Visa Fees and Sponsorship Costs

Key Takeaways

• A sponsor pays the sponsor licence fee, the Certificate of Sponsorship fee and the Immigration Skills Charge. Recovering any of them from a Skilled Worker is a ground on which the Home Office will normally revoke your licence.
• The worker normally pays the visa application fee and the Immigration Health Surcharge, and each dependant pays both again at the same rates. Health and Care Worker visa applicants pay a lower fee and no surcharge.
• The Immigration Skills Charge is £480 or £1,320 for the first 12 months and £240 or £660 for each further 6 months, so a five-year Skilled Worker certificate can carry up to £6,600 in charge alone.
• Small or charitable status for the Immigration Skills Charge is met by any one of three tests, not two of three. It is also a different test from the one that sets your licence fee.
• Only nine occupation codes are exempt from the charge. Clergy and sports roles are not among them, and a Scale-up company sponsoring someone on the Skilled Worker route pays the charge like any other sponsor.
• A worker switching from the Graduate route pays the full charge. The student exemption applies only where the worker holds current student permission on the day you assign the certificate.
• The first 12 months of the charge are never refunded when a worker leaves early, changes sponsor or is granted less time. Only unused later 6-month periods come back.
• WorkPermitCloud helps employers cost a hire before they commit, apply for a licence and run sponsorship correctly from the first certificate. See our sponsor licence service.

Introduction

This page is for employers budgeting for sponsorship and for the HR teams who pay the fees, and for workers who want to know what they will pay themselves. It sets out every Home Office fee and charge on the work routes, who pays each one, when the Immigration Skills Charge applies and when it does not, and how refunds work. Every figure is in a table, so when the Home Office publishes a new fee table this page changes in one place. If you do not yet hold a licence, start with Sponsor Licence: How to Apply.

Who Pays What

Sponsorship costs fall into two groups. The sponsor pays for the licence and for each certificate it assigns. The worker pays to apply for the visa and for access to the NHS. The table below shows the default position for each cost. The sections that follow give the amounts.

Costs You Cannot Pass On to a Worker

You must not recoup, or attempt to recoup, the following from a worker you sponsor. If you do, the Home Office will normally revoke your licence. Deducting the cost from salary, invoicing the worker for it or building it into a repayment clause all count as an attempt to recoup it.

"Associated administrative costs" is a defined term and it is wider than most employers expect. It covers any cost you incur to obtain, use or maintain your licence, including priority service fees, action plan fees, legal fees for advice about the licence or about a CoS, and immigration advice given to a sponsored worker by a third party where the worker had no real choice about whether or how to obtain it. The CoS part of the rule applies only to the routes named in the table. The full rule, with the definition, is set out in Sponsor Licence: How to Apply.

Sponsor Licence Fees

You pay the licence fee once, when you apply. A licence is valid indefinitely unless it is revoked or surrendered, so there is no renewal fee, except on the Scale-up and UK Expansion Worker routes, where a licence lasts four years.

The small sponsor test for the licence fee is not the same as the one for the Immigration Skills Charge. Each has its own definition, and passing one does not mean you pass the other. The licence fee test, and the rest of the application process, are covered in Sponsor Licence: How to Apply. The Home Office's former premium customer service for sponsors has been withdrawn, so its annual fees no longer apply to anyone. Our sponsor licence service can confirm which fee applies to your organisation before you apply.

Certificate of Sponsorship Fees

You pay a fee each time you assign a CoS to a worker. It is paid through the Sponsorship Management System (SMS), and a CoS for which the correct fee has not been paid may be cancelled.

The CoS fee is not refunded if you withdraw a certificate or the Home Office cancels it. If you need an extra allocation of Undefined CoS quickly, the post-licence priority service costs £350 per request. It does not take requests for Defined CoS: those are rejected and the fee is not refunded. How certificates are allocated and assigned is explained in Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS).

The Immigration Skills Charge

The Immigration Skills Charge (ISC) is the largest cost most sponsors pay, and the one most often calculated wrongly. It is set by the Immigration Skills Charge Regulations 2017 and explained in section S5 of the Home Office sponsor guidance, Part 2.

Which Workers the Charge Applies To

The ISC applies only when you assign a CoS on the Skilled Worker route, including Health and Care, or the Global Business Mobility Senior or Specialist Worker route. No other route attracts it, and it is never charged for a worker's partner or children. Unless an exemption applies, you pay it when you assign a CoS to a worker applying for entry clearance for 6 months or more, or for permission to stay of any length.

A Scale-up company is not exempt from the ISC. The Scale-up route itself carries no charge, because it is not one of the two routes above. If a Scale-up sponsor recruits someone on the Skilled Worker route, it pays the ISC on that certificate exactly as any other sponsor would. Guidance that describes Scale-up sponsors as exempt is wrong, and an employer who relies on it will underpay.

