Revoking a sponsor licence

This page explains why we would revoke your licence as a sponsor under the points-based system.

If we revoke your licence, it will be withdrawn from all the tiers, categories and sub-categories that you are registered in.

Circumstances when we will revoke your licence

You will lose your licence if:

• we find, after your licence has been granted, that you gave false information on your sponsor licence application;
  • you sell your business (this includes circumstances where this happens as a result of you becoming insolvent);
  • you go into liquidation, or sequestration is awarded and you cease to trade as a result of that;
  • a court issues a bankruptcy order against you;
  • you cease to have an operating or trading presence in the UK;
• you stop being accredited or registered with any body that you need to be accredited or registered with to obtain a licence;
• you or a relevant person are issued with a civil penalty for employing one or more illegal workers, and the fine for at least one of those workers stood at the maximum amount once your objection and appeal rights have been exhausted;
• you or a relevant person are issued with a civil penalty as above for a first offence, where the fine is below the maximum amount, and you have failed to pay the fine in full or set up a payment instalment plan with us by the 29th day after you are notified of liability, which may be after an initial objection or appeal determination;
• you or a relevant person are issued with a civil penalty as above for another offence within the period that your sponsor licence is valid and you are still liable once your objection and appeal rights have been exhausted;
• you or a relevant person are paying a civil penalty fine by an agreed payment instalment plan and you breach the conditions of that plan;
  • trafficking for sexual exploitation; or
  • any other offence which, in our opinion, indicates that you pose a risk to immigration control, for example, offences involving dishonesty or deception, including any of the offences listed in Appendix B of the sponsor guidance. Any other unspent convictions could also lead to an application being refused;
• you have been B-rated and have not met all of the requirements of your action plan within the specified period, which will not exceed 3 months;
• you have been B-rated twice before during the validity period of your licence and we find again that you have failed to meet your sponsor duties to the extent that, but for it being our policy that a third instance of B rating will result in revocation, we would award a B rating again;
• you have been awarded or downgraded to a B rating and have failed to pay the action plan fee within 14 calendar days;
• we find that you have no level 1 user in place who meets the requirements;
• a sponsorship management system user you have appointed who is not a settled worker assigns their own certificate of sponsorship (CoS) or assigns a CoS to a close member of their family or their partner;
• you are a B-rated sponsor and have used a CoS to sponsor a new migrant where we granted it specifically to extend an existing migrant's stay ;
• you give false information on an application for a Tier 2 (General) restricted CoS;
• you employ a migrant in a job that does not meet the appropriate skill level requirements;
• you assign an unrestricted Tier 2 (General) CoS to a migrant who will be employed to do a restricted job;
• you assign a restricted Tier 2 (General) CoS to a migrant and the salary stated on that CoS is lower than the salary stated on the application you made for that CoS or any sponsor note you have added to it;
• you use a restricted Tier 2 (General) CoS to fill a vacancy other than the one specified in your application for that CoS;
  • the test you conducted did not meet the requirements set out in the sponsor guidance; or
  • you had not conducted a test;
• you assign any Tier 2 (General) CoS to a migrant and state on that CoS that the job was exempt from the resident labour market test (as set out in this guidance) and it was not;
• you do not hold, or you stop holding, appropriate planning permission or local planning authority consent to operate your type or class of business at your trading address (where this is a local authority requirement);
• you fail to meet the requirements in the Guidance for sponsors for safeguarding children;
• you are an employment agency or business and you have supplied migrants you are sponsoring to a third party as labour;
• you are a food business that is required to be approved by a relevant food authority and either you have never been approved, or you have but that approval has been withdrawn; or
• you sponsor a migrant under Tier 5 (International Agreement) as a contractual service supplier to service a contract that:
  • you have not told us about; or
  • you have told us about, but we have not yet confirmed that you can assign a CoS in connection with it; or
  • we have told you does not meet the requirements for Tier 5 (International Agreement).

In any of the above circumstances, we will revoke your licence with immediate effect. We will write to inform you that your licence has been revoked. There is no right of appeal to this decision, and you will not be eligible to apply again for a sponsor licence for 6 months from the date when your licence is revoked.

Circumstances when we may revoke your licence

You may lose your licence if:

• you, or a relevant person are dishonest in any dealings with us. This includes, among other things:
  o making false statements, or failing to disclose any essential information, when applying for a sponsor licence; or
  o making false statements, or failing to disclose any essential information, when assigning a CoS; or
  
• you or a relevant person are convicted of an offence that we consider to be serious (we do not take into account convictions that are spent under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974);
• you, or any organisation that you or a relevant person have been involved with in a similar role has its authorisation removed by the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner (OISC) under the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. (This applies to individuals or organisations that provide immigration advice or services.)
• you fail to pay a migrant under Tier 2 or Tier 5 at least the appropriate rate for the job they are being sponsored to do, as set out in the guidance for sponsors and the codes of practice;
• you fail to provide any documents listed in Appendix D of the sponsor guidance PDF to a compliance officer within the specified time limit;
• you or a relevant person become legally prohibited from acting as a company director;
• you or a relevant person become an undischarged bankrupt;
• you fail to comply with any or all of your sponsor duties;
• you assign a CoS under Tier 5 (Government approved exchange) for a period longer than has been authorised for your scheme and it has been used successfully in an application for permission to stay;
• as a result of information available to our compliance officers, we are not satisfied that you are using the processes or procedures necessary to fully comply with your sponsor duties;
• we find that migrants you have sponsored have not complied with the conditions of their permission to stay in the UK and you have not been following good practice guidance set out by us or a relevant sector body;
• any of your level 1 or level 2 users disclose their SMS password to another person;
• you sponsor more than 5 migrants in the Tier 2 (Intra company transfer - Graduate trainee) category with start dates in the same financial year;
• the role undertaken by a migrant you have sponsored does not meet
  • the job description in the code of practice containing the standard occupational classification (SOC) code stated on the CoS you assigned to them (unless this is solely due the the transition from SOC 2000 to SOC 2010; and/or
  • the job description on the CoS that you assigned to them;
• you have no authorising officer in place that meets the requirements; or
• you have no level 1 user or any sponsorship management system users in place;
• you do not supply, when requested and within the specified time limit, any document we request to support any change you have reported via the SMS or the sponsor change of circumstances form.

We cannot define precisely in which exceptional circumstances we may not revoke your sponsor licence but when one of the above circumstances applies, we view this as a serious problem and will look for evidence that you were either not responsible for what happened or that, if you were, that you took prompt and effective action to remedy the situation when it came to light. For example:

• if one of your employees was wholly responsible for the dishonesty, that person was dismissed when it came to light; or
• if a migrant was paid the wrong salary because of a problem with your payroll system, this was corrected as soon as possible.

If we believe that you are breaching your duties and/or pose a threat to immigration control, we may suspend your licence. If we do not believe it is necessary to suspend your licence, we are likely to downgrade your licence to a B-rating.

OISC is the body responsible for ensuring that all immigration advisers meet the requirements of good practice.