Bringing personnel to the UK for work
The points based system of immigration for Tier 2 (intra-company transfers) was introduced from November 2008. UK employers requiring to bring overseas personnel to work in the UK must first apply for Sponsorship Licences. Once the employer has received a licence, they can apply for Certificates of Sponsorship (CoS) to bring overseas personnel to the UK for work. CoS are not paper certificates but a series of reference numbers issued by the UK Border Agency. Once issued, these numbers can be used to apply for entry clearance visas at the British Consulate in the relevant country of residence of the worker.
Any overseas business which requires to bring personnel (e.g engineers / consultants) for work to the UK must take the following steps immediately:
1. Establish a UK company or a branch office (unless you have one already).
2. Bring a person on a “sole representative” visa to “open” the UK office which should be properly set up as an “employer”. The sole Rep person (who can also undertake other duties such as marketing or as UK general manager) can be designated the Authorised Officer (AO) and Key Contact (KC) before the Sponsorship licence application process can begin. The AO and KC must become resident in the UK for this purpose. Alternatively, an already- UK resident person can be hired for this role, but we would advise our clients this is a position of great trust and the person should be chosen accordingly.
3. The UK company or branch can then apply for a Sponsorship Licence as employer of overseas staff to be deputed to the UK.
4. Only licensed sponsors will be able to bring staff to the UK. RKG Consulting can be designated a “Level 1” user and can file for CoS on behalf of the employer and also manage the entire compliance process. RKG cannot be designated as an AO or KC. This role must be filled by an employee of the UK entity.
RKG Consulting was established in London in 1985 and has been providing accounting, tax and immigration services to global organizations since then. We are licensed immigration practitioners. We can assist you with all the steps of the above process so that you can comply with UK regulations and bring your staff to the UK in time for commencement of projects. Thereafter, we can continue to support your UK entity in all UK regulatory compliance matters such as payroll preparation, VAT return, corporate tax and accounts filing.
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