Sponsoring a worker from overseas: what you take on

Most small employers arrive at sponsorship the same way: a vacancy that has been open for months, a strong candidate who turns out to need a visa, and a dawning realisation that the answer is neither a quick yes nor a simple no. Sponsorship is available to firms of any size. It is also a licensing regime, which means the Home Office is not so much granting you access to a labour market as making you responsible for policing part of the immigration system on its behalf.

That is not a reason to avoid it. Plenty of small firms sponsor workers successfully. It is a reason to go in understanding the three things that catch people out: the skill threshold, the money, and the duties that continue for years after the person starts.

First, is the role even eligible?

This is where most small employers stop, and it is worth checking before you spend anything.

Since 22 July 2025, new Skilled Worker applications generally require the job to be at RQF Level 6 or above — graduate level. Roles below that are no longer eligible on the main route, which removed a large number of occupations that had been sponsorable for years. If your vacancy is for a skilled but non-graduate-level role, the general route is closed to it.

The exception is the Temporary Shortage List, which gives time-limited access to selected occupations below RQF 6, covering sectors including construction, engineering, IT support and automotive. Roles on that list can still be sponsored, at a lower salary floor of £25,000 rather than the general threshold, subject to the going rate for the specific occupation code. The current list runs until 31 December 2026 unless it is amended before then, which makes it a poor foundation for a long-term workforce plan.

Then the salary test. The general minimum for Skilled Worker sponsorship is £41,700 a year and at least £17.13 an hour, or the published median going rate for the occupation code — whichever of those is higher. Both parts matter. A salary that clears £41,700 on paper can still fail the hourly test if the contracted hours are high, and clearing both general figures is irrelevant if the going rate for that occupation is above them.

The money, and who is allowed to pay it

Sponsorship costs split into employer costs and applicant costs, and the split is not a matter of agreement between you.

From 8 April 2026, the sponsor licence fee is £611 for a small or charitable sponsor and £1,682 for a medium or large one. You qualify as small by meeting two of three tests: turnover of £15 million or less, total assets of £7.5 million or less, or 50 employees or fewer. Most readers of this site are comfortably small sponsors. Since April 2024 the licence lasts ten years with no renewal fee, which changes the economics considerably — the licence is close to a one-off cost.

Assigning a Certificate of Sponsorship costs £525, and this one is per hire, every time, including when a certificate has to be reissued. Employers are prohibited from recovering the Certificate of Sponsorship fee from the sponsored worker. Any arrangement that has the worker fund it, directly or by deduction, is a licence problem.

The Immigration Skills Charge rose by 32% on 16 December 2025 and now stands at £480 per year of sponsorship for a small sponsor, against £1,320 for a large one. It is paid upfront in full when the Certificate of Sponsorship is assigned, not spread across the visa. That detail is what turns a manageable annual figure into a lump sum at the worst moment.

The applicant pays their own visa application fee and the Immigration Health Surcharge, though many employers choose to cover some or all of it as part of the package.

A three-year sponsored hire is not a £525 decision. Add the licence, the certificate and three years of skills charge paid on day one, and the employer side alone runs to four figures before the salary.

A worked example

Illustrative figures for a firm sponsoring its first worker on a three-year certificate, as a small sponsor.

Sponsor licence, £611, paid once and good for ten years. Certificate of Sponsorship, £525. Immigration Skills Charge at £480 a year for three years, £1,440, all payable when the certificate is assigned. That is £2,576 of employer cost, of which £1,965 falls in the first few weeks and £1,440 of it as a single upfront payment.

Add the applicant's own visa fee and health surcharge, and a single three-year hire commonly lands somewhere between £6,500 and £10,000 across both parties. Add legal fees if you use an immigration solicitor for the licence application, which for a first-time sponsor is usually money well spent.

Set against a salary floor of £41,700, the sponsorship overhead is real but not the main number. The main number is what happens if the hire does not work out — you have paid the skills charge for three years upfront, and there is no refund for the time not used unless the sponsorship ends early in defined circumstances. That makes the cost of a bad sponsored hire materially worse than the cost of an ordinary bad hire, and the recruitment process correspondingly more worth doing properly.

