Skilled Worker Sponsor Licence Guidance: 2025 Updates
In This Article
1. Breaking Down the Latest Changes to Skilled Worker Sponsor Licence Guidance
2. Key Updates in the Guidance
3. Prohibition on Passing Licence and CoS Fees to Sponsored Workers
4. Compliance: Updated Grounds for Licence Revocation
5. Prohibition on Sponsoring Workers in a Personal Capacity
6. Clarifying Key Personnel Roles for Sponsor Licences
7. Changes to Government Authorised Exchange (GAE) Sponsorship
8. Additional Supporting Evidence for Care Worker Sponsors
9. What This Update Does NOT Do
10. Conclusions: Navigating the New Rules for Skilled Worker Sponsors in 2025
11. Contact Our Immigration Barristers
12. Frequently Asked Questions
13. Glossary
1. Breaking Down the Latest Changes to Skilled Worker Sponsor Licence Guidance
While Authorising Officers may have taken their eyes off the Skilled Worker licence guidance for a moment over new year, the Home Office updated its Guidance for Skilled Worker Sponsor licences with immediately effective changes.
The licence guidance is in three parts – Part 1: Apply for a Licence; Part 2: Sponsor a Worker and Part 3: Sponsor Duties and Compliance. Parts 1 and 3 were updated on 31 December 2024, and Part 2 on 01 January 2025.
Workers and Temporary Workers – guidance for sponsors part 1: apply for a licence, ushered in important changes that employers seeking to sponsor foreign workers must be aware of. This update, which replaced the October 2024 version, outlines key adjustments to the process of applying for and maintaining a sponsor licence for the Skilled Worker visa, as well as “clarification” of several existing requirements.
This article will provide an overview of these changes and what they mean for businesses looking to sponsor foreign workers. From changes to the prohibition on passing fees to sponsored workers to clarifications around the role of Key Personnel, we’ll break down the most significant updates to ensure that sponsors understand their obligations and how the new rules will impact their applications and compliance duties.
2. Key Updates in the Guidance
The December 2024 update introduces several critical changes, some of which align with recent government commitments, including a ban on passing certain costs to sponsored workers and restrictions on sponsoring workers in a personal capacity. Below, we’ll walk through the main points.
3. Prohibition on Passing Licence and CoS Fees to Sponsored Workers
One significant change concerns the prohibition on passing on the cost of the sponsor licence or the Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS) fee to workers. From 31 December 2024, sponsors are no longer allowed to charge or transfer the costs of the sponsor licence or CoS fees to the workers they sponsor. This includes any administrative costs related to the application.
This change follows the Written Ministerial Statement of 28 November 2024 of Seema Malhotra, and aims to ensure that workers are not financially burdened by the immigration sponsorship process. Previously, sponsors were allowed to recover some fees from workers, which meant, for some workers, that they were able to enable their role to exist in the UK if the business could not otherwise afford to sponsor them, but this practice will no longer be permissible.
For employers, this means that the financial responsibility for these fees rests entirely with the business, rather than being able to be shared with the sponsored employee. While this is understandable from an ‘abuse’ perspective where a migrant can be in a vulnerable position, there was also a potential positive for a migrant in some circumstances – if they really wanted to continue working for (for example) a start-up company which had other priorities and otherwise could not afford to prioritise sponsorship with the Immigration Skills Charge making it marginally more expensive to sponsor a migrant worker than a settled person, it meant that a migrant worker had potential negotiation points. No longer.
4. Compliance: Updated Grounds for Licence Revocation
In accordance with the above, Part 3 Guidance has also been updated: Annex C2: circumstances in which we will normally revoke your licence has been amended to include:
cc.
You assign a Certificate of Sponsorship to a Skilled Worker on or after 31 December 2024 and you have asked that worker to pay some or all of the charge for it, or you have recouped, or attempted to recoup, some or all of the charge for it from them.
dd.
You are licensed on the Skilled Worker route and you have asked a worker you are sponsoring to pay some or all of the sponsor licence fee (including the fee for adding the Skilled Worker route to an existing licence) and/or an associated administrative cost (including any premium services), or you have otherwise recouped, or attempted to recoup, by any means, some or all of the fee and/or cost from them – this applies where you recoup, or attempt to recoup, any such fee or cost on or after 31 December 2024.
These are now ‘normally’ grounds for revocation. This is potentially harsh where agreements had been made prior to 31 December 2024 and fees recouped in early January, rendering the company in breach of sponsor duties. However, this was announced in late November so is not a complete surprise. Also, Annex C2 does not contain mandatory grounds, though normally is ‘normally’ interpreted as a reason to revoke.
Part 2 now also reflects this new ground for revocation:
If you are Skilled Worker sponsor, and you assign a CoS to a Skilled Worker on or after 31 December 2024, you must not recoup, or attempt to recoup, by any means, any part of the CoS fee from a worker you are sponsoring. If you do we will normally revoke your sponsor licence. [sic]
5. Prohibition on Sponsoring Workers in a Personal Capacity
The updated guidance also introduces a clear prohibition on sponsoring workers in a personal capacity. This rule prohibits companies from using the Skilled Worker licence to sponsor employees for personal or domestic roles, such as nannies, caregivers, or housekeepers.
