make your application valid. For example, you need to send in the right supporting documents and pay the right application fee. The fit and licencing standards, on the other hand, deal with more important parts of the application.
UKVI assesses your suitability and eligibility by reviewing your HR systems and criminal background. Compliance with route-specific requirements is crucial, such as skill and pay criteria for skilled workers.
Receiving the news that your application for a sponsor licence has been denied because you do not qualify to sponsor workers through the specific route you applied for has a distinct impact. A rejection just means that your application isn’t valid because of mistakes in the process. For that reason, it’s still important to know why this is the case. That way, you can fix any mistakes when you reapply or avoid making them in the first place.
Several reasons might lead to the rejection of a sponsor licence application as illegal. These include not paying the right application fee, not sending the entry sheet to UKVI within the deadline, or not sending the right supporting documents. Also, you might not have checked to see if the Level 1 user you listed in your sponsor licence application is an employee, partner, or director of your company.
The cost of filing for a support licence depends on the type of licence you want. There are two types of licences: “worker” and “temporary worker.” You can apply for either one. You can also ask to add either one to a pass that you already have.
Employers who want to hire foreign workers for long-term positions in the UK can get a “worker” licence. This licence is for the skilled worker route or the senior or worker route under the Global Business Mobility (GBM) title. The “Temporary Worker” licence sponsors workers for shorter periods. It also considers the last four GBM routes as “temporary worker” routes for sponsor licencing fees.
Applying for a sponsor licence through one of the “Temporary Worker” routes costs £536. Applying for a licence through the “worker” route costs either £536 for small or charity sponsors or £1,476 for medium or large sponsors. The fees to apply for both types of licences at the same time will also depend on the type and size of your business, which could be £536 or £1,476. Small or nonprofit sponsors will not have to pay anything to add a “worker” licence to a current “temporary worker” licence. Medium or large sponsors, on the other hand, will have to pay £940 to do the same thing. Any size of backer, though, will not have to pay anything to add a “temporary worker” licence to a current “worker” licence.
As the applicant, it is your job to make sure you pay the right fee.
After you finish your online application and pay the needed fee, you will need to print out and fill out a submission sheet. Your company’s details, the main papers being sent, and the paid fee information need inclusion in this document. Your authorised officer must sign and date every page of the application sheet, and you must also sign and date a statement saying that you agree to do everything that comes with being a licenced sponsor. After printing it out, you will send it to UKVI’s Sponsor Licencing Unit along with your other paperwork within five working days.
You might get a warning if you don’t send in the application sheet within the first five working days.
You have 10 working days from the date you sent your internet application to send the necessary paperwork to UKVI. If you fail to do so, we will reject your application as invalid, even if we remind you multiple times. Similarly, we will decline your support licence application if the filing sheet lacks a signature or if someone other than the authorising officer has signed it.
When applying for a sponsor licence, the online form requires you to assign specific tasks to members of your staff. Some or all of these staff members will have access to the Sponsor Management System (SMS). The SMS is the online UKVI platform that you use to manage your daily tasks and sponsorship activities, as well as your responsibilities as a company that supports foreign workers.
The people you need to name as part of your licence application are your “key personnel.” They are an authorising officer, a key contact, and a Level 1 user. After obtaining a license, you can designate additional Level 1 and Level 2 users. The same individual can be the authorising officer and key contact, as long as they are paid staff or someone hired as an office-holder. A Level 1 or Level 2 user, on the other hand, can work for a third-party company that you have hired to do some or all of your human resources work. UKVI will not accept your application, though, if your company does not have at least one Level 1 user who is an employee, partner, or director.
When applying for a sponsor licence, you’ll need to assign specific tasks to members of your staff through the online form. Some or all of these staff members will have access to the Sponsor Management System (SMS). The SMS is the UKVI’s online platform for managing your daily tasks, sponsorship activities, and responsibilities as a company supporting foreign workers.
The people you need to name as part of your licence application are your “key personnel.” They are an authorising officer, a key contact, and a Level 1 user. After obtaining a license, you have the ability to designate additional Level 1 and Level 2 users. The authorising officer and key contact could be identical, yet they must either serve as paid staff or be someone you’ve hired as an office-holder. A Level 1 or Level 2 user, on the other hand, can work for a third-party company that you have hired to do some or all of your human resources work. UKVI will not accept your application, though, if your company does not have at least one Level 1 user who is an employee, partner, or director.
There is no way to challenge or get an administrative review if UKVI rejects your application for a sponsor licence.
Besides taking the choice and applying again, there are two other possible ways to question it.
