The Intra-Company routes will replace the Tier 2 (Intra-Company Transfer) Long-term Staff and Graduate Trainee routes from 1st December 2020. You can access more information on this category by reading our article. Barar & Associates explains further the requirement pertaining to the salary and Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS) below.
Salary
As a sponsor (ie: an employer), you must ensure all your Skilled Worker visa holders are paid the minimum salary threshold. This minimum salary threshold will mainly depend on the job, as there are different salary thresholds in function of the job.
Therefore, in general, the minimum salary threshold for the Intra-Company Transfer route will be the higher of the below:
- £41,500 per year;
- the minimum salary threshold for the relevant occupation code.
Moreover, in general, the minimum salary threshold for the Intra-Company Graduate Trainee route will be the higher of the below:
- £23,000 per year;
- 100% or 70% of the minimum salary threshold for the relevant occupation code (depending on the job).
When calculating the worker’s salary, the following can be taken into account:
- guaranteed basic gross pay (before income tax and including employee pension and national insurance contributions); and
- allowances which are guaranteed to be paid for the duration of the worker’s employment in the UK (such as London weighting) or are paid as a mobility premium or to cover the additional cost of living in the UK
Where allowances are solely for the purpose of accommodation, they will only be taken into account up to a value of either:
- 30% of the total salary package for the Intra-Company Transfer route; or
- 40% of the total salary package for the Intra-Company Graduate Trainee route (due to the higher costs for short-term accommodation)
To calculate the salary for occupation codes listed in Table 1 of Appendix Skilled Occupations, it is based on a 39-hour week and will be pro-rated. Therefore, the minimum salary for the occupation code will be multiplied by the number of weekly working hours divided by 39.
Furthermore, consideration will be based on earnings stated on the CoS up to a maximum of 48 hours a week, even if the worker works for longer than this. For example, a worker who works 60 hours a week for £14 per hour will be considered to have a salary of £34,944 (14 x 48 x 52) and not £43,680 (14 x 60 x 52), and will therefore not meet the general salary requirement for the Intra-Company Transfer route. The worker must be paid at least £90,000 (£58,500 x 60 ÷ 39) per year to meet the minimum salary threshold.
Transitional arrangement for unused Tier 2 (ICT) CoS
If you have assigned a CoS to a worker before 1st December 2020 under the Tier 2 (Intra-Company Transfer) rules but it has not been used in an immigration application by that date, you can ‘upgrade’ the CoS to an Intra-Company routes CoS, provided the CoS was assigned to the worker no more than 3 months ago. You do this by adding a ‘sponsor note’ to the CoS with some necessary information.
The worker will then be able to use the CoS to make an immigration application on the Intra-Company routes provided that the CoS has not expired.
Should you wish to discuss this new Intra-Company visas in more detail, please contact our expert team of London immigration lawyers at Barar and Associates at barar.london@bararassociates.co.uk or call us on 020 7487 8370. You can access more information about us via https://bararassociates.com/