How Much the Charge Costs

The amount depends on the size of your organisation on the day you assign the CoS and on the period of employment stated on it.

These rates apply where the CoS was assigned on or after 16 December 2025. For a CoS assigned before that date the rates were £364 and £182 for a small or charitable sponsor, and £1,000 and £500 for a medium or large sponsor. A worker coming from overseas for more than 6 months but less than a year is charged the full 12 months. The full amount is due in one payment when you assign the certificate.

The table below shows the total for common certificate lengths. Five years is the longest period a Skilled Worker certificate can cover.

Small or Charitable Sponsor for the Charge

Regulation 2 of the Immigration Skills Charge Regulations 2017 treats you as a small or charitable sponsor if any one of the following is true: you are a company subject to the small companies regime under section 381 of the Companies Act 2006; you are a charity within section 1 of the Charities Act 2011 or section 1 of the Charities Act (Northern Ireland) 2008, or a body entered in the Scottish Charity Register; or you are a person who employs no more than 50 employees. It is one of three, not two of three.

The turnover of £15 million and balance sheet total of £7.5 million that appear in many summaries belong to the first of those three tests only. They are part of the Companies Act test for whether a company is in the small companies regime, which a company meets if at least two of turnover, balance sheet total and a headcount of 50 fall within the limits. A charity, or an employer with 50 or fewer employees, qualifies without looking at those figures at all. Figures of £10.2 million and £5.1 million are the old Companies Act limits and should not be used.

The small sponsor test for the licence fee is a different test again, set out in Sponsor Licence: How to Apply. You must tell the Home Office within 20 working days if your size or type changes. If you paid the large rate and have already told the Home Office that you have become small or charitable, the difference is refunded for certificates assigned from the date you told them.

Exemptions From the Charge

You do not pay the ISC when you assign a CoS in any of the following cases.

• The worker is applying from outside the UK for entry clearance of less than 6 months.
• The job is in one of the nine exempt occupation codes in the table below.
• You have previously assigned the worker a CoS, you are assigning them a new one to work for you, and the new period of permission they will apply for does not go beyond their current permission.
• The worker holds current permission for study when you assign the CoS (see Students and the Graduate Route, below).
• The worker had valid permission for study when you first sponsored them and you are assigning a new CoS for them to continue in the same role.
• The worker was assigned a CoS under Tier 2 (General) or Tier 2 (Intra-Company Transfer) Long-term Staff before 6 April 2017, that CoS led to a grant, the worker took up that role, and they have held Skilled Worker or Senior or Specialist Worker permission without a break since.
• The worker is a Senior or Specialist Worker transferring from the EU and meets all five conditions set out below.

Only these nine occupation codes are exempt.

Lists written before the move to the current occupation codes also exempted clergy, sports players and sports coaches, using codes 2444, 3441 and 3442 from the older system. Those roles are not exempt. An employer that relies on an out-of-date list will underpay. An underpaid charge makes the certificate invalid until the balance is paid.

Students and the Graduate Route

The student exemption is the one most often misread. It applies only where the worker holds current permission as a Student, Child Student, Tier 4 (General) or Tier 4 (Child) student, or Short-term Student (English Language) on the day you assign the CoS. It does not matter whether they apply from inside or outside the UK, except that a Short-term Student must apply from outside the UK.

A worker on the Graduate route is not a student for this purpose, and you pay the full ISC when you sponsor them. The same applies to a worker whose student permission has already expired, and to a student's partner or child, even if they hold permission as a dependant of a student. The timing therefore matters: a student who finishes their course and moves onto the Graduate route before you assign the certificate costs a medium or large sponsor up to £6,600 more than the same person sponsored while their student permission was still current. Graduate and Student Switching explains when a student can switch and what the CoS must show.

Senior or Specialist Workers From the EU

A Senior or Specialist Worker is exempt only if every one of the following is true:

• you assigned the CoS on or after 1 January 2023
• the worker is a national of an EU country or holds a Latvian non-citizen passport, which does not include nationals of Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway or Switzerland
• the worker is being assigned to the UK by a business established in the EU that is part of the same sponsor group as you
• the worker has worked for the sponsor group for at least one year before you assigned the CoS
• the end date of the assignment is no more than 36 months after its start date.

If any one condition is missing, the normal charge applies. Our Senior or Specialist Worker visa service can check a transfer against these conditions before you assign.

Paying the Charge and Getting It Wrong

You pay the ISC through the SMS when you assign the CoS, in a single payment. If the charge is not paid, or is paid at the wrong rate, the certificate is invalid until the full amount is paid, and the worker's application cannot go forward. The Home Office emails a payment link to your Key Contact. The link lasts 72 hours. One further link is sent if it is not used, and if the charge is still unpaid the application is refused.

