Your overseas team has the skills. The Global Business Mobility route is how you bring them to the UK.
If your business operates across borders, at some point you will need to bring people to the UK. A senior specialist from your overseas headquarters. A graduate trainee on a structured development programme. A contractor delivering a project under an international trade agreement. Whatever the situation, the question is the same: which visa route applies, and what does it take to use it properly?
The answer, in most cases, is the Global Business Mobility framework.
The Global Business Mobility (GBM) framework is the main visa structure for exactly these situations. It is not one visa but five separate sponsored routes, each designed for a different type of international deployment.
This guide sets out everything you need to know to use the framework confidently: the five routes and how they differ, the eligibility and salary requirements, the corporate linkage rules that UKVI scrutinises most closely, the regulatory changes that took effect in 2025, and the practical steps from licence to visa to ongoing compliance.
The GBM framework replaced the old Intra-Company Transfer (ICT) visa system in April 2022. It gives UK employers and international businesses five distinct routes to deploy overseas workers here. The route you use depends on three things: what the relationship is between your UK entity and the overseas employer, what the worker will actually be doing, and what their salary is.
Here is a plain description of each route before the table, so you can identify which one fits your situation right away.
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Senior or Specialist Worker
Your employee is a senior manager or specialist being transferred from an overseas entity that is linked to your UK business through common ownership or control.
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Graduate Trainee
Your employee is on a structured, formal global graduate training programme and is being rotated to the UK as part of that programme.
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UK Expansion Worker
Your overseas bus preiness does not yet have a tradingsence in the UK and you need to send a senior person to establish one. This route is specifically for pre-trading setups.
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Service Supplier
Your employee is delivering a service in the UK under a qualifying international trade agreement, and your overseas business has no commercial presence in the UK.
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Secondment Worker
Your employee is being seconded to a UK client under a high-value commercial contract worth at least £10 million per year and £50 million in total.[
ALL GBM ROUTES ARE TEMPORARY BY DESIGN
None of the five routes lead to permanent residence in the UK. The maximum stay across all GBM routes is 5 years in any 6-year period for most workers. Workers earning £73,900 or above on the Senior or Specialist Worker route can stay up to 9 years in any 10-year period.
GBM time does not count towards the five-year qualifying period for Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR), which is the right to live permanently in the UK, under the Skilled Worker visa. If long-term settlement is part of your plan for this person, a switch to Skilled Worker will need to be built into the timeline from the start.
Every GBM application is assessed on a points basis. Most routes require 60 points but the Service Supplier and Secondment Worker routes only need 40, because they carry no salary threshold. This trips up employers who assume all five routes work the same way.
The Points Framework Under GBM Visa
60-POINT ROUTES — Senior or Specialist Worker | Graduate Trainee | UK Expansion Worker
60-POINT ROUTES — Senior or Specialist Worker | Graduate Trainee | UK Expansion Worker
Salary thresholds from 22 July 2025 for GBM Visa
The July 2025 reforms raised thresholds substantially. If you have not reviewed your GBM salary compliance since April 2024, the figures have changed and some existing arrangements may need reassessing.
High earners on the Senior or Specialist Worker route
If the worker’s salary is £73,900 or above per year, two additional benefits apply: the maximum stay extends from 5 years to 9 years in any 10-year period, and the standard requirement for 12 months of overseas employment before the UK deployment is waived. The £52,500 route threshold still applies to everyone: £73,900 is the separate level that unlocks these extended provisions. Note that GBM time at any salary level does not count towards the ILR five-year qualifying period.
What counts as an eligible role?
All routes with a skill requirement need the role to be at RQF Level 6, degree level on the Regulated Qualifications Framework, the UK’s system for classifying qualification levels. From 22 July 2025, no new CoS can be assigned below this level, except for existing workers extending with the same employer under transitional concessions. The role must appear in the Home Office eligible occupations list and be matched to the correct SOC 2020 code. UKVI may request organograms (organisation charts showing structure and reporting lines), job descriptions and recruitment evidence to verify the post is genuine.
