If you sponsor workers on the Skilled Worker visa, payroll compliance has never required more attention than it does right now. From April 2026, the Home Office has introduced updated guidance on how pay periods are assessed during compliance checks and visa applications. Errors that might once have been treated as minor administrative oversights are…
If you are planning to hire someone from outside the UK this year, the rules have changed and getting them wrong could put your sponsor licence at serious risk. The Skilled Worker visa route has gone through significant updates over the past 18 months, and 2026 has brought further adjustments to salary thresholds, occupation codes,…
For refugees granted protection in the UK, the ability to be reunited with a spouse, partner, or children left behind is one of the most important and most human aspects of the immigration system. The prospect of building a safe life in the UK while knowing that your closest family members remain in a conflict…
The UK’s register of licensed sponsors changes regularly, and the 30 April 2026 update is a useful reminder that employers and sponsored workers should not treat sponsor status as something to check only once. The GOV.UK register lists organisations licensed to sponsor workers under Worker and Temporary Worker routes. It shows the category of workers…
Genuine Founder-Led Businesses Should Not Be Refused by Default Garth Coates Solicitors has recently achieved successful outcomes in three separate self-sponsorship Skilled Worker cases, where previously refused Home Office decisions were withdrawn and overturned following legal challenge. The cases involved genuine UK companies and genuine investor-entrepreneurs whose applications had been refused despite evidence that the…
The UK asylum system has entered a new phase following the Home Office’s decision to reduce the standard period of refugee leave for many new applicants from five years to 30 months. The policy applies mainly to people who claim asylum or make further submissions on or after 2 March 2026. Under the new framework,…
The Unmarried Partner Visa is one of the most evidence-intensive applications in the UK family visa system. Couples who aren’t married or in a civil partnership face a higher evidential burden than those who are, simply because there’s no marriage certificate or civil partnership document to anchor the relationship. Everything has to be shown through…
One of the most avoidable reasons a sponsor licence application fails is a document problem — the wrong documents for the business type, outdated certificates, mismatched names, or mandatory sector-specific evidence that simply wasn’t included. In the year to June 2025, nearly one in two sponsor licence applications failed or were withdrawn, and documentation errors…
For smaller businesses, holding a sponsor licence can feel like a significant administrative burden. The compliance obligations that apply once you’re licensed are the same whether you employ five people or five hundred — the Home Office doesn’t offer a scaled-down version of the rules for SMEs. But what you don’t need is a large…
Self-sponsorship has become an increasingly discussed option for entrepreneurs, directors, shareholders and businesspeople who wish to establish or grow a company in the United Kingdom. However, it is important to understand the route correctly. “Self-sponsorship” is not the name of a separate UK visa category. It is a practical term used to describe a structure…
