Contents

1. Changes to sponsorship guidance for employers
2. Future changes anticipated in 2025 for sponsorship
3. A date for your diary!

Changes to sponsorship guidance for employers

The recent weeks have seen a few key changes to the sponsorship guidance that impact employers who sponsor workers for skilled worker and other sponsorship visas.

Payment of Immigration Costs

With many employers sharing the load of increased immigration costs with employees, the Home Office has tightened the rules on what sponsorship costs an employer must cover. New guidance issued late last year has confirmed that for any certificate of sponsorship assigned on or after 31 December 2024, an employer must not ask a worker to pay for the cost of assigning the certificate of sponsorship or seek to recoup this cost from them at a later date.

This fee is currently set at £239 for the skilled worker visa. It has been accepted for some time that this is a cost an employer should cover and this new guidance now confirms this position.

An employer must also not ask a worker to pay some or all of the costs of obtaining a sponsor licence, the fee for adding a branch to a licence or any administration costs associated with the licence.

We understand that this includes payments to expedite a licence application or a certificate of sponsorship allocation request. An employer can still agree with a worker that they will cover the fees associated with the sponsorship visa, including the application fee, immigration health surcharge fee, priority fees and legal fees for instance. The employer must continue to cover the immigration skills charge.

Employers who have immigration policies covering the payment of immigration costs or have claw back clauses in contracts which seek to recover some of these costs if an employee was to leave their job early, should review and amend them accordingly.

Changes to the priority service for sponsorship

In November 2024, the Home Office announced changes to the pre-licence application priority service for sponsor licence applications. There is now no limit on number of priority slots that are available per day meaning obtaining priority service for a sponsor licence application is much more straightforward.

There were also changes announced to the post licence change of circumstance priority service (for increases to CoS allocation, adding users to licence etc). The service is now open 7am to 5pm Monday to Friday and 100 priority service requests will be accepted each day, a substantial increase on capacity levels.

The Guidance also makes clear that when making a request you should include the organisation name, sponsor licence number and type of priority request in the subject matter of the email.

Future changes anticipated in 2025 for sponsorship

Immigration and controlling the number of people who relocate to the UK for work is likely to remain high on the government’s agenda in 2025. At the end of 2024, following news reports that net migration to the UK was higher than an initially thought (reaching a peak of 906,000 in 2023), the Labour government reasserted its intention to reduce the dependence of the UK’s labour market on foreign workers.

As such we are anticipating a Government white paper imminently which should set out further reforms of the sponsorship visa route. The expectation is that this will include the following;

• Rules which will require employers who use the sponsorship system to help train resident workers.
• A crack down on rogue employers including bans on hiring overseas workers.
• Increasing the cooling off period for employers who lose their sponsor licence to prevent them applying for a new licence for two years instead of the current limit of 12 months.
• Strengthening the ability of the Home Office to downgrade a sponsor licence where a sponsor fails to meet their sponsorship duties. Sponsors who are put on action plans will have to remain on them for 12 months rather than the current 3 months.

Last year saw a significant increase in compliance action by the Home Office. They carried out 6,600 visits between January and October 2024, a 22% increase on year before. In the third quarter of 2024, the Home Office suspended 509 licences and revoked 513, up from 91 licences suspended and 65 revoked in 2023. We expect this pattern to continue into 2025. Employers should ensure they are up to speed on their sponsorship duties and compliance obligations so they are ready in case the Home Office pays a visit.

Digitalisation of the immigration system

The Home Office’s journey to creating a digital immigration status will continue in 2025. Late last year it was announced that the deadline for biometric residence permit holders to obtain an eVisa has been pushed back. BRP card holders will continue to be able to use their expired BRP cards to travel into the UK until the end of March 2025 and expired BRP cards can still be used to set up a UKVI account for a visa application. BRP card holders should therefore hang onto their cards for the time being but employees should still be encouraged to obtain an eVisa if they have not done so already.

We are likely to see further developments in this area as the months progress and this deadline could be extended again.

Roll out of Electronic Travel Authorisation Scheme (ETA)

The UK’s ETA is an entry requirement for visitors from certain countries to pre-authorise travel to the UK. It forms part of the UK's new digital immigration policy aimed at strengthening border security and improving travel efficiency.

The ETA applies to those travellers from non-visa national countries who currently do not need to apply for a visit visa before they travel to the UK.

From 8 January 2025 all travellers coming to the UK from beyond the EU will require an ETA. This will be extended to countries within the EU from 2 April 2025.

Ukraine Permission Extension Scheme

As nearly 3 years has elapsed since the war in the Ukraine began, the Home Office have set up a new scheme to enable Ukrainians who came to the UK under one of the humanitarian visa schemes to extend their visa by a further 18 months under the new Ukraine Permission Extension Scheme. This will open for applications on 4 February 2025.

The Home Office has stated that this route will not provide an option for applying for settlement and time spent on this route will not count towards the 10 year route for settlement. Therefore if you have employees who have status on this route but you/they would like them to remain long term, considerations should be given to switching their status into another visa route which leads to settlement such as the skilled worker route.

A date for your diary!

We will be holding a unique training event on 18 March 2025. This will be half day course (held online on Teams) aimed at Health and Care employers going through the immigration issues that pertain to this sector. The agenda includes;

• A review of different types of work based visas.
• In-depth exploration of skilled worker sponsorship and the Health and Care Worker visa.
• Rules surrounding the sponsorship of nurses and care workers.
• Mastering sponsor licence management and staying on top of your compliance duties.
• Navigating TUPE transfers in the immigration context.
• Preparing for a Home Office visit – what you need to know.
• Handling Right to Work checks and dealing with tricky scenarios including visa extensions.
• Managing illegal working cases and avoiding civil penalties.
• Understanding UK visitor rules for medical staff, including clinical attachments and eminent doctor visits.

The session will be interactive and full of case studies and each attendees will receive a comprehensive handbook packed with templates and practical guides to support their day-to-day immigration work long after the course ends.

The costs for the course will be £445+VAT per person or a reduced rate of £395+VAT for two or more participants from the same organisation.

If you are interested or would like to know more about the course please contact Joanna Hunt. If you are not a Health or Care employer but are interested in immigration training for you and your team please also get in touch.