Would you be granted a licence today?
UKVI is satisfying itself of four things. This page sets out each of them, what actually evidences it, and what goes wrong most often.
There is no scoring system and no pass mark. A caseworker reads your file and decides whether they are satisfied on four separate questions. All four have to land, and an application that is strong on three and silent on the fourth is refused — usually with a cooling-off period attached.
You are a genuine organisation, operating lawfully in the UK
The business has to exist, trade, and be based here. A dormant company, a shell set up for the application, or an entity whose registered details do not match the paperwork will not get through.
Companies House registration, or the equivalent for a partnership, sole trader or charity
A business bank account with a UK regulated institution
Evidence of trading: contracts, invoices, filed accounts, a lease or licence for your premises
Sector registration where the law requires it — CQC, Ofsted, FCA, a gambling or alcohol licence
You are honest, dependable and reliable
This is the suitability test, and it looks at the people behind the business as much as the business itself. Unspent convictions for relevant offences, a previously revoked licence, or unpaid civil penalties will all count against you.
No unspent convictions for immigration, fraud or money laundering offences among key personnel
No licence revoked in the last 12 months
No outstanding civil penalty for employing someone illegally
A history of meeting your duties, if you have sponsored before
You can carry out your sponsor duties
UKVI needs to see that HR processes exist before you sponsor anyone, not that you intend to build them afterwards. This is where most first applications are weakest, and it is the easiest thing to fix in advance.
Right to work check process, applied to the whole workforce
A system that records attendance and absence, and flags unexplained absence
Somewhere contact details and immigration documents are kept and kept current
Named people who understand the reporting deadlines and have access to the system
The job itself is suitable for sponsorship
A licence is granted against real vacancies. The role must sit at the required skill level, meet the salary rules for its occupation code, and be a genuine vacancy rather than one written around a particular person.
An occupation code that genuinely matches the duties
A salary meeting both the general threshold and the going rate for that code
A job description that would make sense to someone outside your business
A vacancy that exists because there is work to do, not because someone needs a visa
Are you a small sponsor or a large one?
It is worth settling early, because it roughly triples several of the figures you will budget for. You count as a small sponsor if you meet at least two of these three:
Annual turnover of £10.2 million or less
Total assets of £5.1 million or less
50 employees or fewer
Registered charities count as small sponsors regardless of their size. If you sit close to a threshold, the test is applied at the point you apply — and moving above it later changes what you pay for subsequent hires.
The six most common reasons applications fail
None of these are close calls. Each one is something that could have been found and fixed before the application was filed, which is the entire argument for a readiness review rather than a fast submission.
An entity that cannot evidence genuine trading — no contracts, no bank activity, no filed accounts.
An Authorising Officer who is not senior enough, or who is an external adviser rather than an employee.
HR systems described in the application that do not exist when a visiting officer asks to see them.
A role placed in an occupation code that does not match the actual duties, usually to reach a lower salary threshold.
A vacancy written around a specific individual rather than a genuine business need.
Sector registration missing or held by a different legal entity to the one applying.
A refusal is not just the lost fee. Most suitability refusals carry a cooling-off period — commonly 12 months — during which you cannot apply again at all. For a business that needs to hire this quarter, that is the real cost.
Get a straight answer before you file
Send us the entity and the role. We will tell you which of the four tests you would currently fail, and what it would take to pass it.