The Global Business Mobility – UK Expansion Worker Visa is for senior managers and specialist employees who wish to be assigned to the UK temporarily to undertake work related to the expansion of an overseas business in the UK. Sponsors may send a maximum of 5 workers at a time.
The UK Expansion Worker route can only be used when the UK business has not started trading. If the business trades in the UK, you may be eligible for a Global Business Mobility – Senior or Specialist Worker Visa instead. Suppose you are interested in setting up a new business in the UK, or you own an existing UK business. In that case, you may also be eligible for a Skilled Worker visa via self-sponsorship, that is, by being sponsored by your own UK company.
To secure a UK Expansion Worker Visa, you must be sponsored to do a specific job that meets particular skill and salary requirements by an employer that the Home Office has licensed. We have published separate guidance for employers considering applying for a UK Expansion Worker sponsor licence.
The Global Business Mobility – UK Expansion Worker Visa does not lead directly to settlement in the UK. However, you may be able to switch into another immigration route which does lead to settlement. Applicants may be joined or accompanied by a partner and dependent children.
In order to qualify for a Global Business Mobility – UK Expansion Worker Visa, you will need to satisfy UK Visas and Immigration that:
If you are applying for a Global Business Mobility – UK Expansion Worker Visa, your gross annual salary is less than £73,900 (based on working a maximum of 48 hours per week) and you are not a Japanese national seeking to establish a UK branch or subsidiary of the linked business or organisation under the UK-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement or a national or permanent resident of Australia seeking to establish a UK branch or subsidiary of the sponsor group under the Free Trade Agreement between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and Australia, then you must be currently working for a business or organisation that is linked to your UK sponsor by common ownership or control and have worked outside the UK for this business or organisation for a cumulative period of at least 12 months. The work can have been done on an employee, self-employed contractor or other basis.
The 12 months’ work outside the UK can have been accumulated over a historic period if you were continuously working for the linked business or organisation, in the UK or overseas, for at least 12 months prior to the date of application and any breaks have only been for statutory maternity, paternity, parental or shared parental leave, statutory adoption leave, sick leave, assisting with a national or international humanitarian or environmental crisis with the agreement of the sponsor group or taking part in lawful industrial action.
If you are earning £73,900 per year or more or you are a Japanese national seeking to establish a UK branch or subsidiary of the linked business or organisation under the UK-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement or you are a national or permanent resident of Australia seeking to establish a UK branch or subsidiary of the sponsor group under the Free Trade Agreement between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and Australia (when the agreement comes into force or is provisionally applied) then you must be currently working for a business or organisation that is linked to your UK sponsor by common ownership or control, but you do not need to have been employed overseas for any specific period of time.
Employers seeking to transfer an employee under the Global Business Mobility Visa: UK Expansion Worker route must pay their skilled worker a salary which equals or exceeds both a general salary requirement and the ‘going rate’ for the occupation (as set out in the relevant occupation code mentioned above).
The general salary requirement under the Global Business Mobility Visa UK Expansion Worker route is £45,800 a year. Therefore, in most cases an applicant for a Global Business Mobility – UK Expansion Worker Visa must be paid a salary which equals or exceeds £45,800 per year and 100% of the pro-rated going rate for the occupation, whichever is higher.
The assessment of salary is based on guaranteed basic gross pay (up to 48 hours per week) plus allowances which are guaranteed to be paid for the duration of the employment in the UK (such as London weighting) or are paid as a mobility premium or to cover the additional cost of living in the UK.
If the applicant is being sponsored to work a pattern where the regular hours are not the same each week, resulting in uneven pay, then work in excess of 48 hours in some weeks can be considered towards the salary threshold of £45,800, providing the average over a regular cycle (which can be less than, but not more than, 17 weeks) is not more than 48 hours a week. Any unpaid rest weeks will count towards the average when considering whether the salary thresholds are met.
The Home Office has published a list of going rates for eligible Global Business Mobility occupation codes. The annual salaries stated are based on a 37.5-hour working week and must be pro-rated for other working patterns.
Your full weekly hours will be included when checking your salary against the going rate, even if you work more than 48 hours per week.
Employers that are authorised by the Home Office to sponsor a UK Expansion Worker are not required to pay the Immigration Skills Charge.
UK Expansion Worker Visa applicants must not satisfy an English language requirement.
Suppose you currently have leave to remain in another immigration category. In that case, you may extend your stay by switching to the Global Business Mobility – UK Expansion Worker route unless you have, or were last granted, permission as a Visitor, Short-term student, Parent of a Child Student, Seasonal Worker, Domestic Worker in a Private Household or outside the Immigration Rules.
If your application for a Global Business Mobility – UK Expansion Worker Visa is approved, you will be granted entry clearance for either 1 year after the start date of the job detailed in your Certificate of Sponsorship or the time given on your Certificate of Sponsorship plus 14 days, whichever is shorter.
If you want to stay longer in the UK, you will be able to apply to extend your visa for a further 12 months. You will be able to stay in the UK for a maximum of 2 years on a UK Expansion Worker Visa.
If you have already spent time in the UK on any of the Global Mobility Routes or the former Intra-company routes then you may not be able to stay in the UK on a Global Business Mobility – UK Expansion Worker Visa for the full time period set out above.
This is because you can only stay in the UK for a maximum of 5 years in any 6 year period if you have previously spent time in any of the Global Business Mobility routes or the former Intra-company routes.
The Global Business Mobility routes are open to businesses of all sizes, providing they have a trading presence outside the UK and a qualifying link to a UK business.
In order to hold a Global Business Mobility sponsor licence, the UK business that will be receiving the worker must:
Qualifying links to UK businesses are specific to the type of work assignment which is being undertaken in the UK.
In the case of a Global Business Mobility – UK Expansion Worker sponsor the UK business must provide credible evidence that it intends, and is able, to establish a new UK branch or wholly-owned subsidiary of an established overseas business. The overseas business must normally have been trading overseas for a minimum of 3 years (although there are some exceptions to this requirement).
Businesses that wish to apply for a UK Expansion Worker sponsor licence are required to have a UK footprint rather than a trading presence. This means that they should be able to provide evidence of either a UK premises or Companies House Registration, but they should not yet have begun trading in the UK.
The overseas business, on the other hand, will need to be active and trading. The Home Office will normally expect the overseas business to have traded for at least 3 years (although there are some exceptions).
The overseas business will also need to satisfy the Home Office that it is capable of successfully expanding into the UK. It will need to provide a credible business plan for expansion and demonstrate that it can finance its expansion plans. The Home Office will normally expect the overseas business to be a stable or growing business that has undertaken preparatory work towards expansion.
UK Expansion Worker sponsors will need to identify key personnel who will be responsible for managing the sponsor licence. If there is no suitable settled worker in the UK to take the role of the Authorising Officer (a senior and competent person responsible for the actions of staff and representatives who use the Sponsor Management System) then, exceptionally, the rules for UK Expansion Worker sponsors allow for a Proposed Authorising Officer to be outside the UK. In this situation the UK sponsor will be given a ‘provisional rating’ and just 1 Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS) initially. The Proposed Authorising Officer will then need to be the first worker that is sponsored. Once the Proposed Authorising Officer is in the UK, the sponsor will be able to re-rate to an ‘A-rating’ and request additional CoS (up to 5 maximum).
If there is a suitable settled worker in the UK who can act as the Authorising Officer then there is no need to rely on this exception and the UK Expansion Worker sponsor can be awarded an ‘A-rating’ and up to 5 CoS initially.
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