UK Visa Sponsor Licence Check: Skilled Worker Register

Find out whether a UK employer is a licensed visa sponsor, in seconds, straight from the Home Office register. Paste employer names and get one row each: whether the organisation holds a sponsor licence, its rating (A or B), every route it is licensed for (Skilled Worker, Global Business Mobility, Charity Worker and others), and its town. The answer is read from the weekly Register of licensed sponsors: workers on GOV.UK, so it is as current as the Home Office's latest publication, and every row says which one.

Who uses it: recruiters and sourcing teams checking a client or candidate's employer before promising sponsorship, relocation and immigration advisers screening employers in bulk, job boards and HR tools that flag "can sponsor a visa" on listings, and international job-seekers shortlisting companies.

A miss is free. An employer that is not on the register comes back as a row with "found": false and is never charged. So does a name that is too generic to answer (hundreds of unrelated organisations share it).

How to use

1. In the Apify Console. Open the actor page and click Start — the employers field is already pre-filled with a working example. Results land in the run's dataset as soon as each item is found.
2. Via the API. Call it directly with a POST request — no Console needed once you have an API token:

   curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/accountable_eel~uk-visa-sponsor-licence-check/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<YOUR_TOKEN>" \
     -X POST \
     -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
     -d '{"employers":["AaruvikA Limited","Tesco"]}'
   

3. On a schedule. Save this actor as an Apify Task with the input you want, then add a Schedule (hourly, daily, weekly) so it runs on its own — no server of your own required.

Input

{
  "employers": [
    "AaruvikA Limited",
    "Tesco"
  ]
}

One employer per line, as the registered company name ("Tesco Stores Limited"). Case, punctuation and Ltd/Limited are ignored. A shorter name such as "Tesco" finds every registered sponsor whose name starts with it. Accepted formats: Tesco Stores Limited, Barclays Bank PLC, Deloitte LLP.

Put one employer per line. Names are compared ignoring case, punctuation, "&" versus "and", a leading "The" and the legal form (Ltd, Limited, PLC, LLP). The register lists registered legal names, so a brand or trading name can come back not found even though the company behind it is licensed under a different legal name. When that happens, try the legal name from the company's own filings.

How matching works

The register is a list of organisations, not a search index, and a sponsor check is only useful if a "yes" can be trusted. So matching is deliberately strict, and the row always says how it matched (matchType):

• exact: the same name, including the legal form (Tesco Stores Ltd finds Tesco Stores Limited).
• legal-form-ignored: the same name once Ltd/Limited/PLC/LLP is dropped on either side ("Tesco Stores" finds Tesco Stores Limited). Check organisationName if the legal form matters to you.
• starts-with: your input is the whole-word start of the registered name ("Tesco" finds Tesco Stores Limited and Tesco Personal Finance plc). All matches are in matches, best first, and matchCount says how many there were. If more than 25 organisations start with your input, it is too generic to answer and the row is a free miss.

There is no typo-tolerant matching: "Deloite LLP" is not reported as licensed. A not-found row lists up to three close registered names in its message so you can retry, but they are never returned as a match.

Output

One row per employer found, for example:

query	found	status	licensed	organisationName	town	county	holdsSkilledWorkerLicence	rating	licenceTypes	routes	licences	matchType	matchCount	matches	registerDate	registerFileUrl	sourceUrl	scrapedAt
AaruvikA Limited	true	OK			<town/city>						<licences (full detail)>							1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z

A miss comes back as a row with "found": false and a message that says why (not on the register, or too generic). It is never charged. Values the register does not give are null, never 0 or an empty string.

An example row for AaruvikA Limited:

{
  "query": "AaruvikA Limited",
  "found": true,
  "status": "OK",
  "licensed": true,
  "organisationName": "AaruvikA Limited",
  "town": "Edinburgh",
  "county": null,
  "holdsSkilledWorkerLicence": true,
  "rating": "A",
  "licenceTypes": ["Worker"],
  "routes": ["Skilled Worker"],
  "matchType": "exact",
  "matchCount": 1,
  "registerDate": "2026-10-09",
  "registerFileUrl": "https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6ac8b5bfab368efeb4c93428/SP_-_Worker_and_Temporary_Worker_Web_Register_-_2026-10-09.csv",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/register-of-licensed-sponsors-workers",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-11T18:27:01.154Z"
}

(licences and matches carry the per-licence detail and are left out here for length.)

An example found: false row:

{
  "query": "Zzzzqq Holdings Limited",
  "found": false,
  "status": "NOT_FOUND",
  "message": "No organisation named \"Zzzzqq Holdings Limited\" is on the Home Office register of licensed sponsors (Worker and Temporary Worker licences) published 2026-10-09. A trading name often differs from the registered legal name. Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/register-of-licensed-sponsors-workers",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-11T18:25:19.463Z"
}

Pricing

Billed per employer matched: $10 per 1,000 at the standard rate, less on higher Apify plan tiers (down to $5 per 1,000 at the top tier), plus a $0.004 start fee per run. Misses, too-generic names and errors are never charged. There is no key to bring and no proxy to pay for.

Pay-per-event. A flat per-run fee covers session/proxy warmup; you're billed per item only when data is actually found and returned — see .actor/pay_per_event.json for exact prices. A miss is never charged.

What the register covers

• The Home Office Register of licensed sponsors: workers lists organisations licensed under the Worker and Temporary Worker categories, with their rating and route. It is published as a weekly CSV, and this actor reads the newest one every run. registerDate in each row is the publication it came from.
• holdsSkilledWorkerLicence is true only when the Skilled Worker route is among the organisation's licensed routes. An organisation on the register for another route only (for example Charity Worker) is returned with it false.
• The register does not include the Student sponsor list, and it shows only organisations that are licensed today: a sponsor whose licence was revoked is removed from it. A licence is not a guarantee of a job or of sponsorship for any particular role.
• The register names organisations, not people.

Example runs

Paste any of these into the Input tab and press Start. All three return rows with no key, no token and no account of your own beyond an Apify login.

Two employers: one exact, one by short name. The default shape.

{
  "employers": ["AaruvikA Limited", "Tesco"]
}

A shortlist of banks and consultancies, Skilled Worker status in each row.

{
  "employers": ["Barclays Bank PLC", "HSBC Holdings plc", "Deloitte LLP", "Marks and Spencer"]
}

A bulk screen where only licensed sponsors should come back.

{
  "employers": ["Tesco Stores Limited", "Deloitte LLP", "Zzzzqq Holdings Limited"],
  "onlyFound": true
}

Use it from Clay, n8n, Make, or an AI agent

This actor runs synchronously over plain HTTP — call it directly from a script, a workflow tool, or an AI agent, no Apify Console needed once you have an API token.

curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/accountable_eel~uk-visa-sponsor-licence-check/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<YOUR_TOKEN>" \
  -X POST \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"employers":["AaruvikA Limited","Tesco"]}'

n8n. Add an HTTP Request node: Method POST, URL https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/accountable_eel~uk-visa-sponsor-licence-check/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<YOUR_TOKEN>, Body Content Type JSON, JSON Body {"employers":["AaruvikA Limited","Tesco"]} (swap in an expression from an earlier node for a real value).

Clay. Add an "HTTP API" column: Method POST, URL https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/accountable_eel~uk-visa-sponsor-licence-check/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<YOUR_TOKEN>, Body {"employers":["{{employer}}"]}, mapping the row's employer into the employers array.

MCP. In Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client with the Apify MCP server, ask for "uk visa sponsor licence check" — the agent will find and run this actor.