Self-Sponsorship and Founder Routes

Key Takeaways

• Self-sponsorship is not a separate visa. Your own UK company obtains a sponsor licence and sponsors you on the Skilled Worker route, so every Skilled Worker rule applies to you as the employee.
• A self-sponsoring company needs genuine trading activity, a real need for the role and key personnel based in the UK, so a founder who is still overseas usually needs a UK-based director or employee.
• The Innovator Founder visa has no minimum investment. You need an endorsement from an approved endorsing body confirming your business is innovative, viable and scalable.
• Innovator Founder can lead to settlement after 3 years if the endorsing body confirms your business has met at least two of seven achievement criteria.
• UK Expansion Worker is for a senior manager or specialist setting up the UK branch of an overseas business that has not yet started trading in the UK. It lasts up to 2 years and does not lead to settlement.
• A Scale-up sponsor licence is for companies with sustained high growth. It can be held once, lasts 4 years and carries no Immigration Skills Charge, and Scale-up workers only need sponsoring for their first 6 months.
• We help founders choose the right route and handle the company licence and visa application together. See our self-sponsorship service or our Innovator Founder visa service.

Introduction

This page is for founders, company directors and overseas businesses who want to build or run a business in the UK and need the right to live and work here while they do it. It explains the four main business routes, what each asks of you and your company, what they cost and where they lead.

Which Business Route Fits Your Plan?

The right route depends on three things: whether you already have a genuine, trading UK company, whether your business idea is new, and whether you are coming as an employee of an overseas business. The table compares the routes founders use most.

Global Talent and High Potential Individual visas need no sponsor and allow self-employment, which is why some founders use them. They have their own eligibility rules and are not covered in detail on this page.

Self-Sponsorship Through the Skilled Worker Route

How Self-Sponsorship Works

Self-sponsorship is a practical arrangement rather than a visa category. You set up or acquire a UK company, the company applies for a Worker sponsor licence, and it then assigns you a certificate of sponsorship (CoS) for a role in the business. You apply for a Skilled Worker visa with that certificate like any other sponsored worker.

Because it is the Skilled Worker route, the company takes on the full set of sponsor duties, including keeping records, reporting changes and paying you what the certificate says. The Home Office treats a company that sponsors its own director in the same way as any other sponsor, and can suspend or revoke the licence for the same failures. Our guide to Sponsor Licence: How to Apply walks through the licence application itself.

What Your UK Company Must Show

The company must be a genuine organisation operating or trading lawfully in the UK. A new company with no trading history, staff or customers will struggle, and the Home Office sponsor guidance lists a lack of real trading activity as a reason to refuse a licence.

The company must also appoint key personnel:

• Authorising Officer: the most senior person responsible for recruiting sponsored workers and meeting sponsor duties
• Key Contact: the main point of contact with the Home Office
• Level 1 User: the person who manages the licence day to day on the Sponsorship Management System (SMS)

All key personnel must be based in the UK while they hold the role. At least one Level 1 User must be an employee, director or partner of the company and a settled worker, such as a British citizen or someone with indefinite leave to remain. A founder who is still overseas cannot fill these roles, so the company usually needs a UK-based director or employee who can.

There is one exception worth knowing. The settled worker requirement for the Level 1 User does not apply where the Authorising Officer holds permission on certain routes, including Innovator Founder, Global Talent and UK Expansion Worker. At least one Level 1 User must still be an employee, director or partner.

The Job and Salary Rules

The role you are sponsored for must meet the normal Skilled Worker requirements:

• It must be at the skill level the route requires, which for most roles is RQF level 6 (degree level)
• It must pay at least £41,700 a year or the going rate for the occupation code, whichever is higher. Lower thresholds apply only in limited cases, such as a relevant PhD or new entrants
• Only guaranteed basic gross pay counts. Dividends and profit distributions are not salary
• The company must be able to show it can afford that salary for the length of the certificate

Caseworkers must not award points for sponsorship if they have reasonable grounds to believe the job does not exist, is a sham, or has been created mainly so the applicant can apply for permission. No rule stops a shareholder or director being sponsored by their own company, but this genuine vacancy test is where self-sponsorship applications get the closest scrutiny. The detail of thresholds and going rates is in Skilled Worker: Eligibility and Salary, and our article on whether self-sponsorship is still possible looks at how the skill and salary rules affect founders.