No English language requirement
Unlike the Skilled Worker visa, none of the five GBM routes require an English language test. This is a practical advantage for short-term and specialist deployments. However, applicants from certain countries must provide a tuberculosis (TB) test certificate when applying from outside the UK.
This is where most GBM applications run into difficulty. Not salary. Not skill level. The corporate relationship between your UK entity and the overseas employer. UKVI scrutinises the evidence for this more closely than most businesses expect, and one document template does not cover all five routes.
WATCH POINT
For Service Supplier and Secondment Worker routes, the contract must be registered on the SMS before you assign any CoS. Assigning a CoS before registration is a compliance breach and a ground for refusal.
UKVI actively scrutinises corporate linkage documents across all routes. Provide specific dates, named individuals and payroll evidence. Generic organisational charts without detail will not pass.
If you have not reviewed your GBM arrangements since early 2024, several of these changes need your attention now. Some affect workers you have already sponsored, not just new applications.
Every GBM deployment follows the same three stages regardless of which route you are using. Think of these as the three phases of your journey: getting the authority to deploy, making the specific deployment, and then keeping everything in order for as long as your worker is here. Each phase has its own requirements and its own risks if you skip steps.
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You apply online and submit supporting documents: proof the business is genuinely trading, evidence of your HR systems and the corporate relationship relevant to your route, and key personnel appointments.
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You must designate an Authorising Officer (the senior person who takes legal responsibility for the licence), a Key Contact (your main point of communication with the Home Office) and at least one Level 1 User (the person who manages the Sponsorship Management System day to day).
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For Service Supplier and Secondment Worker routes, the eligible contract must be registered on the SMS before the licence application is complete. Missing this step is a common reason licences are delayed.
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Processing takes approximately eight weeks. The Home Office may visit your premises to check your HR processes before approving the licence.
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Before you assign the CoS, verify all eligibility: salary against the current threshold, the correct SOC 2020 code, the RQF skill level, overseas employment history, and contract registration on SMS where required.
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The worker completes their online application, pays the Immigration Health Surcharge (IHS, which covers NHS access during their stay) and the visa fee, and books a biometric appointment (fingerprints and photo at a visa centre).
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No English language test is required for any GBM route. A TB test certificate may be required depending on the worker's country of nationality.
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On approval, the worker receives an eVisa accessed through a UKVI digital account rather than a physical card. Standard processing takes approximately three weeks from the biometric appointment. Priority processing, which costs more but delivers a decision within five working days, is available for most routes.
Graduate Trainees must apply from outside the UK. In-country applications are not permitted for this route.
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Right-to-work checks: from 2026, verify status via the worker's eVisa share code using the View and Prove service, not a physical BRP card.
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Report changes to UKVI via the SMS within the required timeframes, typically 10 to 20 working days. Reportable events include role changes, salary changes, absences and when a worker stops working for you.
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Keep salary compliant against the threshold that applied at the time of the CoS. For Senior or Specialist and UK Expansion Workers, monitor the 48-hour pro-rating rule if working patterns change.
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Track cumulative stay limits. The 5-years-in-6 limit (or 9-in-10 for high earners) runs across all GBM routes and predecessor ICT route time. Miscalculating this is a common risk for businesses running large global mobility programmes.
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If a worker is approaching their maximum stay, plan their next step at least six months in advance. Switching to the Skilled Worker route requires a separate application, a new CoS and meeting different eligibility criteria.
GBM deployments involve fees at multiple points in the process. Several of these cannot be recovered from your worker through salary deductions. Attempting to do so is a compliance breach and can result in your licence being revoked.
WATCH POINT
The ISC is paid in full upfront when you assign the CoS. It is not refundable if the worker leaves early.
