An employer can sponsor a work visa only if it holds a sponsor licence, and every licensed employer is on the Home Office register. The free sponsor search is a copy of that register, synced twice a day.
The narration, word for word. The narration uses a synthetic voice.
Type an employer's name, press enter, and in about three seconds you know whether it can sponsor a UK visa. Here's how to read that answer properly, what the rating next to it means, and the search mistake that makes a real sponsor look unlicensed.
In the UK, an employer usually needs a sponsor licence from the Home Office before it can hire someone from outside the country. Every licensed employer is on a public register. Today that's a hundred and twenty seven thousand and ninety two of them, and the register changes every working day. The official register is a spreadsheet, which is hard work on a phone. So we keep a searchable copy, synced from the Home Office twice a day. It's free, and there's no account to make.
Type a company name into the box. Let's try Tesco. Twenty seven sponsors come back, because plenty of names start with those letters. The one most people mean is Tesco Stores Limited, in Welwyn Garden City. Now, the mistake. The name on a job advert often isn't the name on the register. Brands, trading names and parent companies are common. If a search comes up empty, try the company's legal name. It's usually in the footer of its website. From the home page, the same search box finds more than the register. It also shows jobs at that employer, and questions other people have asked about it.
Every employer has a page of its own, and the top of it answers the main question. Licensed sponsor, in green. Next to it are the visa routes the licence covers, with a rating for each one. Tesco holds an A rating for the Skilled Worker route, and another for Global Business Mobility. That rating matters. If a sponsor is downgraded to a B rating, GOV.UK says it can't sponsor any new workers until it gets its A rating back. Public employers are on the register too. Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust has an A rating for Skilled Worker, and its page works in exactly the same way. Further down is the licence history. We build it by comparing daily copies of the register back to January twenty twenty three, so a new route, a rating change, or the day an employer left, appears with a date. There's one gap, from June twenty twenty four to January twenty twenty five, and the page says so. Under that, you'll see other sponsors in the same town with the same industry code, which helps when you're comparing employers in one line of work. Then the Companies House record: the company number, when it was set up, and its registered office. Company status and filing deadlines change often, so rather than show an old copy, the page lets you check them live once you've signed in. And people who've been sponsored by an employer can answer questions from people checking it, like how long the certificate of sponsorship took, or what the interview was like.
Waiting on an offer? Set an alert. Put in your email, and we'll tell you the day this entry changes: a licence revoked or restored, or a rating moved between A and B. It's free and needs no account. You get one email to confirm, then nothing at all until something actually happens, and every alert has a link to stop it.
If an employer leaves the register, its page stays up and says so, in red, with the date it was removed. This one was removed on the fifth of October. It had been off the register once before, in June, and the page shows that too, so a gap of a few weeks doesn't get missed. It happens more often than you might think. In the last thirty days, eight hundred and five employers left the register.
No company name yet? Open the filters, and pick a town or an industry. Manchester alone has three thousand three hundred and twenty licensed sponsors. And on a phone, it's the same information, laid out so you can read it with one thumb.
Two things to keep in mind. A licence means an employer is allowed to sponsor. It doesn't mean there's a job, or that it will sponsor you for this one. That part is between you and the employer. And ours is a copy. The register on GOV.UK is the official record, so check it there before you rely on it. If you want to go further, every company page has an employer check. It brings directors, Gazette notices, Companies House history, and tribunal and minimum wage records into one report, for two pounds ninety nine. There's a separate video on it. That's sponsor search. Try it on the next employer that offers you a job.
ImmigrationGPT shares information from GOV.UK and the Home Office register of licensed sponsors. It is not immigration advice. A regulated adviser can advise on your own case.