If you are a UK employer holding a sponsor licence, receiving a suspension or revocation notice from the Home Office can have serious consequences. 

UKVI may suspend your sponsor licence while it makes further enquiries if it believes that you are breaching your sponsor duties and/or pose a threat to the UK's immigration control, or are engaging in actions or behaviours not conducive to the public good.

On the other hand, your UK sponsor licence being revoked means UKVI permanently withdraws your company’s sponsor licence, which means you can no longer sponsor migrant workers. The UKVI may revoke your licence for several reasons, for example, if it finds serious or repeated breaches of sponsorship duties by your organisation.

Key difference between Sponsor Licence Suspension and Revocation

While both Sponsor Licence Suspension and Revocation actions from the Home Office indicate concerns about your failure to comply with sponsor duties, they are very different in terms of severity, business impact, and available remedies.

Let us see the key differences between the two.

1. Definition

The UKVI can suspend your sponsor licence where it alleges that your organisation has failed to manage its sponsor licence correctly and to comply with its sponsorship duties. 

On the other hand, sponsor licence revocation means you lose your licence, or in other words, it is the formal cancellation of your sponsor licence by UKVI due to serious non-compliance or breaches of immigration rules. 

2. Reasons for suspension and revocation

If any of the circumstances (mentioned below in the section of reasons for revocation of a sponsor’s licence), UKVI may either immediately, normally, or revoke your sponsor licence or suspend it pending further investigation or consideration.

In certain circumstances (where UKVI will normally or may revoke your licence), UKVI will first consider downgrading your licence. However, it may first choose to suspend your licence without first downgrading it. This could happen where there has been sustained non-compliance on your part over a period of time, or where you have made a number of minor breaches, but taken together, indicate a more serious or systematic failing.

There are many reasons why the UKVI will/will normally/may revoke your  Sponsor licence. Certain circumstances will, normally will, or may lead to your sponsor licence being revoked. However, UKVI may first choose to suspend or downgrade/suspend your licence before revoking it while it considers the matter. 

The common reasons for revocation include:

• You stop to have (or never had) a trading presence

• You stop meeting the requirements of the route (s) in which you are licensed

• You fail to cooperate with a compliance check, where required, or delay compliance activity.

• You pose a threat to the UK’s immigration control

• Your organisation/AO (Authorising Officer)/Key Contact/Level 1 or Level 2 Users have been convicted of a relevant criminal offence or issued with a specified civil penalty

• You are found to have knowingly sponsored workers for non-genuine vacancies. 

• You are found to employ workers in roles different from those stated on the CoS (Certificate of Sponsorship). 

• You have provided false or misleading information to the Home Office. 

• You have seriously failed in record-keeping or reporting duties. 

• You have employed illegal workers. 

• You have made repeated or deliberate breaches of sponsor obligations.

• You did not send any documents/information requested by UKVI within the given time limit.  

3. Impact of suspension and revocation on the Sponsor 

If your licence is suspended, you will not be able to assign any CoS (Certificate of Sponsorship) to migrant workers while your licence remains suspended. You must continue to comply with all sponsorship duties and any other requirements throughout the sponsor licence suspension period.

If your licence is suspended, it is suspended in all routes in which you are licensed, and your entry from the public version of the register of sponsors will be removed during the suspension period.

If UKVI decides not to revoke your licence, it will lift the suspension and reinstate your entry on the register of sponsors on GOV.UK with either an A-rating or a B-rating.

On the other hand, if UKVI revokes your licence, it will write to you to inform you about this. You will lose the legal right to sponsor migrant workers.

4. Impact of suspension and revocation on the sponsored workers

If you have assigned a CoS before your licence was suspended to a worker who is applying for a visa based on this CoS, or if you support a worker’s ILR or settlement application, UKVI will not decide the person’s application until they have resolved the reason for suspension, unless the applicant’s application falls for refusal on other grounds.

If a worker has already been granted entry clearance to the UK based on a CoS assigned by you before your licence was suspended, that worker will still be allowed to enter the UK and start working for your organisation, provided UKVI does not revoke your licence by the time the sponsored worker travels. Before travelling, all workers are advised to check the status of their sponsor’s licence on the sponsor register.

While your licence is suspended, your ability to replace Key Contact or AO (Authorising Officer) and add a new Level 1 User automatically will also be suspended if such provisions that UKVI had previously granted on your sponsor licence.

The impact of a sponsor licence revocation on sponsored workers depends on where they are at the time of the revocation of your sponsor licence.

a. If the worker is in the UK

If the worker you have sponsored is in the UK, when your licence is revoked:

• The worker’s CoS (Certificate of Sponsorship) will be cancelled

• The worker’s visa will be limited to 60 days (or however long they have left on the visa if it’s less than 60 days)

The worker you sponsored will have to leave their job and the UK unless they apply for a new visa within that time.

If your sponsored worker was in any way involved in the revocation of your licence, or was a reason for it, their visa will be withdrawn, and they will have to leave the UK immediately.

b. If the worker is outside the UK

Before travelling to the UK, all your sponsored workers should check the status of your sponsor’s licence on the sponsor register.

If your sponsor licence is revoked, your sponsored workers outside the UK who applied for a visa will have their UK visa refused. 

If a worker holds a visa but has not travelled to the UK, their visa will be cancelled, and they will not be allowed to enter the UK. 

5. Remedies to suspension and revocation of your sponsor licence

If your sponsor licence is suspended, you have 20 working days to respond to the UKVI’s letter from the date of their written notification. This allows you to seek UKVI to review their decision to suspend your licence and to set out any mitigating arguments you believe exist. You must respond in writing and set out, with any relevant supporting evidence, the grounds you believe to be incorrect and why. UKVI may give you more time if they are satisfied that there are exceptional circumstances. There will be no oral hearing.

If, during that 20-day period, UKVI finds any additional grounds for the suspension of your sponsor licence, including any additional information obtained during the course of interviews or discussions with workers to whom you have assigned a CoS, UKVI will write to you again, giving you another 20 working days to respond to the additional reasons.

If UKVI does not receive a response within the time allowed, it will take whatever action it believes is appropriate and tell you about its decision in writing. For example, re-instating your licence with an A-rating or reinstating your licence with a B-rating (and issuing you an action plan).

If UKVI decides to revoke your licence, it will write to you to inform you about this. You cannot appeal against the revocation decision. You will be allowed to apply for a fresh sponsor licence again once 12 months or more have passed since the date UKVI notified you of your licence’s revocation (or 24 months if you have had your licence revoked more than once).

How can Visa and Migration help?

We can provide support to both employers in the UK and migrant workers applying for a visa based on a CoS assigned by a sponsor whose licence is suspended or revoked after assigning it to the worker, to navigate the challenges arising with a suspended or revoked sponsor licence. 

We guide businesses through the following:

• Understanding the reasons why UKVI suspended/revoked your sponsor licence, 

• Helping you in staying compliant with your sponsorship duties, and 

• Offering a clear step-by-step guide to resolve the situation. 

We also support you in planning for the future, including giving you clear strategies for reapplying for a sponsor licence after a revocation, while ensuring your business avoids further penalties. 

On the other hand, we help sponsored workers who are waiting for a decision or have obtained the visa by providing clear and practical advice on how their UK work visa may be affected, including the curtailment periods and their options to switch to a new licensed sponsor or to explore alternative UK visa routes to stay legally in the UK. 

We focus on providing actionable solutions and safeguarding the interests of both UK employers and migrant workers.

For expert advice and queries, you can call us at +44 (0)20 3411 1261 or write to info@visaandmigration.com