Recognised sponsor (erkend referent)

A recognised sponsor is an employer, educational institution or au pair agency that the Immigration and Naturalisation Service has admitted to its public register. Recognition is a precondition for the highly skilled migrant scheme and for several other routes, and it changes both the speed of the procedure and the obligations that come with it.

How recognition is obtained

The organisation applies to the IND, pays the statutory fee and must show that it is a going concern: registered in the trade register, financially sound, and run by people whose reliability is not in doubt. Start-ups can qualify but face additional scrutiny of continuity. A decision normally takes up to ninety days.

The three duties

Recognition brings a duty of care, meaning the sponsor must ensure the migrant is properly informed about the conditions of stay and must recruit carefully. It brings an administration duty: the sponsor keeps a file with the employment contract, proof of identity, salary payments and the current permit, and keeps it for five years after the sponsorship ends. And it brings a notification duty: relevant changes, such as the end of employment, a move abroad or a salary falling below the criterion, must be reported to the IND within four weeks.

Enforcement

The IND audits sponsors and can impose administrative fines for breaches, with higher amounts for repeat offences. In serious cases recognition is withdrawn, which immediately removes access to the fast procedure and affects every migrant the organisation employs on that basis.

Where it goes wrong

Most fines follow from the administration duty rather than from anything substantive: a file without a current copy of the permit, or salary slips that cannot be produced during an audit. Assigning one named person responsible for the sponsor file, and reviewing it before the annual indexation, prevents nearly all of it.