It is 9:15 on a Tuesday morning. Two people arrive at your reception and present Home Office identification. They are compliance officers, and they are here to conduct a sponsor licence compliance visit. They did not call ahead. They do not need to.
This is not hypothetical. With over 140,000 licensed sponsors in the UK and the Home Office continuing to expand its compliance and enforcement capacity, unannounced visits are now a routine part of the sponsorship landscape. In the year ending March 2025, 3,100 businesses lost their sponsor licence — many following exactly this kind of visit.
Understanding what happens during a compliance visit, minute by minute, is the best preparation you can have. Here is what to expect.
Before they arrive: what triggers a visit
Compliance visits are not random. While the Home Office does conduct routine checks as part of its overall monitoring programme, certain factors increase your likelihood of receiving a visit:
- New licence holders. Businesses that recently obtained their sponsor licence are more likely to be visited within the first 12 months. The Home Office wants to verify that the systems described in your application actually exist.
- High volumes of sponsorship. If you are issuing a high number of Certificates of Sponsorship relative to your organisation's size, this can trigger scrutiny.
- Late or missing reports. Every sponsor has obligations to report changes via the Sponsorship Management System (SMS) within 10 working days. Missed or late reports are a red flag.
- Intelligence and tip-offs. Reports from employees, competitors, or other agencies can trigger a visit.
- Sector risk. Certain sectors — particularly health and social care, hospitality, and logistics — receive disproportionate scrutiny due to historically higher rates of non-compliance.
- Previous issues. If you have had a previous compliance issue, downgrade to a B-rating, or any enforcement action, you are more likely to be revisited.
The first 30 minutes: arrival and orientation
The officers will identify themselves and present their credentials. They are entitled to access your premises and to speak with relevant staff. They will typically ask to meet the person designated as your Authorising Officer (the most senior person responsible for sponsorship) and your Key Contact (the day-to-day operational lead for sponsorship compliance).
If your Authorising Officer or Key Contact is not on site, that is noted. It is not immediately fatal, but it does not look good. The Home Office expects these roles to be held by people who are actively engaged with sponsorship compliance, not figureheads.
The officers will explain the purpose and scope of the visit. They may be checking general compliance across all your sponsored workers, or they may be focused on a specific issue — a particular worker, a particular report, or a particular concern.
They will ask for a private room to conduct the inspection.
What they ask for
The officers will request documentation. Under Sponsor Guidance Part 3, you are expected to produce this information readily. "I'll need to check with HR" or "that's on a different system" are phrases that compliance officers hear frequently, and they do not inspire confidence.
Here is what they typically want to see:
Worker records
For each sponsored worker (or a sample of them), the officers will want:
- Copy of their passport and visa (or BRP/eVisa confirmation)
- Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS) reference number and the details submitted in the CoS application
- Evidence of right to work check — when it was done, by whom, and what was checked
- Current contact details — home address, phone number, personal email
- Employment details — job title, salary, working hours, work location — all of which must match what was declared on the CoS
- Absence records — attendance data, authorised and unauthorised absences
- Evidence of ongoing monitoring — follow-up right to work checks for time-limited permission
Organisational records
Beyond individual worker records, the officers will examine your systems and processes:
- HR system or record-keeping process — how do you track sponsored workers' details, visa expiry dates, and reporting obligations?
- Reporting history — have you filed all required reports via the SMS on time?
- Genuine vacancy evidence — can you demonstrate that the roles you sponsored people into are real, at the level described, and paying what was declared?
- Compliance policies — do you have written processes for right to work checks, sponsor duties, and reporting?
Physical verification
The officers may also want to verify physical aspects of your operation:
- Is the sponsored worker actually on site and working? They may request to meet specific sponsored workers.
- Does the workplace match what was described in the licence application? If you said you operate from an office at a specific address, do you?
- Are the working conditions consistent with what was declared? If the CoS states the worker is a software engineer on £38,700, and the officer finds them working in a warehouse, that is a significant problem.
The interview
Compliance officers will typically interview your Authorising Officer or Key Contact, and often the sponsored workers themselves — separately.
Questions to the employer usually include:
- How do you ensure you meet your sponsor duties?
