234 companies left the sponsor register in a week. Here is how to not waste an application

The Home Office publishes a list of every UK company allowed to sponsor a worker. It is republished on working days, and it moves every single time.

The edition published on 29 September 2026 holds 127,297 companies. In the seven days before it, 234 companies came off the list. Thirty of those went in that one edition.

Nobody sends you a message when this happens. The company's website does not change. The advert stays up. You only find out when you have already applied.

Off the list does not mean somebody did something wrong

It is worth saying plainly, because people assume the worst. A company can leave the register for several reasons, and most of them are ordinary.

Some give the licence up because they are not recruiting from abroad any more. Some let it run out and do not renew. Some merge, or change their registered name, and appear again under the new one. And yes, some have it taken away.

The public list does not say which of those happened. So we do not say either. What we can say is that the company is no longer on the list, and that is the part that matters to you today.

What this costs a job seeker

An application to a company that cannot sponsor is not a near miss. It is a nothing. No reply, no rejection, no reason given, and a fortnight of waiting in between.

Most people we hear from have done thirty or forty of these. They think the market is closed. Often the market was open and they were knocking on doors that had already shut.

What we do about it, every morning

We download the register the morning it is published and match every job advert against it. An advert from a company that is no longer on the list comes off our site the same day.

Right now that leaves 818 live jobs. Every one of them is at a company that was on the register this morning. London has 154, Manchester 17, Edinburgh 15, Leicester 15, Bristol 14, Reading 14, and the rest are spread across the country.

Looking is free. There is no account to make and nothing to pay to search. You apply direct to the employer, on their own website. We are not an agency and we never handle your application.

If you would rather check a company yourself

You do not need us for that either. Type the company name into the licence check and you will see whether they are on the register today, and which route the licence covers.

One thing that check cannot tell you, and no check can: a licence is permission to sponsor somebody. It is not a promise to sponsor you, for this job, this year. Anybody who tells you otherwise is selling something.

And the rule that never changes. Nobody may charge you for a certificate of sponsorship. Selling one is a criminal offence in the UK. If a person asks you for money for a job or for a certificate, that is the scam, and it is the most common one there is.

We are a job alert service, not immigration advisers, and this is not legal advice. For your own case speak to a regulated adviser or a support organisation.