UK Sponsor Licence Revocations

What revocation means

When the Home Office revokes a sponsor licence, the employer can no longer hold any Certificate of Sponsorship. Existing CoS held by current workers become void on the date of revocation. Affected workers receive a curtailment letter giving them 60 calendar days to either:

• Find a new licensed sponsor and apply for a new CoS + visa transfer (use the Sponsor Licence Checker to verify any prospective employer);
• Apply to switch to a different visa route (e.g. Graduate, Dependent, Innovator Founder);
• Leave the UK before the 60 days expire.

The 60 days runs from the date on the curtailment letter, not the revocation date. Practically, workers usually have a 1–2 week head-start because letters are dated when sent.

How revocations happen

Revocations follow a standard sequence:

1. Compliance audit — Home Office officers visit the sponsor's premises (announced or unannounced) and inspect HR records, attendance, contracts, payroll for sponsored workers.
2. Action plan / B-rating — Minor issues result in a downgrade to B-rating and a written action plan with 3 months to remediate. The sponsor pays a £1,476 action-plan fee.
3. Re-audit — If issues persist or are serious, the licence is suspended or revoked outright. Suspension blocks new CoS issuance during investigation.
4. Revocation — Final decision; communicated in writing. Sponsor has the right to administrative review or judicial review (rare).

Common triggers: failure to report worker absence over 10 days, retaining sponsored workers after CoS expiry, employing workers in roles materially different from the CoS description, or being prosecuted for an immigration offence.

How to check the public register

The Home Office publishes the Register of Licensed Sponsors (Workers) as a CSV updated multiple times per week. There is no published list of revoked licences. Revocation is inferred:

• Compare yesterday's register to today's. Companies that disappeared from the register either surrendered, expired, or were revoked.
• If a company you applied to is no longer in the register, it cannot legally sponsor new workers. Stop the application.
• Sometimes companies re-appear after re-applying — usually 6–18 months after a revocation.

SponsorshipJobs.io re-fetches the register daily. Our Sponsor Licence Checker always reflects the latest published version. Companies that have lost their licence will return "not found" in the checker.

Methodology: how we monitor

1. The full Home Office register is fetched into our uk_sponsor_companies table on a daily schedule.
2. A daily comparison flags organisation names that were present yesterday and absent today.
3. Possible exits are categorised: explicit surrender (rare; only if announced), expiry (4-year licences), or revocation (most common).
4. Aggregate counts are exposed at the Sponsor Licence Atlas; per-company status is exposed via the Sponsor Licence Checker.
5. We do not name individual revoked companies on this page — the Home Office withholds that information for due-process reasons. We only confirm that a licence is no longer present.