Sponsor licence priority service

The priority service gives your licence application a 10-working-day target instead of the standard queue. The clock starts the working day after you pay the priority fee, and weekends and public holidays do not count: pay on a Monday and day one is Tuesday. Requests are taken in the order they arrive, first come first served (GOV.UK).

The decision is emailed to your authorising officer. Paying does not make approval more likely, and UKVI may still need to visit your business as part of its checks.

You can add priority when you apply, paying it with the licence fee, or after you have submitted. To add it afterwards, log back into your sponsor application account with your user ID and password and choose "Finish incomplete applications". Without those login details you cannot go back in to request it (GOV.UK).

The option is only offered when:

• every route in your application is eligible
• no caseworker has started on your application
• you request it on a weekday that is not a public holiday, between 9am and 11.59pm
• the daily limit has not been reached

You must also have sent the submission sheet and all mandatory and supporting documents: within 5 working days of paying if you choose priority when you apply, or already if you add it afterwards.

Applications that include any of these routes are not offered priority:

• Global Business Mobility: UK Expansion Worker, Service Supplier and Secondment Worker
• Scale-up Worker
• Government Authorised Exchange
• International Agreement
• Seasonal Worker

Adding one of these routes to an application for a Skilled Worker licence removes the priority option for the whole application.

The Home Office can miss the target and keep your fee if you did not send all documents on time, did not answer a request for more information, or the case raises complex issues that need more time. A refund is possible only when the delay comes from something outside normal casework, such as a technical error. If the target will be missed, the Home Office emails the authorising officer, so GOV.UK asks them to check their inbox and junk folder often.

Once licensed, fully active A-rated sponsors can pay to have some licence changes decided faster. The service covers:

• an extra or annual allocation of undefined certificates (see CoS allocation)
• adding or changing a level 1 user
• replacing or amending the authorising officer or key contact
• adding a representative
• moving to new premises

First make the change in the sponsor management system, then email the priority request form to the post-licence priority mailbox on weekdays between 7am and 5pm. At least 120 requests are accepted each day. If yours is accepted, you get a payment link and have 72 hours to pay, weekends included. The 5 working days start the day after payment. No reply means the request was not accepted (GOV.UK).

The pre-licence guidance describes one paid service for licence applications, the 10-working-day one. The premium customer service scheme, which gave some sponsors extra support, is closed (sponsor guidance, Part 1).