Scale-up Worker visa for employers

This route suits a business that's already growing quickly and needs a skilled person in a role that will last. The post needs to run for 6 months or more, as the GOV.UK licence types guidance explains.

A worker's first visa runs for 2 years, and any extensions after that come in blocks of 3 years.

What makes this route different is that your part as sponsor is short. After 6 months, the worker can stay in the job without a new certificate from you. They can also switch to a different employer without needing a fresh sponsor before their visa runs out, as set out on GOV.UK.

The lowest pay you can offer is £39,100 a year, though the going rate applies instead whenever it is higher. The going rate is the minimum salary the Home Office sets for each kind of role. In plenty of cases it sits above £39,100, and then the going rate is the number you have to reach.

This licence is the Home Office's permission for your business to hire from abroad. You can qualify for the Scale-up version in 2 ways:

• Through an endorsing body. This is an organisation the Home Office has approved to stand behind growing businesses. It charges £1,500 plus VAT to endorse you, according to the Home Office fees table.
• Meeting the growth test. To qualify this way, your business must have grown by 20% a year on average, in jobs or turnover, across the 3 years leading up to approval. Your headcount when those 3 years began must also have been 10 or more, as GOV.UK explains.

Unlike most sponsor licences, a Scale-up licence has a fixed end date. It runs for 4 years, and once it ends your business cannot apply for another Scale-up licence, as GOV.UK explains. It is worth planning your hiring around that window.

You pay £55 for a certificate of sponsorship for each worker you sponsor on this route. They use it when applying for the visa. This is the Temporary Worker rate, as set out on GOV.UK.

You won't pay an immigration skills charge for a Scale-up Worker certificate; that fee applies only to the Skilled Worker and Senior or Specialist Worker routes.

Scale-up is a Temporary Worker licence, so whatever size your business is, the licence fee is £611. For your first Scale-up Worker, the Home Office fees come to £666 in total: the licence plus 1 certificate. An endorsing body's £1,500 fee, if you use one, comes on top of that.

GOV.UK's Scale-up Worker visa page lists the visa fee, and the healthcare surcharge page gives the health surcharge figure.

If you want help with your licence application, you can ask an immigration adviser. If you go that way, check that the adviser is registered with the Immigration Advice Authority or is part of a recognised professional body, for example the Law Society, as GOV.UK explains. If you have heard of the OISC, that was the same regulator under its old name.