The IHS covers access to NHS services. If you include it in your relocation package, budget for the full family unit, not just the main applicant.
CoS fees and visa application fees cannot be charged back to the worker. This applies regardless of how the arrangement is structured contractually.
The question every employer asks at this point is the same: how long will this actually take? If you already hold a GBM Sponsor Licence for the relevant route, you can get a worker from CoS to UK start date in three to four weeks using priority processing. If you are starting without a licence, build in approximately sixteen weeks end to end.
What if the visa is refused?
A Refusal Isn’t a Dead End. But It Does Have Consequences.
A refused visa application does not necessarily mean the end of the road, but it does carry immediate consequences that employers need to understand. The Certificate of Sponsorship used in the refused application is spent and it cannot be reused or reinstated, and a brand-new CoS must be assigned if the employer wishes to reapply.
The application fee and Immigration Health Surcharge are not refunded. The most common reasons for refusal are errors or inconsistencies in the CoS itself which includes wrong salary, incorrect SOC code, job duties that do not match the application alongside missing evidence, unmet skill or UKVI not being satisfied that the role or the corporate relationship was genuine. Reading the refusal letter carefully is the essential first step, because the right course of action depends entirely on why the refusal was issued.
You Have Options. But the Clock Starts Immediately.
After a refusal, there are three options available. An Administrative Review allows the employer or applicant to challenge the decision on the basis that a case working error was made, it is not a fresh application and new evidence generally cannot be submitted, but it is the correct route where UKVI misapplied the rules or overlooked submitted evidence.Â
The deadline is strict: 14 calendar days if the applicant applied inside the UK, and 28 calendar days if the from outside. Where the refusal was caused by a correctable error, a fresh reapplication with a new CoS and the underlying issue resolved is usually the most practical path. In limited circumstances where the decision itself was unlawful, Judicial Review is available as a last resort, but this is significantly slower, more costly, and requires regulated legal advice before pursuing.
What if your Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS) Expires?Â
Three Months. No Extensions. No Exceptions.
Once a Certificate of Sponsorship is assigned, the applicant has three months from the date of assignment to submit a valid visa application using that CoS reference number. If the application is not submitted within that window, the CoS expires and becomes invalid and it cannot be extended, reactivated or transferred. A brand new CoS must be assigned. The three-month clock starts from the date of assignment, not from the date UKVI approved the Defined CoS request which is a distinction that catches many employers out when planning start dates.
Entirely Preventable. Here’s How.
Almost all CoS expiry situations are preventable with structured process management. The most effective safeguard is setting an internal deadline of ten weeks from assignment rather than using the full twelve which preserves a buffer for unexpected delays such as English language test booking lead times, document assembly or biometric appointment availability.Â
Sponsors should also only assign a CoS once all eligibility has been verified and confirmed, never speculatively. Maintain a log of every assigned CoS with its expiry date, reviewed regularly by whoever holds immigration compliance responsibility in your business. Where timing is tight and a hire is business-critical, the CoS Priority Request Service delivers a next working day decision and is almost always worth the cost when set against the commercial impact of a delayed start date.
You have read the guide. You understand the framework. What comes next depends on where your business is right now and what specific deployment you are planning.
Perhaps you need to confirm which GBM route applies to a particular worker and want someone to run the eligibility assessment before you commit. Perhaps you already hold a Sponsor Licence and want to check your compliance processes against the 2025 changes.
Sterling & Wells provides regulated business immigration advice. We work with UK employers and international businesses at every stage of the GBM journey: identifying the right route, securing and managing the Sponsor Licence, preparing and verifying each CoS, and maintaining the ongoing compliance that protects your licence. All advice is provided by practitioners regulated by the Immigration Advice Authority (IAA), the official body that regulates immigration advisers in the UK.
Every engagement starts with a detailed assessment of your specific situation. No standard packages. No templates. Book a discovery call and in 15 minutes we will identify the right route and set out a clear path forward.
