UK Sponsor Licence Fees and Skilled Worker Visa Costs (2026)

Summary:

• Before you can hire most non-UK/Irish workers you need a Worker sponsor licence: £611 for small and charitable sponsors, £1,682 for medium and large ones. The licence lasts 10 years — renewals were abolished in April 2024.
• The costs you cannot pass to the worker are the £525 Certificate of Sponsorship and the Immigration Skills Charge (£480 a year small, £1,320 a year large).
• The worker pays the visa fee (£819 for up to 3 years from overseas, £1,618 for longer) and the £1,035 a year Immigration Health Surcharge.
• Since 22 July 2025 the general salary threshold is £41,700 (or the going rate, whichever is higher) and the role must be RQF 6, degree level.
• All in, sponsoring one worker from overseas for three years runs to roughly £6,500, of which about £2,000 is mandatory employer-only cost.

Quick answer: A UK sponsor licence costs £611 for a small or charitable sponsor and £1,682 for a medium or large sponsor, and is valid for 10 years. For each hire the employer then pays a £525 Certificate of Sponsorship and the Immigration Skills Charge — £480 per year for small sponsors, £1,320 per year for large — neither of which can be recovered from the worker. The applicant pays the Skilled Worker visa fee (£819 to £1,618 from overseas) and the £1,035 a year Immigration Health Surcharge.

Yes. To employ almost anyone who is not a British or Irish citizen and does not already hold a UK work right, an employer must hold a valid sponsor licence in the “Worker” category before it can assign a Certificate of Sponsorship and the worker can apply for a Skilled Worker visa. There is no way around the licence for direct employment — the only alternative is to use an Employer of Record in the UK that is already the legal employer, covered at the end of this guide.

These are the Home Office fees in force from 8 April 2026:

The licence fee is a one-off. Since renewals were abolished on 6 April 2024 a licence runs for 10 years, so there is no four-yearly renewal cost to budget for any more.

You qualify for the small or charitable rate if you are a registered charity, or if you meet at least two of these three tests:

• annual turnover of £10.2 million or less;
• total balance sheet of £5.1 million or less;
• 50 employees or fewer.

The difference is worth £1,071 on the licence alone and £840 a year on the Immigration Skills Charge, so it is worth checking carefully. The Companies Act size thresholds were uprated for accounting periods beginning on or after April 2025, so a sponsor sitting near the boundary should confirm which figures current Home Office guidance applies.

The application is online and, per GOV.UK, most decisions take under 8 weeks; the priority service returns a decision in 10 working days for £750. The main steps:

1. Confirm the organisation is eligible and that the role meets the skill (RQF 6) and salary rules.
2. Choose the licence type — “Worker” for Skilled Worker.
3. Appoint key personnel: an Authorising Officer, a Key Contact and at least one Level 1 User.
4. Apply online, pay the fee, and submit supporting documents within 5 working days.

Applications are most often refused or delayed for reasons that are avoidable: supporting documents not submitted within the five working days, key personnel who do not pass suitability checks, HR systems that cannot evidence right-to-work checks and absence monitoring, a genuine vacancy that the Home Office is not satisfied exists, or a role that does not actually meet the skill and salary rules. A refusal usually carries a cooling-off period of six months before you can reapply, which is far more expensive than the fee itself.

Two things SMEs often miss:

• The licence now lasts 10 years, so the renewal cost that used to appear in budgets is gone.
• You start A-rated, but UKVI can downgrade you to a B-rating — which stops you issuing new certificates — if a compliance visit finds failings. Sponsor duties are ongoing: right-to-work checks, reporting changes through the Sponsorship Management System within set deadlines, record-keeping, and being open to announced or unannounced audits.

For each worker you assign a Certificate of Sponsorship through the Sponsorship Management System. There are two kinds:

• Defined CoS — for a worker applying from outside the UK. Each is approved by the Home Office case by case, usually within about one working day.
• Undefined CoS — for someone already inside the UK who is switching or extending, drawn from your pre-allocated annual allotment.

The Skilled Worker CoS rose from £239 to £525 on 9 April 2025 and cannot be passed on to the worker.

The ISC is the largest employer-only cost, and it rose by 32% on 16 December 2025. It is charged for the full length of the sponsorship, up front:

The ISC is waived for dependants, for workers switching from a Student or Graduate visa, for some Global Business Mobility transfers from the EU, and for listed PhD-level research occupations such as chemical, biological and physical scientists and higher education teaching professionals. Like the CoS, it cannot be recovered from the worker.

The worker — or an employer that chooses to cover it as part of the package — pays the visa fee and the Immigration Health Surcharge:

Dependants pay their own visa fee and their own IHS, which is what turns a family relocation into a five-figure decision.

Since 22 July 2025, when the 2025 Immigration White Paper changes took effect, a Skilled Worker must be paid the higher of £41,700 a year and the going rate for their occupation, and the role must sit at RQF Level 6 (degree level) — up from RQF 3, which removed around 180 occupations from new eligibility. The minimum hourly rate is £17.13.

• Reduced threshold — £33,400: available to new entrants, those under 26, recent graduates, and people switching from a Student or Graduate visa, subject to at least 70% of the going rate.
• Transitional arrangements: workers first sponsored before 4 April 2024 can use lower thresholds, from £31,300, and RQF 3–5 roles. These are due to end on 22 July 2028 and are not available for new hires.

A small sponsor hiring one worker from overseas for three years, no dependants, non-discounted role:

A medium or large sponsor pays materially more: £1,682 for the licence and £3,960 in ISC over three years, taking the employer-only portion to £6,167. Recovering the CoS, the ISC or the licence fee from the worker can cost a sponsor its licence.

“Self-sponsorship” is not a visa route in the Immigration Rules. What people mean by it is setting up a UK company, having that company obtain its own sponsor licence, and then being sponsored by it as an employee. It is legal, but it is not a shortcut: the company must be a genuine trading business with a genuine vacancy, must pay the same £611 or £1,682 licence fee, the £525 CoS and the ISC, and the role must still meet the £41,700 and RQF 6 tests. The Home Office scrutinises these applications closely, and the Authorising Officer cannot be the visa applicant themselves. Between incorporation, the licence, the certificate, the skills charge and the visa, a realistic budget is £8,000 to £12,000 before professional fees.

Two White Paper measures to watch — both still proposed rather than fully in force as of late 2026, so check the current Immigration Rules before relying on them:

• Settlement (ILR) qualifying period rising from 5 to 10 years as a new baseline, with an “earned settlement” model that could shorten it for high contributors.
• Adult social care overseas recruitment has already closed to new entry-clearance applications, from 22 July 2025; workers already in the country can extend until 22 July 2028.

If you do not hold a licence — or do not want the multi-week setup, the £611 to £1,682 fee and the ongoing sponsor duties for a single hire — an Employer of Record can employ the worker through its own UK entity and run compliant UK payroll, PAYE and pensions, while you direct the work day to day. It is the quickest compliant way to place talent in the UK without building a sponsorship function. Note that an EOR does not remove the need for a visa where the worker has no UK work right; it removes the need for you to become a licensed sponsor.

Whichever route you take, the pay run itself still has to be compliant: see our guide to UK payroll laws, rates and the payroll process. Talk to our UK team to compare sponsoring in-house against the EOR route for your situation.