Getting Familiar with the Global Business Mobility visa

This visa is for workers on temporary assignment to the U.K. This is the first part of a two-part article.

The Global Business Mobility Secondment Worker visa is for overseas workers who are on temporary assignments in the U.K. The worker must be seconded to the U.K. as part of a high value contract or investment by their employer overseas.

The Global Business Mobility scheme was introduced on 11 April 2022 and contains five immigration routes. Some of these are rebranded versions of previous routes and others are new. The Global Business Mobility Secondment Worker visa is one of the new pathways to enter the U.K. It hasn’t proved to be very popular and only a handful of sponsors hold a license under the secondment route.

Dependent family members can apply to come to the U.K. in this route but it wouldn’t lead to settlement.

Why is this visa route useful?

For the sponsor, an attractive feature about the route is that there is no Immigration Skills Charge, currently £1,000 per year per worker, and no minimum salary requirement. The worker must of course conform to the U.K. National Minimum wage legislation.

For the applicant, there is no English language requirement. But the applicant must have been working for a linked company overseas for a minimum length of time before they are eligible and they must be skilled to graduate level (RQF Level 6) or above.

Requirements for the visa

The applicant must be awarded 20 points for the sponsorship criteria and 20 points for a job at the appropriate skill level.

Requirements for the U.K. sponsor

The U.K. sponsor must have an A-rated, Global Business Mobility: Secondment Worker sponsor licence. Detailed guidance on how to apply for a sponsor licence is available on the Home Office website.

The sponsor must have an eligible contract with an overseas business for goods or investment worth at least £10 million per year and no less than £50 million in total. This is defined in the sponsor guidance. In short, if the duration of the contract is less than five years, the contract must be valued at least £50 million. If the contract is five years or more, it must be worth at least £10 million per year. If the contract has no specified end date, it must be worth at least £50 million over the first five years.

When applying for a sponsor licence, the sponsor will submit evidence of the contract with the licence application. Once the licence is approved, a sponsor can only assign Certificates of Sponsorship, often referred to as a ‘CoS’, to workers who are working under that specific contract.

This means that if a sponsor wants to assign subsequent certificate of sponsorship to workers from another overseas business, they must submit a new contract to the Home Office and await approval. Each contract must be approved before certificate of sponsorship can be assigned.