Wealthier individuals can use the Tier 1 Investor visa route to come to the UK.  By investing a minimum of £2m in UK trading companies, successful applicants can live, work and study in the UK.  The rules governing these visas have been subject to recent revisions, so we advise applicants in navigating a course through the latest changes.  We also combine this advice with careful estate planning, to minimise the exposure to UK taxes once the applicant is in the UK.

Other recent changes have ended the Tier 1 Entrepreneur visa category, replacing it with new Innovator or Start-up visas.  These visas are nascent concepts, so it is important that careful advice is sought to ensure a successful application.

Where a UK business holds a sponsor licence, it can employ overseas workers in the UK to carry out specific skilled roles.  We advise employers on obtaining the relevant ‘certificate of sponsorship’ required for each visa holder and guide them and their future employees through the application process.  Where necessary, this involves advising on compliance with the ‘resident labour market test’, whereby a role must first be offered to a worker from the UK or the EU, unless an exception applies.  We also advise on ‘intra-company transfer’ visas, where employees of an overseas business come to work for a group company in the UK.  These applications commonly involve contemporaneous applications from family members accompanying the main visa holder to the UK.

Where UK businesses want to employ nationals from outside the European Economic Area and Switzerland, they are likely to need a sponsor licence to be able to do so.   To be successful in applying for the licence, an employer must be able to show that it is a genuine and legitimate organisation, that it poses no risk to immigration control, and that it has robust systems in place to be able to comply with its sponsorship duties.  We regularly advise employers on these applications, ensuring that they have the correct supporting documentation in place, that they appoint the relevant key personnel required for the licence, and that they have the necessary monitoring and record-keeping systems in place to meet their sponsor requirements.