What’s the Difference Between Defined and Undefined Certificates of Sponsorship?

Immigration solicitors aren’t surprised that UK employers and HR directors and executives find some of the Home Office sponsor licence terminology confusing. Do you know the difference between a defined and an undefined certificate of sponsorship? If you don’t, or you aren’t a 100% sure, read on for an explanation by our Sponsorship Licence lawyers.

UK Online and London Immigration Solicitors and Sponsorship Licence Lawyers

For advice on sponsor licence applications and management call the expert London immigration lawyers at OTS Solicitors on 0203 959 9123 or contact us online.

What is a certificate of sponsorship?

Before we look at the definition, in Home Office language, of what amounts to ‘defined’ or ‘undefined’ certificates of sponsorship, lets first look at what a certificate of sponsorship is.

• First off, it isn’t a certificate. Instead, it is a computerised reference number needed by a skilled worker visa or intra company transfer visa applicant or temporary sponsored worker to apply for a work visa.
• Secondly, it isn’t ‘sponsorship’ because at the stage the certificate of sponsorship is assigned to the job applicant, the person applying for the job isn’t a sponsored employee but a person who has been offered a job subject to them securing their skilled worker visa or intra company transfer visa or temporary visa under the points-based immigration system.

With Home Office terminology, Sponsorship Licence lawyers say that it is best to ignore the factual inaccuracies and misnomers and just accept that if your business wants to sponsor skilled migrant workers you will need to allocate each worker a certificate of sponsorship so they can use the reference to apply for a visa. Without a certificate of sponsorship, the job applicant’s visa application will automatically fail as a job offer, evidenced by a certificate of sponsorship, is a mandatory requirement for a skilled worker visa or intra company transfer visa.

The certificate of sponsorship isn’t something that can be issued and then used when the time is right for the sponsoring employer and sponsored employee. The certificate of sponsorship must be used to apply for a work visa within three months of issue. After that the certificate of sponsorship is no longer valid and a sponsoring employer will need to go through the process of issuing a new certificate of sponsorship to the prospective employee. Therefore, if your overseas based employee is going to have to work a long notice period or wants to take time off before starting their employment in the UK, you may need to defer issuing them with a certificate of sponsorship.

Does the Home Office terminology really matter?

By this stage you may be thinking that you will use a sponsor licence management service to manage your sponsor licence for your business or that you will just ignore the terminology and get on with it, in the hope that the Home Office won't notice or care if you mix up your defined and undefined certificates of sponsorship.

Unfortunately, the terminology does matter because if you get defined and undefined certificates of sponsorship mixed up it could result in your sponsor licence being subject to a Home Office compliance audit and could even end up in sponsor licence revocation . Revocation is reserved for if there are serious sponsor licence breaches of reporting and recording duties or certificate of sponsorship allocation.

The defined certificate of sponsorship

The defined certificate of sponsorship is used for skilled worker visa applicants who are applying for a work visa from outside the UK. It should not be used for job applicants who need to apply for an intra company transfer visa.

If your business has had a sponsor licence for some time you may be more familiar with the terminology ‘restricted certificate of sponsorship’. When the Home Office changed from Tier 2 (General) visa to skilled worker visa in 2020 the vocabulary changed as well from restricted to defined.

With the defined certificate of sponsorship, you don’t get certificates allocated to your business on an annual basis or over the four-year life span of your sponsor licence. Instead, each time you want to sponsor a skilled worker visa applicant who is applying for their visa from overseas, you need to apply to the Home Office for a defined certificate of sponsorship. The application is made by your key personnel using the sponsor management system or SMS. A certificate of sponsorship reference number will appear on your sponsor licence account and you can then assign it to the job applicant who will then use it to apply for their skilled worker visa.

The undefined certificate of sponsorship

The undefined certificate of sponsorship is used for skilled worker visa applicants who are applying for a work visa from inside the UK and all intra company transfer visa applicants and other sponsored routes.

The undefined certificate of sponsorship is taken from the annual certificate of sponsorship allocation provided to your business. Therefore, you don’t have to make a special application to the Home Office for a certificate of sponsorship as one is already waiting and available for use (or should be if you requested the right number of undefined certificates of sponsorship when asking for your annual allocation).

If you don’t apply for enough undefined certificates of sponsorship to last your business for a year then there is a solution. Your business doesn’t need to delay the recruitment of skilled migrant workers as you can ask the Home Office to allocate you more certificates. If your business doesn’t use all its undefined certificates of sponsorship for the allocated year then they don’t ‘roll over’ into the following year. Instead, your business needs to apply for a fresh allocation of undefined certificates of sponsorship each year, making an informed guess, or after reading the strategic recruitment plan, make an analysed and researched decision, into the number of undefined certificates required.

Sponsor licence help

If you still aren’t 100% confident about allocating certificates of sponsorship or managing your sponsor licence then the Sponsorship Licence lawyers at OTS Solicitors can help you from the initial stage of applying for your sponsor licence, taking the hassle out of sponsor licence management and reporting and recording on the SMS and sorting out your sponsor licence renewal application. The help the business immigration solicitors can offer includes help with the allocation of certificates of sponsorship and requests for additional undefined certificates.

UK Online and London Immigration Solicitors and Sponsorship Licence Lawyers

For advice on sponsor licence applications and management call the expert London immigration lawyers at OTS Solicitors on 0203 959 9123 or contact us online.