If you are a licensed sponsor and your to-do list includes assigning a certificate of sponsorship (CoS) to a new hire or someone who is switching immigration categories, you should do so by 5 April in order to avoid having to pay the immigration skills charge (ISC).

The ISC will be payable from 6 April 2017 when a CoS is assigned to sponsor a worker under Tier 2 (whether General or Intra Company Transfer) who will be applying from:

• outside the UK for a visa
• inside the UK to switch into Tier 2; or
• inside the UK to extend their visa

The ISC won’t apply for those who are already being sponsored before 6 April 2017 and who apply inside the UK to extend their visa with the same or a different sponsor. There are a few other exceptions; it does not apply to:

• Tier 2 Intra Company Transfer graduate trainees
• workers in specified PhD level occupations; or
• Tier 4 student visa holders switching in the UK into Tier 2

Unlike the immigration health surcharge, the ISC is only payable in respect of the sponsored worker and not any family members. The ISC has been set at £1,000 per sponsored worker per year for most sponsors (£364 for small or charitable sponsors). It is payable upfront at the time of assigning the CoS for the total period of time covered by the CoS.

The ISC will clearly add significantly to the cost of employing a non-EEA national. The funds raised are intended to be used to address skills gaps in the UK workforce. It comes into effect at the same time as the apprenticeship levy, which is also designed to address such skills gaps. Time will tell whether these measures will have the desired effect or simply increase employers’ costs, particularly, in the case of the ISC, at the point of recruitment.

Registered sponsors: have you applied for your CoS allocation renewal?

If you are a licensed sponsor under the points based immigration system, you should have received several emails from UK Visas & Immigration over the last couple of months to remind you that your annual allocation of certificates of sponsorship (CoS) or will expire on 5 April 2017.

The allocation year runs from 6 April to the following 5 April. An annual allocation of CoS is available for the Intra Company Transfer category and unrestricted CoS for Tier 2 General.

So, if you know that one of the following will apply for your business in the next 12 months, now is the time to request an increase in your annual allocation:

• you have a Tier 2 Intra Company Transfer licence and you plan to bring anyone from an overseas office to the UK within that time 
• you employ someone whose Tier 2 visa is going to need renewing between April 2017 and April 2018 
• you are likely to recruit someone from outwith the EEA who would earn more than £155,300; or 
• you are quite far through a recruitment process which is likely to result in an offer being made to a non-EEA national who is already in the UK and being sponsored by another employer

In any of these situations, it is important to act now and apply for a renewal of your CoS allocation via the sponsorship management system before 5 April.

If none of these apply you can ignore the UKVI emails. If circumstances change, you will be able to apply for a renewal of your allocation at the time the need arises but ad hoc requests can take up to 18 weeks to be processed (unless you pay to use the priority request service).

The usual monthly allocation process applies for restricted CoS, which are used for non-EEA nationals who will be coming to the UK for the first time, Tier 4 dependants switching to Tier 2 (earning less than £155,300) and Croatian nationals.