quotSelf sponsorshipquot visas for the UK is it really possible

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📧 I am happy to help with your visa and citizenship options. I have a consultation service: https://tom-bradford.com/contact-me • 1. Now the first topic is whether you can assign a Certificate of Sponsorship to yourself. In all cases except one, the answer is 'no', and if you did so, when prohibited from doing so, then your licence would be revoked: • Let's say you are currently outside of the UK, and looking to be sponsored on a Skilled Worker visa. The UK entity would need to have a Sponsor Licence, and if you are applying for one, then you would need to appoint so called Key Personnel. The rule is: • Two of the Key Personnel are: • 1. The Authorising Officer • 2. Level 1 User • Leaving aside the exception, you, as the visa applicant outside of the UK, are not going to be able to fulfil these two roles. • Also, if you are looking to incorporate the UK entity that is to sponsor you, its going to be challenging to open up a UK bank account for that company. And the supporting documents that you need for the sponsor licence application, include: • There are mixed results for companies applying for a sponsor licence using one of the challenger banks like Revolut. Generally you are going to need a traditional High Street bank, and they won't allow you to open a corporate bank account unless you have UK residency. • So for these reasons, you could not appoint yourself to any of the Key Personnel roles as the overseas intended Skilled Worker applicant, because you would not be based in the UK at the time of the sponsor licence application. • There is a another, independent, reason why you could not be appointed specifically as the Level 1 User. That's because the Level 1 User must be British, or settled, which you are not if you are looking to be sponsored on a Skilled Worker visa, in this example from overseas. This is the definition of settled worker: • However, start-up visa holders, or innovator visa holders, or global talent visa holders, can be appointed as Level 1 Users, notwithstanding that they are not yet settled, or British. • So what would happen if you were, for example, a start-up, innovator or global talent visa holder, and you applied for a sponsor licence, and appointed yourself as BOTH Authorising Officer (this would be possible, as you would be based in the UK) AND as Level 1 User (because, as I say, that is possible under this exception), AND, let's say, you then assigned a Certificate of Sponsorship to yourself. Well, that is prohibited, and the sponsor licence would just be revoked. The rules list the circumstances in which we will revoke your licence : • Again, there is an exception to this, under the Expansion Worker route, which I will come to shortly. And in that case, you CAN assign the Certificate of Sponsorship to yourself. • 2. But before we come to that, there is another related question, which is: Can you appoint a different Authorising Officer and Level 1 User, and have them assign the certificate to you? So, in other words, this is the situation where you are looking to apply for a Skilled Worker visa. You are not settled or British. You want to incorporate the UK company, appoint a different Authorising Officer and Level 1 User, and have them assign the certificate to you. Can you do this? Well, it depends on whether the job is genuine . But what does this mean? Well the Home Office will deem a job to be NOT genuine if it has been created mainly so that you can apply for entry clearance or permission to stay. The rules say that a licence will be revoked where: • So where the job had been created just for you to apply, then it would be deemed to be NOT genuine. Another way of putting this is that the job must exist, independently of your visa application, or visa considerations. Alternatively put, would this job exist even if you were not applying for the visa? Was the job advertised, for example? • Well, prior to December 2020, you had to advertise for skilled worker roles in a prescribed way (the so-called 'resident labour market test'). • That was removed as a requirement, BUT whether you have advertised or not is still a relevant consideration when assessing whether the role is genuine. • In other words, advertising may constitute evidence that there is a job, independently of your intention to make a visa application. • Another factor is: is this the ONLY job in the organisation? Is anyone else being sponsored? And what's the broader business plan? In my sponsor licence applications, I include the business plan in the suite of compliance materials that my client has ready for any audit. • Another factor is the percentage of shares that you own in the UK company that's sponsoring you. • Before December 2020, if you owned more than 10% of the shares in the sponsoring entity, then you could NOT get the visa UNLESS you earned over £159,600 per year. • So this was the pre-December 2020 rule: • Parliament removed this rule on this basis:

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