What Self-Sponsorship Costs

The company pays the licence fee, the certificate fee and the Immigration Skills Charge. It must not recover these costs from the sponsored worker.

Most newly formed companies apply as small sponsors. Our IHS and visa fee calculator totals the cost for you and any family members, and Visa Fees and Sponsorship Costs explains each charge in more depth.

Why Self-Sponsorship Applications Are Refused

• The company has little or no genuine trading activity
• Key personnel are not based in the UK, or there is no eligible Level 1 User
• The role appears to exist mainly to secure the owner's visa
• The job description has been inflated to fit a higher-skilled occupation code
• The company cannot show it can pay the salary for the length of the certificate
• The company has no HR systems able to meet sponsor record-keeping and reporting duties

Our sponsor licence eligibility check is a quick way to test the company side before anything else.

Innovator Founder Visa

The Innovator Founder visa is for people who want to set up and run a business in the UK based on a business plan they created or contributed to significantly. It is not sponsored. Instead, an approved endorsing body assesses both you and the business.

Who the Route Is For

To be endorsed, your business venture must be:

• Innovative: a genuine, original business plan that meets new or existing market needs or creates a competitive advantage
• Viable: a realistic plan, and you have, or are actively developing, the skills, knowledge, experience and market awareness to run the business
• Scalable: evidence of structured planning and of potential for job creation and growth into national and international markets

You must be the sole founder or an instrumental member of the founding team, and you must have a day-to-day role in carrying out the business plan.

Getting Endorsed

Endorsement comes from an organisation on the Home Office list of approved endorsing bodies. The fees are paid to the endorsing body.

You must apply for your visa within 3 months of the date on the endorsement letter. During your permission you must have at least two contact point meetings with the endorsing body, at regular intervals, so it can check progress against your plan.

If you previously held Innovator, Start-up or Tier 1 (Graduate Entrepreneur) permission, you can seek endorsement for the same business instead of a new one. The endorsing body then looks for a business that is active, trading and sustainable, and has made significant progress against its plan. Our article on how to get endorsement for the Innovator Founder visa covers what endorsing bodies look for in practice.

Eligibility Requirements

There is no minimum investment. The £50,000 investment fund that applied to the old Innovator visa does not apply to Innovator Founder. The full rules are in Appendix Innovator Founder.

Working Outside Your Business

You can work for the business or businesses you have established. You can also take other employment, as long as that role requires a skill level of at least RQF level 3. Work for your own business does not include an apprenticeship, or hiring out your labour to another business, even if the arrangement runs through your own company or an agency.

Switching Into Innovator Founder

You can apply from inside the UK unless your current or last permission is as a Visitor, Short-term Student, Parent of a Child Student, Seasonal Worker or Domestic Worker in a Private Household, or you are in the UK outside the Immigration Rules. Graduate visa holders can switch.

Students must either have completed the course their Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies was issued for, or be studying full time for a PhD and have completed at least 24 months of it. A Student who applies for Innovator Founder with an endorsement can be self-employed while the application is pending. Graduate and Student Switching and our breakdown of students switching to the Innovator Founder visa cover this in more detail.

Innovator, Start-up and Sole Representative Routes Have Closed

The Innovator and Start-up visas are closed to new applicants and have been replaced by Innovator Founder. The Representative of an Overseas Business visa, often called the Sole Representative visa, has been replaced for new applicants by the UK Expansion Worker route. Former Innovator and Start-up founders can move to Innovator Founder through a same business endorsement, as explained above.

UK Expansion Worker Visa

The UK Expansion Worker visa lets an established overseas business send a senior manager or specialist to set up its UK branch or subsidiary. It only works before the UK business starts trading. Once it is trading, the business needs a different route.

