The Global Business Mobility (GBM) visa for senior or specialist workers is one of five new business immigration routes for overseas organisations looking to establish a UK presence or transfer staff to the UK.
The GBM senior or specialist worker visa, as the name suggests, is specifically for senior or specialist employees looking to transfer to a UK subsidiary or branch of their overseas employer.
The GBM senior or specialist worker visa is a category of visa under the UK’s points-based immigration system that replaces the old Intra-Company Transfer (ICT) visa. Applications for an ICT visa will no longer be accepted, although existing ICT visa holders will not be affected.
To apply for a GBM senior or specialist worker visa, there are various costs involved. In addition to being able to show funds, where applicable, the applicant will also need to pay an application fee and the annual immigration health surcharge.
When applying from outside the UK, the application fee for a senior or specialist worker is £625 when seeking up to 3 years’ leave and £1,235 when seeking more than 3 years. When applying from inside the UK to extend a visa or switch to this route, the fee is £719 for up to 3 years’ leave and £1,423 for more than 3 years. The healthcare surcharge is set at £624 for every year that the applicant is granted leave. This means that if an applicant is applying to stay in the UK, for example, for 3 years, they will need to pay a surcharge of £1,872.
There are also costs associated with sponsorship. These include the cost of obtaining a sponsor licence or adding the senior or specialist worker route to that licence, plus an Immigration Skills Charge for every CoS assigned to a prospective transferee. However, if the UK sponsor already holds a valid sponsor licence for the Intra-Company route before 11 April 2022, the senior or specialist worker route will be automatically added to their licence.
The cost of applying for a licence will depend on the size and status of the organisation. For small or charitable sponsors, the fee is £536, and £1,476 for medium or large sponsors. The sponsor will be a small sponsor if at least 2 of the following apply:
- their annual turnover is £10.2 million or less
- their total assets are worth £5.1 million or less
- they have 50 employees or fewer.
The amount that a sponsor will need to pay for the Immigration Skills Charge is again based on the size and status of the organisation, as well as how long the specialist or senior worker will be in the UK, using the start and end dates on the employee’s sponsorship certificate. For small or charitable sponsors, this is set at £364 for the first 12 months, plus £182 for every additional 6-month period. For medium or large sponsors, this is set at £1,000 for the first 12 months, plus £500 for every extra 6 months. The sponsor must have paid this charge in full in order for an applicant to be eligible to apply for a senior or specialist worker visa.
There is also a fee for issuing the sponsorship certificate itself of £199.
The senior or specialist worker visa has only recently opened to applications, so it’s yet unclear how long applications for this type of visa will take to process. However, given that it directly replaces the ICT route, it’s anticipated that the processing time will be similar. Typically, under the old rules, an ICT visa would take up to 3 weeks to be processed for overseas applications, and a period of 8 weeks for in-country applications.
Following the successful grant of a senior or specialist worker visa, the visa-holder will be allowed to work in the UK in the job role for which they are being sponsored to do. Leave will usually be granted for at least the duration of that work assignment in the UK, plus 14 days, provided this is less than the maximum amount of time permitted under the rules.
