Immigration Matters - UKVI crackdown on Sponsor Licence compliance

* employers are not permitted to recover from migrant workers any costs associated with applying for the Sponsor Licence, the Certificate of Sponsorship fee, the Immigration Skills Charge or any other associated administrative costs incurred by the employer.

How are employers being checked?

UKVI officers can turn up at the sponsor’s premises at very short notice or even completely unannounced to conduce a Sponsor Compliance Audit visit. This involves speaking to the Authorising Officer or Key Contact on the Sponsor licence, as well as the migrant workers themselves, and inspecting documents, and records, both physical and on the Sponsor Management System. This includes:

1. Passports and Certificates of Sponsorship
2. Contracts of Employment, Payslips, Bank Statements, Timesheets and Attendance Records
3. Records of any changes in circumstances (job role, salary, address, workplace)

Officers may also check that the sponsored workers are actually on the premises and performing the work for which they are being sponsored. They will conduct interviews with key personnel to ensure that they understand their sponsor duties and have appropriate systems in place to track any changes in migrant workers’ circumstances. They may also speak to the sponsored workers themselves (without management present to prompt them) in order to ascertain:

1. when they commenced working for the sponsor;
2. what work they are performing;
3. how much they are being paid; and
4. whether they have been made to pay any costs to the employer or required to sign a clawback agreement

Additionally, UKVI also uses data and intelligence gleaned from sources such as HMRC and Companies House to check compliance.

What are the implications?

Failing a compliance check can lead to a Sponsor Licence being suspended or revoked. Where a Licence is suspended, the Sponsor is unable to take on any new migrant workers. Where a Licence is revoked, any existing sponsored workers will have their sponsorship curtailed with a corresponding loss of Right to Work in the UK and Right to Remain. In the period July 2024 to June 2025, UKVI revoked 1,948 Sponsor Licences; this is more than twice the number which were revoked in the previous year twelve-month period (937).

In addition, UKVI can impose civil penalties on an organisation and there may even be criminal sanctions in severe cases. As well as the inability to recruit overseas workers which can cause disruption to the business, this can obviously also result in reputational damage to the organisation.

What should employers do?

Obtaining a sponsor licence is the beginning not the end of your immigration journey as an employer. Sponsors have a number of duties with which they are required to comply.  Increased enforcement and record numbers of revocations mean that there are risks to employers for non-compliance, and Sponsors should therefore not be complacent.

Those in high risk sectors need to be particularly vigilant as UKVI appears to be targeting these sectors more heavily; however, employers in other sectors should not assume that they are safe from audit visits.  Remember also that with the increased use of intelligence‑led investigations, simply not receiving a compliance visit doesn’t mean that a sponsoring organisation is “safe”.