The first way is to use an error correction request to challenge the failure of the licence application. You can request an error correction if a supervisor made the wrong choice or crucial supporting papers weren’t considered. You have 14 days from the decision date to make this request. Most applicants will hear back up to 28 days after sending in their application.
You can ask a judge to review the decision if you think the rejection of your support licence application broke the law, was unfair, or didn’t follow the rules.
If a court thinks that a public body’s decision was legal, they look at how they came to that conclusion instead of the decision itself. This is called a judicial review.
This means that even if there is a way for a judge to review a refusal decision, it might not be the best thing to do because the chances of success are low. For example, you would have to show the court that the decision was one that no reasonable person could have made.
Consulting an expert to determine if you can pursue a court review is advisable due to the complexity of this subject. It’s crucial to act swiftly because you must submit applications for court review within 3 months of the decision to refuse.
If a sponsor licence application is denied for being invalid, a firm may not be able to sponsor migrant workers in time for them to apply for a visa to start their new employment.
Fortunately, a rejection judgement just signifies that your application was procedurally incompatible. After a rejection, you may need to wait for a cooling-off period, but this does not mean you are ineligible for a sponsor licence. Importantly, UKVI will reject your application if you do not fulfil all eligibility and suitability requirements, and you may not be able to reapply for six months. If authorities refuse your application, you can identify the issue and reapply to prevent making the same mistake again.
Not giving the needed information or documents within 5 days, or not telling UKVI when you’ve sent more papers, might result in refusal, not just rejection, of your request.
Please note that applicants typically repay the application money, even in cases where an application is denied without further examination. Denial of applications incurs non-refundable application fees. While your cost is refundable and you can reapply quickly, it’s advisable to ensure procedural compliance from the beginning. Talk to an immigration consultant before submitting.
Appealing isn’t an option, and courts often find it challenging to overturn decisions. But if your denial was due to missed document deadlines or another person submitting your application, you might have a chance to reapply right away.
Confirm with UKVI for any cooling-off period before reapplying. It can range from 6 months to 5 years, often lasting 6-12 months. In some cases, it can last up to five years.
If your application was rejected due to hiring illegal workers, wait twelve months from the fine date before reapplying.
In certain more serious cases, you may be unable to obtain a new licence until five years have elapsed since the imposition of your penalty
When you reapply for a support licence, ensure that you include the reasons for the rejection of the initial application in the new one.
When applying for a support licence, identify key individuals responsible for its duties. These individuals must be honest, dependable, and trustworthy. There are also rules about who can be in charge of key staff jobs. For example, a level 1 user must work for the company or be a partner or director of the company.
Your company must demonstrate proper HR processes and hiring practices for sponsored tasks. Maintain accurate employee records and report any changes in a foreign worker’s status.
For a skilled worker visa, prove to UKVI that you can provide work matching the required skill level and appropriate pay.
After reapplying following a rejection, expect a compliance call from the Home Office once you submit the new application. Officials will check that you’ve set up the right systems, procedures, and policies to keep following licence rules. They will also verify that you have effectively addressed the initial grounds for refusal.
You could lose your sponsor licence even if your application is accepted. This could happen if you don’t follow through with your tasks as a supporter or if you create a threat to immigration officials in some other way.
You will first be given an A-rated support pass. After that, you can start giving CoS to foreigners who want to work for you. You’ll also be able to use the Sponsor Management System (SMS). You can use an online form to manage your visa and report specific actions, such as an employee not showing up for work.
You could lose your licence to a B-rating, though, if UKVI finds out you didn’t do what they said you would. To get your original A-rating back, you will have to pay for a funding action plan. Still, if the situation is really bad, UKVI may decide to cancel or take away your pass completely.
Remember, you must renew your support licence every four years, regardless of whether it’s lost or not.
A denied sponsor licence from UKVI can heavily impact your company, especially if you hire non-UK citizens. The process is taxing and expensive for companies, particularly when they’ve found a suitable candidate for the skilled worker visa.
A rejected or delayed application could mean losing a potential candidate and all the investment in your recruiting process thus far.
If you receive a denial from the home office, it’s crucial to know your other options well.
UK Immigration Solicitors who specialise in business immigration help with employers in the United Kingdom on all parts of the United Kingdom sponsor licence. This encompasses submitting the initial application, handling refusals, consistently maintaining the licence after receiving it, and applying for renewal every four years.
The Home Office compliance penalties, including suspensions and revocations, are another area in which we are able to provide assistance. Our compliance audit service helps you ensure that your company is always “match-ready” for any compliance visit from the home office.
Please get in touch with us if you have any inquiries or want assistance with the application for a sponsor licence.
