UK Visa Sponsor Register – Skilled Worker Sponsors, Verify & New Adds

Search, verify and monitor the official UK Home Office Register of licensed sponsors. This is the list of employers that are licensed to sponsor Skilled Worker and other work visas (and, optionally, the Student sponsor register). The Home Office publishes it on GOV.UK as a daily CSV. This Actor downloads the current file on every run and gives you clean, filterable rows:

• Search & filter: organisation name, town/city, county, visa route (Skilled Worker, Global Business Mobility, Creative Worker, Charity Worker, Scale-up...), sponsor type and A / B rating.
• Verify a list of companies: paste employer names, or pick a dataset from another Actor. Each name gets matched / not matched, the best register match and a 0-100 match score. Legal suffixes (Ltd, Limited, PLC, LLP), "&" vs "and", capitals and small typos are handled.
• Change monitor: schedule it daily to get the sponsors added since the last run. You can also get the ones removed (licence revoked, surrendered or expired) and changed (new route, or a rating downgraded from A to B).

The register has one line per organisation and route. By default this Actor merges those lines into one row per organisation with a routes list. $0.80 per 1,000 sponsor rows. Names that are not found in verify mode are free.

Who uses it

• International job seekers and graduates: find employers in your city and field that can sponsor a Skilled Worker visa, or check that a job advert's employer really holds a licence.
• Job boards and recruitment agencies: tag vacancies with "visa sponsorship available" by verifying employer names in bulk.
• Immigration lawyers and advisers: check a client's licence status, rating and routes, and watch for revocations and B-rating downgrades.
• B2B sales and HR-tech / relocation / payroll companies: newly licensed sponsors are hiring from abroad. That makes them warm leads for relocation, compliance, HR software and recruitment services.
• Researchers and journalists: count sponsors by town, route or rating, and follow trends over time.

Input examples

Software companies in London that can sponsor Skilled Worker visas:

{ "mode": "search", "nameContains": "software", "towns": ["London"], "routes": ["Skilled Worker"], "maxResults": 500 }

All B-rated sponsors (on a Home Office action plan):

{ "mode": "search", "ratings": ["B"], "maxResults": 0 }

Verify a list of employers:

{
  "mode": "verify",
  "companyNames": ["Google UK Limited", "Deloitte LLP", "Marks & Spencer plc", "Acme Widgets Ltd"],
  "minMatchScore": 88
}

Verify the employers of another Actor's output (e.g. a job scraper). Pick its dataset in ...or company names from a dataset and optionally set the field name (companyName, company, employerName... are detected automatically).

Daily feed of newly licensed Skilled Worker sponsors in Manchester (schedule it):

{ "mode": "search", "onlyNew": true, "changeTypes": ["added"], "towns": ["Manchester"], "routes": ["Skilled Worker"], "maxResults": 0 }

The first monitor run saves a baseline snapshot and outputs nothing, so it costs nothing beyond the start fee. Every later run returns only the changes. If maxResults or your maximum cost per run cuts a run short, the changes that were not delivered are reported again on the next run.

Input fields

Field	Meaning
mode	search (filter, or monitor with onlyNew) or verify
register	workers (default) or students
nameContains	Part of the organisation name. Punctuation and capitals are ignored
towns, counties	Exact town/city or county (case-insensitive). Many register lines have no county
routes	Route text contained, e.g. Skilled Worker, Global Business Mobility, Creative Worker, Student
sponsorTypes	Worker / Temporary Worker (students register: Independent school, Higher Education Institution (HEI)...)
ratings	A (also matches A Premium / A SME+), B, Provisional. Students register: status, e.g. Probationary
groupByOrganisation	One row per organisation (default), or the raw register lines
onlyNew, changeTypes, stateKey	Change monitor: added, removed, changed since the previous run
companyNames, companiesDatasetId, datasetNameField, minMatchScore	Verify mode
maxResults	Maximum charged rows in search/monitor mode (0 = all). Verify mode checks the whole list

Output

Search / monitor row (workers register):

