How to keep your sponsor licence: downgrades, suspension and revocation

Sponsor duties are administrative. The Home Office does not have to show that you meant to breach them, only that you did, so the licence is usually protected by dull systems rather than by advice. These are the duties that cost sponsors their licence, and what the Home Office can do when one is missed.

The reports, and the clock on each

Reports are made on the Sponsorship Management System. Two deadlines cover almost everything.

Within 10 working days — events about the worker:

• A sponsored worker who does not start the role within 28 days of the start date on their Certificate of Sponsorship.
• Unauthorised absence of more than 10 consecutive working days.
• Absence without pay, or on reduced pay, of more than four weeks in a year.
• A reduction in salary below the figure recorded on the Certificate of Sponsorship.
• A significant change to the job, including a promotion within the same occupation code.
• A change of work location, including a new branch or a move to permanent home working.
• Stopping sponsorship of a worker, for any reason.

Within 20 working days — events about your organisation:

• A change of address, structure or branches.
• A change to any of the Key Personnel — Authorising Officer, Key Contact or Level 1 User.
• A change to a registration or accreditation your sector requires.
• Stopping trading, or entering insolvency.
• A merger, takeover or similar change of ownership.
• A relevant criminal conviction.
• A change in your organisation's size or charitable status.

Two reports have no fixed window and must go in as soon as reasonably practicable: a suspicion that a worker is breaching the conditions of their stay, and any information suggesting a worker is involved in terrorism or criminal activity.

The records that get asked for

Appendix D of the sponsor guidance sets out the file you must hold for every sponsored worker: right to work evidence dated before their first day, current contact details and address, absence records, the job description and salary that match the Certificate of Sponsorship, and the recruitment record for the role. Paper or electronic is equally acceptable. "The person who kept that has left" is not an answer a compliance officer can record.

A B-rating is not a warning letter

Where a breach is relatively minor, the licence is downgraded to a B-rating. From that moment you cannot assign a Certificate of Sponsorship to any new worker. To get back to an A-rating you must sign an action plan, pay the action plan fee, and complete the steps in it within a fixed three-month period. Failing the plan means revocation.

You can be downgraded twice in any rolling four-year period. A third breach in that window means the licence goes.

Suspension and revocation

Where the Home Office considers a breach serious or systematic, it can suspend the licence while it investigates, with a view to revoking, or revoke it outright. During a suspension you cannot assign any Certificate of Sponsorship, although workers you already sponsor keep their permission for the time being.

On revocation you come off the public register of sponsors, you cannot sponsor anyone, and the permission of the workers you sponsor is normally cancelled — leaving them a short period, usually 60 days, to find another sponsor or leave the UK.

There is no right of appeal against revocation. Your real opportunity is the written response to the suspension letter, which is why the file matters more than the argument. After revocation you cannot apply again for at least 12 months, and at least 24 months in some circumstances.

What actually keeps a licence

• One named person owns the SMS account, with a second Level 1 User as cover and multi-factor authentication on a business device.
• Every follow-up right to work check and every Certificate of Sponsorship end date sits in a shared diary.
• A written report log: what was reported, when, by whom, and the SMS reference it generated.
• A file review each quarter against Appendix D — a sample of five workers tells you whether the system works.
• A mock audit before the Home Office does one, with the findings written down and dated.

None of that is legal work. It is a rota, a diary and a folder, and it is the difference between a compliance visit that ends in a note on file and one that ends in an action plan.