A personal capacity sponsor is someone who is acting outside of a business context
L1.7. We will not grant you a licence if you intend to sponsor workers in a personal capacity, such as in either of following circumstances:
- you are an individual person or household who wishes to employ or engage a worker, or workers, in a personal capacity and you are not otherwise conducting business or providing a service in the UK
- the worker, or workers, will be employed by, or engaged for the personal benefit of, an individual who works for your organisation, or a close relative or partner of that individual, and the role is unrelated to your organisation’s wider activities
L1.8. If you have, or are granted, a sponsor licence, you must not use your licence to sponsor workers in a personal capacity as defined above. If we find you have done this, we will normally revoke your licence. If you have previously been permitted to sponsor workers in a personal capacity, you must not assign any further Certificates of Sponsorship to sponsor workers on this basis.
This clarification aims to prevent the misuse of the system and ensures that the Skilled Worker licence is used solely for legitimate business and organisational needs.
This change reinforces the UK’s commitment to tackling exploitation and ensuring that immigration systems are not used to sponsor individuals into vulnerable or informal work arrangements.
Again, the Part 3 Guidance Annex C2 now contains:
ee.
You have assigned a Certificate of Sponsorship to sponsor a worker in a personal capacity, as defined in section L1 of Part 1: Apply for a licence.
This one is not time limited, so potentially for companies who have sponsored nannies or caregivers, etc., outside of a business context there may be problems on the horizon. Largely, this amendment makes sense as the route has never been designed to sponsor personal staff or carers, much as there may be a need for such services.
There is an exception for private servants in a diplomatic household.
6. Clarifying Key Personnel Roles for Sponsor Licences
The update clarifies that there must always be at least one Level 1 user who is an employee, partner or director, and clarifies the roles legal representatives can fill – Key Contact / Additional Level 1 user / Level 2 user, and that overseas representatives are ineligible.
7. Changes to Government Authorised Exchange (GAE) Sponsorship
Sponsors that are part of the Government Authorised Exchange (GAE) programme are no longer able to appoint individuals from host employers to act as SMS users because third party employees can only act within the limits of additional Level 1 users as set out in L4.49-L4.51. This won’t be relevant for most sponsors to worry about.
8. Additional Supporting Evidence for Care Worker Sponsors
One of the minor updates is the worked example for additional supporting evidence for organisations applying for a Skilled Worker licence to sponsor care workers or senior care workers with multiple branches – each of the branches must provide CQC status checks in addition to the main office. This is not particularly onerous and should have already been provided in licence applications.
If you are an employer in the care sector, it is important to be aware of all regulatory and compliance aspects in particular – this sector has generated a lot of licence case law due to revocation challenges and sound practice from day one is far better than struggling once a compliance matter is raised.
9. What This Update Does NOT Do
The updated Guidance does not prohibit so-called “self-sponsorship”.
The Home Office has been refusing and delaying many “self-sponsor” licence applications, as well as applications of start-up companies on grounds of genuineness / lack of knowledge of right to work checks / pension requirements, etc. However, there is nothing in the current Guidance meaning that a pre-revenue two Director start-up with no-one yet on payroll is to be treated any differently from an established business with hundreds of employees. So long as there is a genuine role needing sponsorship and a sensible financial plan so that the company can afford to pay its worker and operate, both the tiny start-up and established business should be able to succeed in sponsoring their required Skilled Worker.
These updates also do not extend the cooling-off periods following revocation which are still (mostly) published as 12 months, and the “action plan” timeframe is still published as maximum 3 months. As referred to in our article Sponsor Licence Compliance: Home Office Announces Tougher Measures For Employers – these timeframes are likely to change.
10. Conclusions: Navigating the New Rules for Skilled Worker Sponsors in 2025
The December 2024 update to the Skilled Worker Guidance introduces a range of important changes designed to ensure fairness, transparency, and compliance in the sponsorship process and introduces several further grounds for revocation.
By prohibiting the passing of costs to sponsored workers, restricting personal sponsorships, and clarifying the responsibilities of Key Personnel, the Home Office is trying to address practical and ethical concerns surrounding the Skilled Worker visa route. The restrictions and new grounds for revocation are not necessarily helpful in an economy in need of workers, but make sense in the current political climate.
Employers must adapt to these changes by reviewing their internal processes and revising as needed to ensure they fully understand and comply with the updated guidance. As always, compliance with sponsor licence requirements must be managed from the licence application preparation stage and throughout the lifetime of the licence so that businesses can sponsor the workers they need.
These are highly unlikely to be the only changes to Guidance we see in 2025.
11. Contact Our Immigration Barristers
For expert advice and assistance in relation to Skilled Worker Sponsor Licences, or other immigration matters, contact our immigration barristers in London on 0203 617 9173 or via the enquiry form below.
