By Georgina Griggs – Immigration Barrister
At current, Sponsor Licences are legitimate for 4 years. If licence holders want to maintain their licence past the 4 years, they have to make a paid renewal application. Renewal functions may be made inside 90 days of the date of the licence’s expiry and functions will price the identical as an preliminary software (£536 for small / charitable sponsors and £1,476 for giant sponsors).
As there may be an expiry date, it’s important that licence holders be certain that they pay attention to the licence expiry date. A failure to resume the licence in time will outcome within the licence lapsing and any sponsored employees’ permission being cancelled, which could possibly be catastrophic to enterprise operations and to the migrants on a private stage.
Licence expiry dates may be seen on the Sponsorship Management System (SMS), on the licence abstract web page.
Sponsor Licence Renewal: What Is Altering?
The Residence Workplace has lately introduced that from 06 April 2024, the requirement to resume Sponsor Licences can be eliminated. Helpfully, that is being utilized to all sponsor licences which can be resulting from expire on or after 06 April 2024, and never solely to new licences obtained after this date. In case your licence is because of expire on or after 06 April 2024, then you’ll now not need to make a renewal software or pay the renewal payment, because the licence expiry date will robotically be prolonged to run out in 10 years’ time. No motion is required by the Sponsor to do that.
Concerns for Employers
This can be a welcome change as it should keep away from licence holders inadvertently letting their licence lapse, in the event that they did not make their renewal software in time. It is usually a welcome change as sponsor licence holders will now not need to pay to maintain their licence.
Sponsors ought to, nonetheless, bear in mind that the Residence Workplace is constant to conduct compliance audits on an introduced and unannounced foundation. Sponsors ought to subsequently proceed to make sure that their report maintaining and HR methods are updated to make sure that they’re complying with the licence duties, in case of an audit.
Contact our Immigration Barristers
For skilled recommendation and help in relation to managing a sponsor licence, together with mock compliance audits, please contact our immigration barristers in London on 0203 617 9173 or by way of the enquiry type under.