{
  "organisationName": "Acuvate Software Ltd",
  "townCity": "London",
  "county": null,
  "routes": ["Global Business Mobility: Senior or Specialist Worker", "Skilled Worker"],
  "sponsorTypes": ["Worker"],
  "ratings": ["A"],
  "typeAndRating": ["Worker (A rating)"],
  "skilledWorker": true,
  "temporaryWorker": false,
  "aRated": true,
  "companiesHouseSearchUrl": "https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/search/companies?q=Acuvate+Software+Ltd",
  "register": "workers",
  "registerDate": "2026-10-21",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/register-of-licensed-sponsors-workers",
  "csvUrl": "https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/.../SP_-_Worker_and_Temporary_Worker_Web_Register_-_2026-10-21.csv",
  "licence": "Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0."
}

Monitor rows also have changeType (added / removed / changed). changed rows include previousRoutes, previousTypeAndRating, routesAdded and routesRemoved.

Verify rows add inputName, normalizedName, matched, matchType (exact / fuzzy / none), matchScore, locationsOnRegister, otherLocations and alternatives. A name that is not found looks like this (free):

{
  "inputName": "Zzqx Imaginary Holdings",
  "matched": false,
  "matchType": "none",
  "matchScore": 67.0,
  "organisationName": null,
  "closestOnRegister": [{ "organisationName": "Imagineear LTD", "townCity": "London", "score": 67.0 }],
  "note": "Not found on the register at this match threshold - not charged"
}

Students register rows have additionalLocations, status (e.g. Student Sponsor, Probationary Sponsor) and immigrationCompliance instead of county and rating.

The run summary (sponsor count, register date, changes, not found) is saved as OUTPUT in the key-value store.

Pricing

Pay per event: $0.0008 per sponsor row ($0.80 per 1,000), plus Apify's small actor-start fee.

• Search and monitor: each output row is charged.
• Verify: only matched names are charged. Not-found names are free.
• Error rows are never charged. Use Max results or the maximum cost per run to cap spending. The run stops cleanly at the limit.

	This Actor	Other UK sponsor-register Actors on the Store (Oct 2026)
Price per 1,000 rows	$0.80	about $2 to $20 (per-record pricing, some with a start fee)
Search filters	name, town, county, route, type, A/B rating	varies
Bulk verify with fuzzy match	yes, not-found is free	some
Added / removed / changed monitor	yes	some
Students register	yes	rarely

Use with AI agents (Apify MCP)

Add this Actor to Claude, ChatGPT or any MCP client through the Apify MCP server. Then ask, for example: "Is 'Acme Robotics Ltd' a licensed Skilled Worker sponsor?" or "List A-rated software companies in Manchester that can sponsor visas." The flat output is easy for agents to read.

FAQ

How fresh is the data? The Home Office updates the register on working days. Every run resolves the newest CSV through the GOV.UK Content API, and each row has registerDate and the exact csvUrl.

Does being on the register mean a company will sponsor me? No. It only means the employer holds a sponsor licence for the listed routes. Whether it sponsors a particular job is up to the employer. Always check the job advert and the official GOV.UK page.

What do A and B ratings mean? A-rated sponsors can assign certificates of sponsorship. B-rated sponsors have been downgraded and are on a Home Office action plan. "Provisional" is used for UK Expansion Worker licences.

Why did a company not match in verify mode? The register uses the licence holder's name, which may differ from a brand or trading name. Look at closestOnRegister, lower minMatchScore (e.g. 80), or search with nameContains.

Why are some rows "removed" in the monitor? The organisation is no longer on the register. Its licence may have been revoked, surrendered or expired, or the Home Office may have changed its name or town. A rename shows up as one removed row and one added row.

Is this allowed? Yes. The register is published by the Home Office on GOV.UK under the Open Government Licence v3.0, which allows commercial reuse with attribution. The Actor uses only the official GOV.UK API and file. It does not scrape any search pages.

Data source and licence

Home Office, Register of licensed sponsors: workers and Register of licensed sponsors: students (gov.uk). Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. This Actor is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Home Office or GOV.UK.