- Who is responsible for tracking visa expiry dates?
- How do you report changes to the Home Office?
- What happens when a sponsored worker leaves your organisation?
- How do you ensure sponsored workers are doing the job described on their CoS?
- Can you walk me through your right to work check process?
Questions to sponsored workers often include:
- What is your job title and what do you do day to day?
- How much are you paid?
- What are your working hours?
- Where do you work?
- Does your employer monitor your attendance?
The officers are looking for consistency. If your records say one thing and the worker says another, that discrepancy will be investigated. If your Authorising Officer cannot describe the compliance process in basic terms, that tells the officers everything they need to know about how seriously your organisation takes its sponsor duties.
How long it takes
A straightforward compliance visit typically takes between two and four hours. More complex visits — those involving multiple sponsored workers, multiple sites, or identified concerns — can extend to a full day or require a follow-up visit.
The officers may take copies of documents, make notes, and photograph relevant records. They will not usually give you a verdict on the spot. The findings are compiled into a report, which goes through an internal review process before a decision is communicated.
What the outcomes look like
There are four broad outcomes from a compliance visit:
- No action required. Your records are in order, your systems are functioning, and your sponsored workers' circumstances match your records.
- Action plan. Issues identified, but not severe enough for immediate enforcement. You will be given items to rectify within a specified timeframe — typically 20 working days.
- B-rating (licence downgrade). Significant compliance failures lead to a downgrade. You cannot issue new Certificates of Sponsorship until the failings are remedied. You will receive an action plan with deadlines. Failure to meet them can lead to revocation.
- Revocation. In the most serious cases — fabricated records, workers not doing the jobs described, fundamental non-compliance — the licence is revoked. Every sponsored worker has 60 days to find a new sponsor or leave the UK. You cannot re-apply for at least 12 months. The consequences are severe.
Common mistakes that trigger further action
Based on published enforcement data and Sponsor Guidance Part 3, the most common failings are not deliberate fraud. They are operational failures:
Records that cannot be produced promptly. The officers ask for Worker A's file. It takes 40 minutes to find it. Some documents are on a shared drive, some are in a filing cabinet, some are in an email. This signals a lack of systematic record-keeping.
Visa expiry dates not being tracked. A sponsored worker's visa expired three months ago. Nobody noticed. The worker is still employed. This is both a right to work offence and a sponsor duty failure.
Changes not reported via SMS. A sponsored worker changed address, changed role, or stopped attending work. The 10-day reporting window passed without a report being filed.
Job roles that don't match CoS details. The Certificate of Sponsorship says "Marketing Manager at £35,000." The worker is actually doing data entry at £28,000. This is a fundamental compliance failure.
Authorising Officer who cannot describe the compliance process. If the most senior person responsible for sponsorship cannot explain how right to work checks are conducted, how visa expiry dates are tracked, or what the reporting obligations are, the officers conclude that compliance is not embedded in the organisation.
How to prepare
The best way to prepare for a compliance visit is to act as though one could happen tomorrow — because it can.
Run an internal audit. Pick five sponsored workers at random. Can you produce their complete compliance file within 15 minutes? If not, you know what needs fixing. Read our guide on preparing for a walk-in audit.
Ensure your Authorising Officer knows their role. This person will be interviewed. They need to be able to explain your compliance processes clearly and credibly.
Check your SMS reporting history. Are all reports filed and on time? If there are gaps, address them now rather than explaining them to a compliance officer later.
Verify that reality matches records. Are your sponsored workers doing the jobs described on their CoS? At the salaries declared? At the locations stated? Discrepancies that you can fix now are dramatically less expensive than discrepancies discovered during a visit.
Centralise your records. The single most impactful thing you can do is ensure that every sponsored worker's complete compliance record — right to work check, visa details, contact information, absence records, CoS details — is accessible from one system, by any authorised person, within minutes.
Certifyd's Right to Work Portal gives sponsors a single, centralised system for all compliance records — document collection, expiry tracking, reporting reminders, and instant audit-ready dashboards. When the compliance officers arrive, you show them the screen. Every worker, every document, every check — all in one place.