What the Overseas Business Must Show

• A UK footprint, shown either by UK business premises (for example, a lease) or by registering a UK branch or new subsidiary at Companies House
• No active trading presence in the UK yet. Limited pre-trade activity, such as employing the person nominated as Authorising Officer, is allowed
• The overseas business is currently active and trading, and has been for at least 3 years
• A credible plan to establish a UK trading presence within two years, in the same type of business it runs overseas
• A qualifying ownership link between the UK business and the overseas business, such as a branch, a wholly owned subsidiary or a qualifying sister company

Businesses whose main activity is holding investments, such as private equity or venture capital firms, are not treated as trading and cannot use this route.

There are exceptions. Japanese and Australian businesses expanding under the UK's trade agreements with those countries do not need to show 3 years of trading, but without that evidence they can only sponsor one worker at a time. Businesses listed on the London Stock Exchange Main Market or AIM, or on an international exchange the Financial Conduct Authority treats as equivalent, do not normally need to evidence their overseas trading or ability to expand.

Who Can Apply as an Expansion Worker

Licence Rules and the Two Year Deadline

The UK business applies for a sponsor licence on the UK Expansion Worker route and, if successful, receives a provisional rating. Unlike other routes, the Authorising Officer can be the senior employee who is coming to the UK. That person, and the Level 1 User if they are also coming, may remain overseas from the licence application until they enter the UK on their visa.

The licence lasts 4 years at most and cannot be renewed. The Home Office expects the business to be trading in the UK within two years of the licence being granted. At that point it reduces the Expansion Worker certificate allocation to zero, so no new workers can be sponsored and existing workers cannot extend on this route. The requirements are set out in the Home Office guidance on sponsoring a Global Business Mobility worker.

Moving On Once the Business Is Trading

An Expansion Worker is granted up to 12 months at first and can extend by up to a further 12 months, to a maximum of 2 years. Time on the Global Business Mobility routes is also capped at 5 years in any 6 year period. The route does not lead to settlement.

Once the UK business is trading, it can add other routes to its licence, such as Skilled Worker or Senior or Specialist Worker, and its workers can switch if they meet the requirements. Switching to Skilled Worker is the usual path to a long-term future in the UK, because time on Skilled Worker counts towards settlement. Our UK Expansion Worker visa guide and Global Business Mobility visa guide go further into the practical steps.

Scale-up Visa and Scale-up Sponsor Licence

The Scale-up route lets fast-growing UK companies bring in highly skilled staff with very little ongoing sponsorship. For a founder, it is a hiring tool for the company rather than a way to sponsor yourself, and it is often the lowest-cost way for a growth business to recruit from overseas.

Qualifying as a Scale-up Sponsor: Standard Pathway

Under the standard pathway, the Home Office assesses your HMRC records automatically. You qualify if they show:

• Annualised growth of at least 20% in either employee numbers or turnover over the previous 3 years
• At least 10 employees at the start of that 3 year period
• At least 37 months of PAYE history with HMRC, with no gaps

The Endorsing Body Pathway for Younger Companies

If your HMRC history is too short for the standard pathway, you can seek endorsement from an approved endorsing body. The company must:

• Have at least 10 employees paying income tax and National Insurance through its own PAYE scheme
• Be registered for VAT, solvent and trading in the UK
• Have an HMRC footprint of less than 4 years
• Show potential growth that could meet the standard pathway within the next 4 years
• Have the finance to pay salaries at the level the route requires, and a UK-registered corporate bank account

It must also meet at least three of these five criteria:

The endorsement fee is £1,500 plus VAT. The company must apply for its licence within 3 months of being endorsed.

Licence Rules and Costs

• Scale-up counts as a Temporary Worker route for licence fees: £611 for the licence and £55 for each certificate of sponsorship
• There is no Immigration Skills Charge
• A company that already holds a sponsor licence can add the Scale-up route
• No documents normally need to be sent with the application, unless the company is regulated or is applying for other routes at the same time
• The licence lasts 4 years and can only be held once. It cannot be renewed, and a company cannot reapply if it surrenders the licence or has it revoked
• To keep sponsoring after that, the company needs a licence on another route, such as Skilled Worker

The Home Office guidance on how to sponsor a Scale-up worker sets out both pathways in full.

