After entry requirements

People granted permission to enter or stay in the UK for a limited period frequently have conditions attached to their permission. These can include restrictions on work, occupation, study or claiming public funds. The previous requirement for specified foreign nationals to register with the police was removed in 2022.

Conditions of permission

Under section 3(1)(c) of the Immigration Act 1971, any, or all, of the following conditions may be attached to a person's grant of limited permission to enter or stay in the UK, a:

  1. restriction on work or occupation in the UK

  2. restriction on study in the UK

  3. requirement to maintain and accommodate themselves and any dependants without recourse to public funds

  4. requirement to register with the police (this condition is no longer imposed)

  5. requirement to report to an immigration officer or the Home Office, and

  6. condition about residence

The

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Detailed list of Home Office’s Sponsor Guidance changes of 6 March 2026

Immigration analysis: On 6 March 2026, the Home Office issued new versions of each of the three principal Worker and Temporary Worker Sponsor Guidance documents, as well as of other Sponsor Guidance documents including Appendix D (on retaining documents) and the Sponsor a Skilled Worker guidance. We have set out below a detailed list of all of the substantive changes, as well as other wording changes which the Home Office appears to have made to focus sponsors’ minds on recent operational concerns, in light of the current significant increase in compliance checks and enforcement (eg around salary underpayment). One important change is the replacement of the ‘genuine vacancy’ concept with the newly defined term ‘eligible role’, now contained in a new standalone glossary document. The new four-limbed definition embeds skill, salary and route requirements, compliance with wider employment law, and proportionality to the sponsor’s business model into a continuing test that must be met throughout sponsorship. Other operational-related changes include around illegal working requirements, and reinforcing the importance of Certificate of Sponsorship details matching the work actually undertaken (or reporting permitted changes). The wording around the standard of proof for the enforcement threshold has also been amended to ‘reasonable suspicion’, presumably as an attempt to expand the Home Office’s discretion to refuse, suspend or revoke licences. Other suitability/compliance amendments relate to concerns about dishonesty, salary inflation or risks to the integrity of the sponsorship system. At the same time, the guidance emphasises that participation in the sponsorship scheme (now formally termed a ‘scheme’) is voluntary and that a licence is granted and held at the Home Office’s discretion. There is also an increased focus on worker welfare and compliance with wider UK law, including a new requirement to inform sponsored workers of their employment rights and retain evidence of having done so. It had been anticipated that further guidance would be included on when and how employers are permitted to ‘claw back’ some immigration costs in circumstances where a sponsored worker leaves their employment early, but there were no more changes made on this aspect in the new guidance.

Home Office revises all principal Sponsor Guidance documents

On 6 March 2026 the Home Office brought into force version 03/26 of the principal sponsor guidance documents within the ‘Workers and Temporary Workers: guidance for sponsors’ collection, together with consequential amendments to the route-specific guidance for Skilled Workers. The changes affect Part 1: Apply for a licence, Part 2: Sponsor a worker, Part 3 (compliance and enforcement), Appendix D (record-keeping guidance) and the ‘Sponsor a Skilled Worker’ guidance, and also see the introduction of a new standalone and expanded Glossary. There is now extensive cross-referencing across all documents to that centralised source of definitions. Across the suite of guidance, the concept of a ‘genuine vacancy’ or ‘genuine employment’ has been removed and replaced with the newly defined term ‘eligible role’. This definition, now embedded in the Glossary and incorporated expressly into the other guidance documents, requires that the role must exist or be reasonably anticipated, meet all route-specific requirements including skill level and salary thresholds, comply with wider employment legislation and remain appropriate to the sponsor’s business throughout the period of sponsorship. References to assessing whether a vacancy is ‘genuine’ have been systematically replaced with consideration of whether the work meets the definition of an ‘eligible role’ and refusal, suspension and revocation provisions have been redrafted accordingly.  Other changes include Parts 1 and 3 now making explicit that sponsorship is voluntary, that a licence is granted at the discretion of the Home Office and creates no enforceable right and now stating that enforcement action may be taken on the basis of ‘reasonable suspicion’ of non-compliance rather than established breach. Further details of the changes will follow.

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