Sponsoring EU and non-EU nationals post-Brexit

We recently hosted a webinar on Sponsoring EU and Non-EU Nationals Post-Brexit. Thank you if you attended this webinar. If you would like a reminder of the key takeaways or if you were unable to attend the webinar, please see below for our key takeaway points from the session.

Applying for a sponsorship licence

• You will need a sponsor licence in order to sponsor EU, EEA or Swiss citizens (who are not resident in the UK by 11pm on 31 December 2020) or non-EU nationals from 1 January 2021.
• The application process is online and subject to payment of a fee. You will need to gather the necessary documents to show that you are a legitimate business registered for tax and NI, have genuine vacancies, and have policies and procedures in place to monitor sponsored migrants.
• Consider making an application sooner rather than later, as it is currently taking around 4 – 6 weeks for applications to be processed by UKVI.

Maintaining a licence

If you already have a sponsor licence, check that it is up to date and has not expired.

Check that any employees who are registered personnel for your licence are still employed to ensure that you still have access to your licence, bearing in mind that it is a breach of the UKVI rules if you do not.

If you have a Tier 2 Intra-Company Transfer licence, check that your entities based outside the UK are attached to your licence to enable you to bring employees of those entities to the UK under this route.

Sponsor duties

• You are required to comply with your sponsor duties from the day your licence is granted and must continue to do so unless or until your licence is surrendered, made dormant or, in worst case scenarios, revoked.
• The key sponsor duties are:
  • Reporting
  • Record-keeping
  • Compliance with immigration and wider UK laws;
  • Not engaging in behaviour or actions that are not conducive to the public good.
• Penalties for failure to abide by your sponsor duties can be severe, including downgrading or revocation of your licence and your sponsored migrants losing their certificates of sponsorship.

Q&A

We also received questions relating to right to work which will be covered at the final webinar in our Immigration Webinar Series. Please join us for our final webinar on 9 December 2020, details of which can be found on our Brexit Insights hub page here.

If you need advice or support in preparing for the immigration changes coming into effect from 1 January 2021, please contact our dedicated immigration team.