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A BBC Verify investigation has revealed that more than 1,900 small high street businesses—including mini-marts, vape shops, and car washes—are authorized to sponsor foreign workers under a specialist Home Office scheme originally intended for high-earning, graduate-level employees. This comes despite significant tightening of visa rules in July 2025, which limited eligibility primarily to workers earning a minimum of £41,700 per year.
The scheme permits licensed employers to recruit overseas workers who meet defined skill criteria. However, a year after the introduction of the stricter requirements, records show that over 1,500 grocery and convenience stores, approximately 150 taxi firms, 100 barber shops, and numerous car washes and vape shops still maintain licenses enabling them to sponsor visa applicants. Notably, more than 100 businesses were added to the skilled worker sponsor list following the rule changes. It is important to note, though, that having a sponsorship license does not guarantee visa approval for individual applicants.
Concerns over the apparent misuse of the system prompted Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood to initiate an urgent review two months ago into why certain businesses, such as vape shops, barbers, and car washes, remain on the skilled worker sponsor register. The Home Office emphasized that companies found abusing the scheme would have their licenses revoked. A spokesperson stated: “We have raised the skilled worker threshold and over 100 occupations are now ineligible for new skilled worker visas.”
It appears some businesses that joined the register post-rule change may have submitted applications before the new regulations came into force, while others remain on the list because they were approved previously or are sponsoring workers already in the UK. Currently, over 120,000 businesses hold licenses to sponsor skilled workers. Introduced after Brexit to replace free movement of labor within the EU, the scheme requires smaller firms to pay £611 to apply, while larger businesses with more than 50 employees pay £1,682. UK Visas and Immigration routinely conducts visits during the application process to verify compliance.
Before July 2025, individuals with qualifications equivalent to A-Level and earning at least £38,700 could qualify for sponsorship. The tightening of rules since then restricts eligibility to graduate-level professions, excluding roles such as shop managers. Furthermore, higher English language requirements came into effect in January 2026. According to the Home Office, 68,067 skilled worker visas were granted in the 12 months to March 2026, with 29,745 issued to main applicants and 38,322 to their dependents. This was a 30% drop compared to the previous year, largely because workers in food preparation and hospitality no longer meet the criteria. IT professionals remain the most common recipients of these visas, followed by workers in finance.
Certain occupations, including sales and retail assistants, taxi drivers, and chauffeurs, are now listed as ineligible for skilled worker visas, although exceptions exist for jobs with shortages, such as bricklayers, carpenters, and nursing assistants. The Home Office revoked 3,299 sponsorship licenses in 2025, a substantial increase from 347 in 2023. While the register does not disclose how many visas or sponsorship certificates have been issued for each business or specify job roles, official guidance requires employers to offer genuine, eligible positions that comply with skill and salary thresholds.
Since sponsorship licenses list only company names, it can be difficult to ascertain their industry sector. BBC Verify identified the more than 1,900 small businesses retaining sponsorship status by cross-referencing company names and locations with public business records and online listings. Of these, about 1,700 were located in England, over 140 in Scotland, more than 80 in Wales, and just two in Northern Ireland.
Additionally, the investigation uncovered 60 businesses on the sponsor register that had been fined a total of £2.5 million for employing illegal workers between April 2024 and December 2025. A Home Office spokesperson reiterated a zero-tolerance stance, stating, “Illegal working will not be accepted, and businesses who face two or more illegal working penalties of up to £60,000, or fail to pay a penalty the first time, will have their license to hire workers revoked.”
Dr. Madeleine Sumption, director of the University of Oxford’s Migration Observatory, explained the implications of the visa changes: “If businesses were on the register before the rules changed, they can continue to employ people they had already sponsored. But they can’t now bring in a new person to do those jobs.” Immigration lawyer Toby Way noted that while most sponsorships are legitimate, “We come across a lot of exaggeration and some downright lying about sponsored roles.” He highlighted that sectors like hotels and restaurants, heavily affected by the new rules, might misclassify roles to meet sponsorship criteria, such as claiming the need for marketing or bookkeeping staff instead of chefs or managers.
Joanna Hunt, an immigration lawyer at DAC Beachcroft, pointed out the difficulties small high street shops face in meeting degree-level skill requirements necessary for sponsorship. She said, “Subject to a few exceptions, a job needs to be skilled to ‘degree level’ to allow a business to sponsor a worker to fill it and the Home Office will consider if the role fits with the type of business the sponsor operates. A high street shop may find this requirement difficult to demonstrate.
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