The most common cause of an underpayment is paying the small rate when the organisation no longer qualifies, or treating a worker as exempt when they are not. Our sponsorship duties service checks the rate and any exemption on each certificate before it is assigned.

Refunds of the Charge

Refunds are made to the original payment method, normally within 90 days of the event that triggers them. If one has not arrived after 90 days, contact UK Visas and Immigration. The full rules are in section S5 of the sponsor guidance, Part 2 and on the GOV.UK Immigration Skills Charge page.

On a partial refund, the Home Office always keeps the first 12 months of the charge. Only unused later 6-month periods are returned. A medium or large sponsor that paid £6,600 for a five-year certificate, for a worker who leaves after eight months, gets back at most £5,280 and never the first £1,320.

Where a worker transfers to another sponsor under TUPE and keeps the same role and permission, the new sponsor does not pay the ISC again. It pays on any later certificate it assigns, unless an exemption applies, and the original sponsor gets no refund.

Visa Application Fees for Work Routes

The worker pays the visa application fee when they apply, and each dependant pays the same fee again as part of the same application or separately. The fee is set by the date the application is made, not the date it is decided. The figures below are from the Home Office fees table.

The Service Supplier route is explained in more detail in our guide to the Service Supplier visa, and the founder routes in Self-Sponsorship and Founder Routes. Our visa fee and IHS calculator totals the fee and the surcharge for a worker and their family.

Lower Fees: Immigration Salary List and Health and Care

Two groups of Skilled Workers pay less. A job on the Immigration Salary List attracts a reduced fee, which is the same whether the worker applies from inside or outside the UK. A Health and Care Worker visa carries the lowest fee on the route and no Immigration Health Surcharge. Which jobs qualify is explained in Care Worker and Health Routes and Skilled Worker: Eligibility and Salary.

Other Fees Sponsored Workers Meet

Settlement is covered in Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) and Settlement, and extensions and switches in Skilled Worker: Apply, Switch and Extend.

When a Visa Fee Is Refunded

Refunds of the application fee on cancellation are usually made within 4 weeks. The rules are in the Home Office immigration and nationality refunds policy.

Priority and Super Priority Services

Both are optional and are paid on top of the application fee, inside or outside the UK, where the service is offered. The Home Office does not guarantee the target: a decision can take longer if it needs more information or has to make checks with other departments, and the priority fee is not refunded automatically. Details are on the GOV.UK faster decision page.

The Immigration Health Surcharge

The Immigration Health Surcharge (IHS) gives the worker and their family access to the NHS. It is paid with the visa application for the whole period of permission, by the applicant and by each dependant. The rules are on the GOV.UK healthcare surcharge pages, and our visa fee and IHS calculator works out the amount for a given length of stay.

How the Surcharge Is Worked Out

• Entry clearance for 6 months or less from outside the UK: nothing to pay.
• Permission of 6 months or less applied for inside the UK: half the yearly amount.
• More than 6 months but less than 12 months: the full yearly amount.
• Longer than 12 months: each full year is charged at the yearly amount, any extra period of 6 months or less at half the yearly amount, and any extra period of more than 6 months at the full yearly amount.
• On the sponsored work routes, the surcharge is worked out from the employment dates on the CoS. Home Office guidance gives the example of a Skilled Worker applying for 3 years, who pays £3,105.

If the surcharge is not paid, UK Visas and Immigration emails the applicant. They then have 10 working days to pay if they are inside the UK, or 7 working days if they are outside it, or the application is refused.

Refunds of the Surcharge

The surcharge is refunded in full if the application is refused or withdrawn before a decision, and in part if the applicant is granted less time than they paid for. If a dependant is refused, only that dependant's surcharge comes back. There is no refund if the worker leaves the UK before their permission ends, or switches to a route that is exempt from the surcharge. Refunds are usually made within 6 weeks. See the GOV.UK surcharge refunds page.

Every dependant pays the full application fee and the full surcharge, so for a family the per-person figures multiply. Dependants and Family sets out who can come and what they need to show.

Other Costs to Budget For

• Maintenance funds. Unless they have been in the UK with permission for 12 months or more when they apply, a worker must usually show £1,270 held for 28 days, plus £285 for a partner, £315 for the first child and £200 for each other child. None of this applies if an A-rated sponsor certifies maintenance on the CoS. These are funds the worker must hold, not a fee.
• English language evidence. Where the worker needs a test, the provider sets the price. See English Language Requirements.
• Tuberculosis test. Required for applicants from listed countries coming for more than 6 months, at a price set by the approved clinic.
• Criminal record certificate. Required for some jobs, including many in health, education and social care, at the cost charged by the issuing country.
• Advice and legal fees. Legal fees about the licence or a CoS count as associated administrative costs and cannot be passed on to the worker.

