Sponsor licence support for UK hospitality businesses.
Restaurants, hotels, and multi-site hospitality groups bring real complexity to sponsorship — multiple sites, high turnover, role-specific salary thresholds, and a workforce that does not always sit neatly in a single HR system. We build sponsorship support around how hospitality actually runs.
Regulated by the Immigration Advice Authority
What we usually see in hospitality.
Hospitality businesses have specific sponsorship realities that generic advice usually misses — and that compliance failures usually hinge on.
First sponsored chef
A growing restaurant has identified a specialist chef abroad and needs a licence in place before they can issue a Certificate of Sponsorship. Tight commercial timeline, no prior sponsorship history.
Multi-site compliance gap
A group with several restaurants finds compliance varies wildly by site. HQ ran the licence application but never built central operational discipline.
Salary creep above CoS
Promotions and pay rises mean several sponsored chefs now earn materially more than their original CoS — but none of it has been reported through SMS.
Role drift between CoS and reality
A sponsored worker has gradually taken on different responsibilities. The role on the CoS no longer matches what they are actually doing.
Sponsored worker leaving
A sponsored chef has handed in notice. The business needs to understand its reporting obligations and what happens to its remaining CoS allocation.
Renewal approaching
Initial licence is approaching renewal. The business wants to know what would be reviewed and whether their current setup will hold up.
What hospitality sponsorship usually gets wrong.
Hospitality compliance failures usually do not come from sponsorship being treated badly. They come from sponsorship being run alongside a high-tempo operation where small reporting tasks get postponed and never picked up again.
A salary uplift after six months. A role change a sponsored chef accepts informally. A new site that a worker is assigned to without an SMS update. Each one looks small. Each one is a reportable change. Skip a few and the compliance gap becomes the licence problem.
We build sponsorship support around how hospitality actually operates — central reporting discipline with local site accountability, not theoretical processes that fall apart by week three.
Services most relevant for hospitality businesses.
Questions employers ask us.
Related services & resources
Mehmood Rajoka
Mehmood leads Harveys Legal's business immigration practice. He works directly with UK employers on sponsor licence applications, compliance, and Home Office audit readiness — focused on practical, commercially useful advice rather than legal theatre.
Harveys Legal is regulated by the Immigration Advice Authority.
Firm Reg No. F202537009. Verify on the IAA register before engagement.
Hospitality-grade sponsor work.
Book a consultation. We'll review your sponsorship position and tell you what the next 90 days should look like for your business.