How do I sponsor a migrant?
Area 2: Maintaining migrant contact details
This page explains how we rate the way you use your human resource (HR) systems to maintain migrant contact details. We do this when you apply for a licence to sponsor migrants under the points-based system to work or study. We may also conduct checks after you have been granted a licence.
Changes to sponsor guidance for Tiers 2, 4 and 5
Changes to sponsor guidance for Tiers 2, 4 and 5
On this page
What you must do
You must keep the following records or documents, and make them available to us if we ask:
- Each sponsored migrant's contact details (United Kingdom residential address, telephone number, and mobile telephone number). These details must be updated as necessary.
- have a procedure in place to ensure these are updated, such as:
- an electronic self-service system; or
- conduct a regular audit; or
- issue clear instructions to ensure your sponsored migrants are aware that they should notify you of any changes and how they should do this; and
Checklist
To comply with your sponsorship duties, you should:
- Make the contact details available to us quickly when we ask for them.
Ratings
You will get a rating of 1 if you have procedures in place to:
- keep a full history of each sponsored migrant's contact details including their United Kingdom residential address, phone number and mobile phone number (if there is one);
- have a suitable procedure in place to ensure these are kept up to date; and
- you will be able to make the contact details available to us quickly when we ask for them.
For example:
- An employer keeps a full history of its employees' contact details on an electronic database and an email is sent to staff on a periodic basis requesting details of any changes.
- An educational establishment has a self-service system that allows students to update their own contact details.
- An employer keeps a manual record of their employees' contact details and the staff handbook instructs staff to notify the HR team of any changes.
You will get a rating of 2 if you have procedures in place to:
- keep only partial contact details, for example only the address but you do have a suitable procedure to make sure that those contact details are kept up to date.
Or:
- keep full contact details, including address, phone number and mobile phone number but the procedure in place to make sure that these are updated is not suitable.
For example:
- An employer keeps the contact details that the migrant originally provided during the recruitment process but they are not up dated..
- An employer with branches throughout the United Kingdom keeps the contact details for their employees at the branch where they are employed. However, there is no company policy on what contact details should be held or how they should be updated and therefore the employer is unable to ensure that this will be done for their sponsored migrants.
- An educational establishment only records the address of their overseas students but this is updated during enrolment at the start of each semester.
You will get a rating of 3 if you do not have a procedure in place to:
- keep reliable contact details for your sponsored migrants and/or to be able to provide them to us quickly.
For example:
- An employer or educational establishment does not keep any contact details for their employees or students.