Salary: The Largest Cost of Sponsorship

For most employers the salary is a bigger commitment than every fee on this page put together. A sponsored worker must be paid at least the National Minimum Wage or National Living Wage for their age, which for workers aged 21 and over is £12.71 an hour for pay reference periods starting on or after 1 April 2026 (GOV.UK rates). Underpaying the minimum wage can lead to arrears, penalties of up to 200 per cent of the underpayment, capped at £20,000 per worker, and action against your licence. Our employer's guide to the UK minimum wage covers the rates and the working time rules in detail.

For a Skilled Worker the minimum wage is only a floor. The route has its own salary thresholds and going rates, which sit well above it and which are explained in Skilled Worker: Eligibility and Salary.

Fee Waivers

There is no fee waiver on any work route. A fee waiver is available only for human rights-based and certain other specified applications, such as some family and private life applications, under the Home Office fee waiver guidance. A worker who has applied for a fee waiver on a human rights application and then receives a job offer should take advice before applying for a Skilled Worker visa, because making a different application from the one the waiver was requested for affects their position. Our guide on why switching to a Skilled Worker visa while an FLR(HRO) fee waiver is pending can cost you everything explains the risk.

Worked Examples

Each example shows what the sponsor pays and what the worker pays, using the figures in the tables above. They assume the worker applies alone. Each dependant would add the same visa fee and surcharge again.

Example 1: A Small Sponsor Recruiting From Overseas for 3 Years

A small architecture practice sponsors an architect from overseas on a 3-year CoS. The job is not on the Immigration Salary List and no exemption applies. The practice is applying for its first licence.

Once the licence is in place, each further worker on the same terms costs the practice £1,965.

Example 2: A Medium or Large Sponsor Switching a Graduate for 5 Years

A software company that is not small or charitable sponsors a developer who holds Graduate route permission, on a 5-year CoS. The worker applies to switch from inside the UK. The job is not on the Immigration Salary List.

The ISC is charged in full because Graduate route permission is not study permission. Had the same person still held student permission on the day the company assigned the CoS, the ISC would have been nothing and the company would have paid £525. The surcharge is worked out from the employment dates on the CoS, so a five-year certificate is charged at five years. If the developer's partner applied too, they would add another £1,865 and £5,175, bringing the family's share to £14,080.

Example 3: An EU Senior or Specialist Worker for 2 Years

A large engineering group transfers a French national from its office in France to its UK company for a 2-year assignment on the Senior or Specialist Worker route. The worker has been with the group for four years, the CoS is assigned after 1 January 2023, and the assignment ends within 36 months, so all five conditions for the EU exemption are met. The worker applies from outside the UK.

If the worker had been with the group for only ten months when the CoS was assigned, the exemption would fail and the sponsor would pay £2,640 in ISC.

The Cost of Getting It Wrong

Most sponsorship costs are predictable. The ones that are not come from mistakes.

• Underpaying the ISC makes the certificate invalid until the balance is paid, and an unpaid top-up leads to the worker's application being refused.
• Passing a banned cost to the worker is a ground on which the Home Office will normally revoke your licence.
• Employing someone without the right to work can lead to a civil penalty of up to £45,000 per worker for a first breach and £60,000 for a repeat breach. Checks themselves cost nothing. See Right to Work Checks and Illegal Working and Civil Penalties.
• Falling short on your duties can bring a downgrade to a B-rating and the £1,579 action plan fee, or revocation. See Sponsor Licence: Suspension and Revocation.

Detailed Guides on This Topic

• Why switching to a Skilled Worker visa while an FLR(HRO) fee waiver is pending can cost you everything: what a pending fee waiver means for a worker who receives a job offer.
• UK minimum wage: the complete employer's guide to compliance, costs and implementation: the rates, working time, deductions and penalties.
• UK Service Supplier visa: requirements, costs and how to apply: the Global Business Mobility route for contracted services, including its costs.

How Can WorkPermitCloud Help?

WorkPermitCloud is a Legal and HR-tech company specialising in UK business immigration. We help employers work out what a hire will cost before they commit, including whether the Immigration Skills Charge applies and at which rate, apply for a sponsor licence and pay the right fee, and assign each certificate with the correct charge and any exemption checked. See our sponsor licence service if you are starting out, and our sponsorship duties service for day-to-day support once you hold a licence. Workers can find help with their own application through our Skilled Worker visa service.

Conclusion

The fees for sponsorship are published and predictable. The mistakes are in who pays them and when the Immigration Skills Charge applies. The sponsor carries the licence fee, the certificate fee and the charge, and cannot pass them on. The charge is decided on the day the certificate is assigned, by the size of the organisation and the worker's permission at that moment, which is why a student sponsored in time costs far less than the same person sponsored a month later on the Graduate route. Check those two things before every certificate and the rest of the budget follows from the tables on this page.

Glossary