All Articles: Points Based System

As previously advised, today a statement of changes and explanatory memorandum to the immigration rules was published to bring in the income threshold increases for both skilled worker and Appendix FM partner routes. The immigration minister made a statement summarising the changes relating to the skilled worker, Appendix FM partner,...

14th March 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

The latest immigration and asylum statistics have been published today. We have highlighted some of the interesting data below on asylum, EU Settlement Scheme, fee waivers and student and work routes. Page contentsAsylumInadmissibilityHomelessness of refugeesLarge drop in attendance by Home Office presenting officers at asylum appealsFee waiversEU Settlement SchemeStudentsWorkConclusion Asylum...

29th February 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

The Migration Advisory Committee has completed the rapid review of the shortage occupation list that it was commissioned to carry out in late January and has recommended that 21 occupations are included on the new immigration salary list. The government has already announced that a statement of changes will be...

26th February 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

While not natural bedfellows, business immigration lawyers are finding themselves increasingly immersed in the world of corporate transactions, thanks to the rise in the number of businesses holding sponsor licences. An important principle of sponsorship is that a sponsor licence is not transferable. This means that it is given to...

20th February 2024
BY Joanna Hunt

This is the third of my series of articles where I have enlisted the help of my specialist private wealth and tax colleague Emma Read to explain what some of the legal consequences of moving to the UK may be for people, beyond the need to sort their immigration status. Today we are looking...

7th February 2024
BY John Vassiliou

This is the second of my series of articles where I have enlisted the help of my specialist private wealth and tax colleague Emma Read to explain what some of the legal consequences of moving to the UK may be for people, beyond the need to sort their immigration status. People with...

1st February 2024
BY John Vassiliou

A ministerial statement made today has confirmed that there are two statements of changes coming in the next couple of months. The first will remove the ability of care workers to bring dependants, and the second will include the increase to the minimum income requirement for families, among other changes....

30th January 2024
BY Sonia Lenegan

Earlier this month we considered a High Court judgment which upheld the Home Office’s decision to revoke a large care home operator’s sponsor licence due to several non-compliance issues. The High Court has now handed down its judgment in Supporting Care Ltd, R (On the Application Of v Secretary of...

29th January 2024
BY Jack Freeland

Most Free Movement content is, unsurprisingly, about movement (even if it’s not free these days). But what happens after movement to the UK? Well, two things are certain: death and taxes. Many immigration practitioners, myself included, are blissfully unaware of the numerous other legal consequences that might crop up outside...

25th January 2024
BY John Vassiliou

Appendix Children was published in October 2023 and consolidates most of the rules for child dependents of parents on points-based immigration routes which were previously spread out across the individual categories. It also covers children applying in their own right in points-based categories that allow for that, such as the...

18th January 2024
BY Alex Piletska

The High Court ruling in Prestwick Care Ltd & Ors v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2023] EWHC 3193 (Admin) has upheld the Home Office’s decision to revoke the sponsor licence of a large care home operator in the North East. The judgment is a harsh reminder that,...

9th January 2024
BY Jack Freeland

On Monday the new Home Secretary presented a “five-point plan” to reduce UK immigration after a feverish fortnight of the right of the Conservative party, most of the opposition, plus every news outlet badgering him about the Office for National Statistics revising its estimate of 2022’s net migration up to...

7th December 2023
BY Ross Kennedy

A new report comes with a stark warning: “As the number of sponsored migrant workers rises every quarter, the issue of migrant labour exploitation is only likely to increase”. Work Rights Centre, a charity that works to support migrants and disadvantaged British residents access employment justice, has today published their...

14th November 2023
BY Sonia Lenegan

The Migration Advisory Committee has recommended that the shortage occupation list is abolished and that people in the asylum system with permission to work are allowed to work in any role. These are some of the recommendations in the full review of the shortage occupation list, published yesterday. The committee...

4th October 2023
BY Sonia Lenegan

The UK Expansion Worker visa is part of the Global Business Mobility route. It enables overseas businesses seeking to expand into the UK to temporarily assign senior managers and specialist employees, including business owners, to the UK to establish a British operation. Opening on 11 April 2022, it replaced the...

25th August 2023
BY Nichola Carter

The immigration skills charge is an additional fee payable by a sponsoring employer when a certificate of sponsorship is issued prior to a worker beginning their employment. The sponsor is required to pay the immigration skills charge and cannot pass liability onto the sponsored worker. Doing so could risk revocation...

4th August 2023
BY Imogen Scoular

The UK has two sponsored work routes for religious workers: the T2 Minister of Religion visa for those with a key leading role in their faith-based organisation or religious order in the UK, and the temporary Religious Worker visa for those who support the activities of religious institutions in the...

2nd August 2023
BY Jack Freeland

The Global Business Mobility: Secondment Worker visa route is for overseas workers who are undertaking temporary assignments in the UK. The worker must be seconded to the UK as part of a high value contract or investment by their employer overseas. The Global Business Mobility umbrella was launched on 11...

17th July 2023
BY Pip Hague

Last week the Supreme Court found that a financing scheme to help individuals qualify for an Investor visa did not comply with the requirements of the immigration rules. The case is R (on the application of Wang) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2023] UKSC 21 and the...

26th June 2023
BY Colin Yeo

The Seasonal Worker route is one of those visas in the Temporary Worker family, allowing people to come to the UK for short stints without the right to stay long term. Seasonal Worker visas made up around half of all temporary worker grants in the year ending March 2023. 35,122 seasonal worker visas...