The duties nobody reads until the audit

The licence is the start, not the finish. Sponsor duties are continuing obligations, and the Home Office enforces them through compliance visits that can be unannounced.

You must keep specified documents for each sponsored worker, including right-to-work evidence, contact details, and the recruitment records that show why the role was filled the way it was. You must report defined changes through the Sponsorship Management System within set deadlines — a change of job, a change of salary, a change of work location, an employee who stops turning up. You must have HR systems capable of monitoring attendance and immigration status, and be able to demonstrate them on request.

The people named on your licence matter too. Every sponsor needs an Authorising Officer, a Key Contact and at least one Level 1 User, and if those people leave your business without being replaced on the system, the licence is exposed.

Get this wrong and the sanctions ladder runs from a downgrade to a B-rating with a mandatory action plan, through suspension, to revocation. Revocation curtails the visas of everyone you sponsor, which means losing the employee you spent the money on and any others alongside them.

The unglamorous foundation under all of it is the right-to-work check, done properly and on time for every employee rather than only the sponsored ones — the check is quick and the penalty for skipping it is not.

When it is worth it

Sponsorship makes sense when the role is genuinely hard to fill from the domestic market, the salary is well above the threshold anyway, and you expect the person to be with you for years rather than months. It makes much less sense as a way of filling a role you could fill locally with better pay or a wider search, and the ten-year licence is not much use if you sponsor one person and never do it again.

The practical sequence is: confirm the occupation code and its going rate, confirm the role is at RQF 6 or on the Temporary Shortage List, price the whole thing including the upfront skills charge, then apply for the licence — and only then make an offer. Offering the job first and discovering the role is ineligible afterwards is the most common and most avoidable version of this going wrong. Running a fair, documented recruitment process before any of it gives you the records the Home Office will later want to see.

Common questions

How much does it cost a small employer to sponsor a skilled worker?

From 8 April 2026 the sponsor licence fee is £611 for a small or charitable sponsor, lasting ten years with no renewal fee. Assigning a Certificate of Sponsorship costs £525 per hire. The Immigration Skills Charge is £480 for each year of sponsorship for a small sponsor and is paid in full upfront when the certificate is assigned, so a three-year hire means £1,440 payable immediately. That is roughly £2,576 of employer cost for a first three-year sponsored hire. Adding the applicant's visa fee and Immigration Health Surcharge, a single three-year hire commonly totals between £6,500 and £10,000 across employer and worker.

Can I ask the employee to pay the sponsorship costs?

Not for all of them. Employers are prohibited from recovering the Certificate of Sponsorship fee from the sponsored worker, and passing on the Immigration Skills Charge is also not permitted. Attempting to recover either, whether by direct payment, salary deduction or a clawback clause, is a compliance breach that puts the licence at risk. The applicant does pay their own visa application fee and Immigration Health Surcharge, and there is nothing preventing an employer from choosing to cover those as part of the package. Where a repayment clause is used for costs you are allowed to pass on, it must be properly drafted and genuinely reflect the cost incurred.

What counts as a small sponsor for the licence fee?

You qualify as a small sponsor by meeting two of three tests: annual turnover of £15 million or less, total assets of £7.5 million or less, or 50 employees or fewer. Charities also pay the small sponsor rate regardless of size. Meeting the small sponsor definition matters in two places: the licence fee is £611 rather than £1,682, and the Immigration Skills Charge is £480 per sponsored year rather than £1,320. On a three-year hire that difference alone is £2,520. If your business grows past the thresholds you move to the larger rates for future certificates, so it is worth confirming your status before assigning one.

What are a sponsor's ongoing duties after the worker starts?

Sponsorship creates continuing obligations rather than a one-off approval. You must keep specified documents for each sponsored worker, including right-to-work evidence, current contact details and recruitment records. You must report defined changes through the Sponsorship Management System within set deadlines, covering things such as a change of role, salary, work location, or a worker who stops attending. You must maintain HR systems capable of monitoring attendance and immigration status and be able to demonstrate them during a compliance visit, which can be unannounced. Failures move you down a sanctions ladder from a B-rating with an action plan, through suspension, to revocation, which curtails the visas of everyone you sponsor.