What you actually pay
The Worker sponsor licence costs £611 for a small or charitable sponsor and £1,682 for a medium or large one. That is the entry fee, and it is paid once.
Each certificate of sponsorship for a Skilled Worker costs £525. On the temporary worker routes it is £55. The certificate is per person, so this is the number that scales with hiring.
Then there is the immigration skills charge, which is the one that surprises people: £480 for the first twelve months for a small or charitable sponsor, £1,320 for a medium or large one, plus £240 or £660 for each additional six months. Sponsoring one person on a five-year visa as a large employer is £1,320 plus eight further blocks.
Some roles are exempt from the skills charge, including a list of scientific and higher education occupations, as are workers switching from a study visa and the worker's dependants. The GOV.UK page on the immigration skills charge carries the current list.
Sponsored workers on sites, not at a desk?
Sponsor duties are reporting duties, and reporting duties are data problems. RevoHR keeps each person's documents, permission expiry, training and attendance on one profile, warns before something lapses, and exports in the format an auditor asks for. Staffing firms run several client workforces from one interface with the records kept separate.
30 minutes, with a person.
Four roles, and the constraints most people miss
A licence is not held by a company in the abstract. It is held by named people, and the Home Office checks them.
Authorising officer
A senior and competent person responsible for the actions of everyone who uses the sponsorship management system. Must be based in the UK most of the time, and cannot be a contractor brought in for a specific project. Subject to suitability checks, including criminal convictions and any previous licence revocation.
Key contact
Your main point of contact with UK Visas and Immigration. Same eligibility as the authorising officer, and this one may also be a UK-based legal representative qualified to give immigration advice.
Level 1 user
Runs the licence day to day in the SMS. Must be an employee, partner, director or settled worker, and at least one level 1 user has to meet the settled worker criteria. HR contractors and staff from a third-party HR provider can hold it.
Level 2 user
Optional, appointed after the licence is granted, with narrower permissions — a level 2 user cannot withdraw a certificate of sponsorship. Temporary agency staff can hold this role.
The practical consequence is that when your authorising officer leaves, that is a licence problem, not only an HR one. The full requirements are on the GOV.UK sponsorship pages for employers.
The licence lasts as long as you keep meeting the conditions
A Worker licence usually stays valid for as long as you continue to meet the eligibility requirements. Scale-up Worker and UK Expansion Worker licences are different: they are valid for four years.
There is no renewal date to diarise on the main routes, which sounds like good news and is the opposite. Nothing forces an annual review, so the first time anyone looks closely at your records is often a compliance visit. You can lose the licence if you do not meet your responsibilities as a sponsor.
A sponsor licence is not a substitute for right to work checks
Sponsorship and right to work are separate duties, and holding a licence does not discharge the second one. You still carry out a check before the person starts, you still repeat it before a time-limited permission expires, and you still keep the records for two years after they leave.
From 1 October 2026 that check duty also reaches people engaged under a worker's contract, individual subcontractors and those found through an online matching service. We set out what that means, and the penalties, on the right to work checks page.
Sponsor licence: common questions
- How much does a sponsor licence cost?
- £611 for a small or charitable sponsor and £1,682 for a medium or large sponsor on the Worker route. Each certificate of sponsorship for a Skilled Worker is a further £525, and £55 on the temporary worker routes.
- What is the immigration skills charge?
- £480 for the first twelve months for a small or charitable sponsor and £1,320 for a medium or large one, plus £240 or £660 for each additional six months. Certain scientific and higher education roles are exempt, as are workers switching from a study visa and the worker's dependants.
- How long is a sponsor licence valid?
- A Worker licence usually stays valid for as long as you continue to meet the eligibility requirements. Scale-up Worker and UK Expansion Worker licences are valid for four years.
- Does a sponsor licence replace right to work checks?
- No. They are separate duties. You still carry out the check before the person starts, repeat it before a time-limited permission expires, and keep the records for two years after the engagement ends.