16th June 2023
BY Pip Hague

There is only a day left to respond to the Migration Advisory Committee’s (MAC’s) current call for evidence on what roles should appear on the Shortage Occupation List. Employers have until 26th May 2023 to put forward their cases for why certain job roles and types should be added to or...

25th May 2023
BY Joanna Hunt

The Global Business Mobility: Service Supplier route is for overseas workers who are undertaking temporary assignments in the UK. The applicant must be either a contractual service supplier employed by an overseas service provider or a self-employed independent professional based overseas. The service performed must be covered by one of...

24th May 2023
BY Pip Hague

In a written statement to parliament today, Suella Braverman announced that the government intends to tighten the rules for international students in an attempt to bring down net migration figures, which are due to be published this Thursday, 25 May. The government have also published a news story to confirm...

23rd May 2023
BY Josie Laidman

Yesterday the Prime Minister announced a quota of 45,000 seasonal worker visas for 2024, “to give certainty to the horticulture sector next year, enabling them to plan ahead for the picking season”. It is billed as part of a larger package of support for British farmers. But we know that...

17th May 2023
BY Josie Laidman

A Youth Mobility visa enables people aged 18-30 to live and work in the UK, usually for up to two years. It used to be called the “working holiday-maker scheme” and some people may still call it that. Crucially, there is no requirement to have an employer to sponsor a...

12th May 2023
BY Alex Schymyck

Last month, two new visa concessions were added to the Hong Kong British Nationals (overseas) (BN(O)) route. You can read about them in more detail in the Home Office guidance. Leave outside the rules where financial or residency requirements cannot be met The second amendment extends the concession that enables the...

4th May 2023
BY Josie Laidman

The Innovator Founder visa route was launched on 13 April 2023, designed for entrepreneurs looking to establish an innovative, viable, and scalable business in the UK. In line with the government’s wider ‘UK Innovation Strategy‘, this new route replaces the “Innovator” and “Start Up” routes, with the aim of providing...

4th May 2023
BY Madni Chaudhary

The Global Business Mobility Senior or Specialist Worker visa was previously known as the Intra-Company Transfer visa. In 2022, the route was rebranded and grouped together with four other temporary work visas now known as the Global Business Mobility routes. You can find them in the immigration rules under Appendix...

13th April 2023
BY Pip Hague

The Government Authorised Exchange (GAE) category of the Immigration Rules is one of the least known of all the UK’s visa options. It can be found in Appendix Temporary Work – Government Authorised Exchange to the immigration rules. The temporary work routes offer visas for temporary workers. According to the...

24th March 2023
BY Nichola Carter

Yesterday’s Spring Budget 2023 announced upcoming changes to the business visitor visa requirements and the addition of construction workers to the Shortage Occupation List. Additional language support for Ukraine Visa Scheme holders was also announced.  Business visitor visa The changes expected in autumn 2023 will include expanding the range of...

16th March 2023
BY Josie Laidman

When employers apply for and are granted a licence to sponsor workers, they make a pledge to accept all the duties of sponsorship, and the Home Office can take compliance action when they consider that a sponsor has failed to uphold their duties or otherwise poses a risk to immigration...

1st March 2023
BY Pip Hague

The UK continues to play host to industrial action with the latest strike action announced this week being opted for by Junior Doctors and currently set for March 2023. For many, negotiated settlements continue to be some way off and further strikes are anticipated in the coming months. UK visa...

23rd February 2023
BY Ahmad Namazie

It is common for immigration lawyers to advise clients in the UK that travelling outside the Common Travel Area (CTA) when an immigration application is pending will result in the application being treated as withdrawn (cue fiddly explanations to clients as to what constitutes the CTA). It is also common...

21st February 2023
BY Robert Houchill

This week Tech Nation announced that it will cease operation on 31 March 2023 after the government terminated its grant funding. Tech Nation has spent the last decade embedding and scaling up the tech ecosystem, simultaneously bringing thousands of people to the UK to work in the industry. Tech Nation...

3rd February 2023
BY Free Movement

Almost five years after Amber Rudd committed to a review of individuals who had entered the UK under the Tier 1 (Investor) route, today, Suella Braverman provided the government’s final response. The review looked at individuals who had entered the UK between 30 June 2008 and the introduction of reforms...

12th January 2023
BY Josie Laidman

Economic migration is a two-way street. The UK might be ready and willing to receive the world’s elite economic migrants, but they may not be so ready and willing for much longer. A recent report from the Institute for Management Development ranked countries according to their attractiveness to people who...

12th January 2023
BY Nicholas Reed Langen

The Home Office has made several changes that businesses sponsoring overseas workers should be aware of.  Amendments have been made to the Workers and Temporary Workers: guidance for sponsors part 2: sponsor a worker – general information (“general information guidance”) and the Workers and Temporary Workers: guidance for sponsors: sponsor...

10th November 2022
BY Josie Laidman

When the pandemic first hit in March 2020 the Home Office was quick off the mark in allowing employers to conduct right to work checks remotely. Rather than having to meet job applicants and employees needing to renew their status in person, they were able to do so via a...

26th September 2022
BY Nichola Carter

The Sunday Times reports that the Truss government intends to follow through on Truss’s pledge during the leadership race to raise the cap on seasonal agricultural workers. “Reform” of the visa system is also planned to “attract the best talent from across the world”. So far, so 2002. Adjustments to...

26th September 2022
BY Colin Yeo

Page contentsWhat is a creative worker visa and why is this route useful?Key informationConsider alternatives firstEarly considerations – border concession and switching in-countryWho can be a sponsor?What is the Certificate of Sponsorship requirement?What is the Resident Labour Market Test for Creative Workers?What is the difference between single, multiple and consecutive...

21st September 2022
BY Pip Hague
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