[Immigration] Newsflash – Home Office Fee Increase

The Home Office, operating as UK Visas and Immigration, have announced fee increases to take effect from 9 April 2025. Most of the fee increases are approximately 7% and there are no increases to any of the priority service fees, either for visa applications or for sponsorship requests such as priority allocation of Certificates of Sponsorship.

However, the most significant increase is the fee for assigning a Certificate of Sponsorship (“CoS”), which has increased from its current rate of £239 to the new fee of £525. At more than double the current rate, this is a substantial change and it is likely that this is a result of the Home Office wanting to recover the revenue they have lost by no longer requiring Sponsor Licences to be renewed.

Previously, Sponsor Licences required to be renewed every 4 years, at which time the Sponsor Licence fee would be paid again – for example a large sponsor would have previously paid a fee of £1,476 for renewal. However, from April 2024 the renewal requirement was removed and all Sponsor Licences are now granted on an indefinite basis, with no requirement for Sponsors to make any renewal or pay any renewal fee. That would have inevitably led to a significant reduction in revenue for the Home Office, and this heavy increase in the fee for assigning a CoS may be a way of recovering that revenue from the sponsorship system.

The fee increases most relevant to our clients in relation to Senior/Specialist Worker visas or Skilled Worker visas, are:

There is no current confirmation that either the Immigration Skills Charge or Immigration Health Surcharge will be subject to a further increase in the near future, but changes are always possible.

For more information, please get in touch with your usual 3CS contact.