Ross Kennedy writes article on avoiding sanctions in the face of record sponsor licence revocations

7 October 2025

Sponsor licence revocations are up to record levels. Vanessa Ganguin Immigration Law’s Ross Kennedy analyses why and how to avoid compliance issues in the publication for immigration practitioners, Free Movement.

More than twice as many sponsor licences were revoked in the Labour government’s first year in power as in the year preceding. In a sign it has ramped up enforcement, the government has revealed that a record-breaking 1,948 licences allowing employers to hire workers from abroad were taken away between July 2024 and June 2025. The Labour government doubled the previous year’s total of 937, marking a significant escalation in compliance activity. There was an all time high for both suspensions and revocations of employers’ sponsor licences in the last Home Office’s figures published. From April to June this year, 869 employers had their licences suspended and 767 had them revoked.

If a licence is revoked, employers not only lose the ability to sponsor more workers from abroad, but they lose the workers currently employed – which may also cause  employment law issues if their negligence or abuse led to this.

We can advise sponsors on how to avoid such serious sanctions, audit sponsor compliance and right to work practices and help sponsors facing sanctions with representations and steps they may be able to take to mitigate their situation.

If you are facing revocation or downgrading of your sponsor licence, we would encourage you to instruct us as soon as possible so we can assist with the next critical steps you take. We will review the grounds of the decision, challenge any factual errors, advise you on required supporting evidence, address any breaches and advise you on remedial steps to address them, and crucially, support you with presenting a response to the Home Office. We will also provide you with the support necessary for any follow-up Home Office scrutiny such as a site visit.

This is always an unenviable situation to be in, but we are experienced in helping sponsors who come to us in such trying situations.

The government says that employers lose their licences for a wide range of rule breaking, which includes:

• underpayment of workers
• facilitating the entry of individuals to circumvent the immigration rules
• failing to provide promised work

Improved data and intelligence sharing across government and law enforcement has resulted in more employers being held to account for breaking the immigration rules.

This underlines the importance of good sponsorship advice. Vanessa Ganguin Immigration law has a great track record of successful applications and provides a boutique service, working with employers throughout the sponsorship process for swift results and to ensure nothing goes wrong.

You can read Ross’s analysis in Free Movement of why revocations have increased and what immigration practitioners should be advising sponsors in the link below.

“With enforcement intensifying, practitioners must take a proactive role in guiding sponsor clients to limit the risks of facing compliance action” writes Ross. They should:

• conduct regular compliance audits
• monitor sector-specific risks
• prepare for unannounced audits
• respond swiftly to Home Office correspondence
• go beyond sponsor compliance and adopt ethical employment procedures

Contact Ross if you would like to discuss an audit of your sponsor compliance or any other immigration issues. Clear advice and keeping up to date with the latest sponsor regulations and compliance are more important than ever with enforcement activity on the rise.