Scale-up Worker Requirements

After Six Months: Unsponsored Work and Extensions

For the first 6 months, a Scale-up worker must work in the job they were sponsored for. After that, the worker can change job or employer, take other work and be self-employed without a new sponsor. The sponsor's duties for that worker also end after 6 months.

Extensions are unsponsored and last 3 years. To extend, the worker must have had monthly PAYE earnings equivalent to at least £39,100 a year during at least half of their most recent Scale-up permission. Self-employed income does not count, because the test is PAYE earnings. Lower figures apply where the worker's last permission was based on a certificate assigned under an earlier threshold.

Scale-up v Skilled Worker Sponsorship

See our Scale-up sponsor licence service if your company may qualify.

Bringing Your Partner and Children

All four routes on this page allow a partner and dependent children to apply as dependants, provided they meet the relationship requirements. Each dependant pays the same visa fee as the main applicant, plus the Immigration Health Surcharge of £1,035 a year, or £776 a year for a child under 18.

On the Innovator Founder and Scale-up routes, dependants applying from outside the UK, or who have been in the UK for less than 12 months, must show £285 for a partner, £315 for the first child and £200 for each further child, held for 28 days.

Dependant partners of Innovator Founders do not settle on the same timetable as the main applicant. They need 5 years' continuous residence as a partner before they can apply for settlement. Dependants and Family covers the wider family rules, and our dependant visa service can help with the applications.

Settlement on Business Routes

The table shows the qualifying periods in the Immigration Rules. The government has consulted on an earned settlement model that would lengthen the standard qualifying period for many routes. Those proposals have not been made into Immigration Rules, so the periods below apply until the rules change. This section will be updated when they do.

For Innovator Founder settlement, the business must have met at least two of the following:

• At least £50,000 invested into the business and actively spent furthering it
• Customer numbers at least doubled within the most recent 3 years, and higher than the average for comparable UK businesses
• Significant research and development activity, with an application for UK intellectual property protection
• Annual gross revenue of at least £1 million in the last full year covered by its accounts
• Annual gross revenue of at least £500,000 in the last full year covered by its accounts, with at least £100,000 from exports
• The equivalent of at least 10 full-time jobs created for settled workers
• The equivalent of at least 5 full-time jobs created for settled workers, each with a mean salary of at least £25,000 a year

The same criterion cannot be counted twice. For Skilled Worker and Scale-up settlement applications made on or after 26 March 2027, the English requirement is B2 in speaking and listening. You can check your likely settlement date with our ILR eligibility calculator, and Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) and Settlement explains the full settlement rules.

Detailed Guides on This Topic

These articles go deeper into individual parts of this page:

• UK Innovator Founder visa: requirements and application
• How to get endorsement for the Innovator Founder visa
• Students switching to the Innovator Founder visa
• Innovator Founder visa endorsement and application support, step by step
• UK Expansion Worker visa guide for businesses
• Global Business Mobility visa guide
• Is self-sponsorship still possible under the Skilled Worker rules?
• Client success: UK self-sponsorship for Finesse Lifestyle Ltd

How Can WorkPermitCloud Help?

Choosing the wrong business route can cost a founder months. We start by working out which route fits your business, your finances and your own immigration history, and then handle the application from start to finish.

Our self-sponsorship service covers the company's sponsor licence, key personnel, certificate of sponsorship and your Skilled Worker application. We also support Innovator Founder visa applications, UK Expansion Worker visas and Scale-up sponsor licences.

Conclusion

There is no single founder visa in the UK. Self-sponsorship suits owners of a real, trading company who can meet the Skilled Worker rules. Innovator Founder suits people with a new idea and the backing of an endorsing body, and offers the shortest path to settlement of the four. UK Expansion Worker is a temporary bridge for established overseas businesses, and Scale-up is a hiring route for companies already growing quickly.

Glossary