Sponsor Licence Check: How to Check if a UK Company Sponsors Visas (and What the Register Can't Tell You)

To check whether a UK company can sponsor a work visa, find its legal name and search the Home Office register of licensed sponsors on gov.uk: if it is listed with the "Skilled Worker" route and an A rating, it can issue a Certificate of Sponsorship for an eligible job. The register edition published on 7 October 2026 has 143,176 entries covering 127,749 organisations, and 122,373 of those hold a Skilled Worker licence. This guide explains what each column means, why a company can disappear from the list, and what the register will never tell you.

Where to find the official UK sponsor licence list

The list is published by UK Visas and Immigration as the Register of licensed sponsors: workers. There is one download, a CSV file of about 11 MB, named with the edition date. When we checked on 7 October 2026, the page had been updated on 7, 6, 5, 2 and 1 October, so it changes most working days. The file you downloaded last month is already out of date.

You can open it in Excel, Google Sheets or Numbers and use find or a filter on the first column. Two practical problems come up straight away. The file is large enough to be slow on a phone, and it lists organisations by their registered legal name, not the brand you know. "Morgan Stanley UK Limited" and "JPMorgan Chase Bank, National Association" are the names you would search for, not "Morgan Stanley" or "JPMorgan".

There is also a separate register for student sponsors (universities and colleges). If you are job hunting, you want the workers register.

What the columns mean

The CSV has five columns.

Each row is one route. An employer licensed for Skilled Worker and two Global Business Mobility routes appears three times. In the 7 October 2026 file, 13,583 organisations appear on more than one row, which is why the row count (143,176) is higher than the number of organisations (127,749).

Which route matters for graduates

The route column is the one most people skip, and it is the one that decides whether the licence is any use to you.

The trap is the Graduate Trainee route. Its name sounds like it covers UK graduate schemes, but gov.uk says the Graduate Trainee visa is for people who are already employees of the organisation overseas and are coming to work in its UK branch. A firm that is licensed only for Global Business Mobility routes cannot hire you from a UK university on a Skilled Worker visa until it adds that route.

A rating, B rating and what each lets the employer do

Almost the whole register is A-rated. In the 7 October file, only 88 Skilled Worker entries carry a B rating.

The difference matters more than most guides admit. The Home Office sponsor compliance guidance (updated 2 September 2026) says a sponsor downgraded to B cannot assign certificates of sponsorship to new workers until it has signed up to an action plan, paid the fee and had its A rating restored. It also calls B a transitional rating: the sponsor has up to 3 months to get back to A, or the licence is revoked.

In practice, if an employer you are talking to shows as B-rated, it cannot sponsor you as a new hire right now. Ask when it expects the action plan to finish, and keep other applications going.

Suspended and revoked sponsors: what the register hides

People search for a "revoked sponsor licence list" because they want to know whether an employer has lost its licence. The Home Office does not publish one. What it does is quieter.

Suspension. The compliance guidance says that if a licence is suspended, the Home Office removes the sponsor from the public register for the whole suspension. If it decides not to revoke, the entry is reinstated. A missing employer may therefore be suspended, not gone for good.

Revocation. A revoked sponsor simply drops off the next edition, with no note explaining why. The same thing happens when a company surrenders its licence, merges or changes its legal name, so a single removal tells you very little on its own.

Movement is constant. We compare successive editions of the register and log each change. Between the 10 July and 7 October 2026 editions, our records show:

Since the 11 September edition alone, 1,181 entries were added and 1,111 removed. Some removals are name changes that reappear as additions, so read these as movement, not as a count of revocations. You can browse each month's additions and removals by name on our register changes page.

If you are already working for a sponsor that loses its licence, gov.uk says your permission is usually cut to 60 days (or less if your visa ends sooner), within which you need a new sponsor or another visa.

What a licence does not tell you

A licence means the employer can sponsor. It does not tell you:

• whether this particular job is open to sponsorship
• whether the role's salary and occupation code qualify (gov.uk lists the going rate for each occupation code)
• whether the employer has certificates available or the budget to use one
• whether its graduate programme accepts people who will need sponsorship later

We cover that gap, and why most job adverts say nothing about sponsorship, in our analysis of the 2026 sponsor register.

How to check an employer, step by step

1. Find the legal name. It is usually in the footer of the careers site, the privacy policy or on Companies House.
2. Search it. Use our sponsor licence check, or open the gov.uk CSV and search the first column for a distinctive word from the name.
3. Read the route and rating. You want "Skilled Worker" and "Worker (A rating)". Note the edition date you checked.
4. Look for recent movement. Check the employer on our register changes pages to see whether it was recently added, removed or downgraded. Our visa sponsor directory lets you browse by city and sector if you are building a target list.
5. Check the role, not just the company. For graduate schemes, our graduate visa sponsorship tracker records what each employer says on its own pages. For a specific offer, run the salary and occupation code through the Skilled Worker salary calculator.
6. Check again before you sign. The register changes daily. Look again when the offer arrives and before the employer assigns your certificate.

Frequently asked questions

Is there an official list of revoked sponsor licences in the UK? No. The Home Office publishes only the current register of licensed sponsors. Revoked sponsors disappear from the next edition without a reason, and suspended sponsors are removed while the suspension lasts. Comparing editions over time, as our register changes pages do, is the only way to see who has dropped off.

How often is the UK sponsor licence list updated? Most working days. On 7 October 2026 the gov.uk page showed updates on 7, 6, 5, 2 and 1 October. Always note the edition date when you check an employer.

Does a sponsor licence mean the company will sponsor me? No. It means the company is allowed to sponsor. Whether it will depends on the role's salary and occupation code, the employer's policy for that programme and whether you need sponsorship now or later. Ask about the specific role.

What does a B rating mean on the sponsor register? It means the Home Office found compliance problems and put the sponsor on an action plan. Under the sponsor guidance, a B-rated sponsor cannot assign certificates of sponsorship to new workers until its A rating is restored, and it has up to 3 months to get back to A before the licence is revoked.

Why can't I find a company I know sponsors visas? Usually because the register uses the legal name, not the brand, or because the employing entity is a different company in the group. Search a distinctive word from the legal name instead. If it is still missing, the licence may be suspended, surrendered or revoked, or the company may not hold one.

How many companies have a UK sponsor licence? Our count of the 7 October 2026 register is 127,749 organisations across 143,176 entries, with 122,373 organisations licensed on the Skilled Worker route.