You should apply for a sponsor licence if you think you will need to employ a foreign national who is not a settled worker, or otherwise does not have immigration permission to work for you in the UK. This includes EU, EEA and Swiss nationals who arrived in the UK after 31 December 2020.
You will not need a licence to sponsor certain groups, including:
For detailed guidance on who does, and does not, need sponsorship, see Part 2 of the sponsor guidance.
Register online by giving us your name and email address.
Once you have registered, your user ID will be displayed, which you must make a note of as you will need it to log in to the system and this is the only time we will give it to you. We will send you a password separately by email which you will also need to log into the system. (If you do not make a note of your user ID and forget it, you will not be able to log back in to view an application that you were working on. You would need to register again and re-enter your details).
If you have already registered to apply for your licence, you can use your user ID and password that were provided to log in above.
Information about using this website
The Home Office reserves the right to gather information relating to site usage. Any information gathered is primarily for internal use to allow us to refine and improve our customer service. Where information will be disclosed to a third party, we will, where possible, ensure that this is clearly indicated. This does not affect your statutory rights
Payments made through the site are handled by WorldPay, which receives a reference number unique to your application from the Home Office.
In addition, this site uses an online measuring package called ComScore, which uses cookies to identify repeat visits. Cookies are pieces of data created when you visit a site and contain a unique, anonymous number. They are stored in the cookie directory of your hard drive and do not expire at the end of your session. Cookies used by the Home Office contain no personal information about the user, nor does our website elicit or store any information from users other than the Internet Protocol address of the computer used to access the site. Cookies may be turned off without affecting how our Home Office pages are displayed. Cookies must be enabled to use the online sponsor application.
How we use information you give us - applicants and sponsors
Information provided by an applicant or their sponsor in support of an application for entry clearance or leave to remain will be processed by the Home Office in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulations (UK GDPR) and our Personal Information Charter specifically the Borders, Immigration and Citizenship Privacy Information Notice (BISC PIN). This includes information provided by and about the applicant and any person sponsoring their application.
The Home Office is the data controller in relation to the information provided in an application form. All information, including biometric data, will be treated in confidence, but it may be disclosed to other government departments, agencies, local authorities, foreign governments and other bodies, to enable the Home Office or those bodies to perform their functions, including to check the accuracy of the information provided and to prevent and detect crime.
Any disclosures will be in accordance with UK GDPR. Information provided by the applicant or their sponsor may also be used for staff training purposes and may in certain circumstances be passed to fraud prevention agencies to prevent and detect fraud and money laundering.