Hiring international talent into the United Kingdom
Reviewed by Mellow Editorial Team, HR & payroll content team
Hiring someone from outside the UK into a UK role means navigating immigration sponsorship, a compliant employment contract, and HMRC registration — in roughly that order. Get the sequence right and the process is straightforward; skip a step and you face fines, delays or an invalid hire.
Confirm the right to work first
Before anything else, you must check that the candidate has the legal right to work in the UK. This is a legal obligation, not a courtesy. A right-to-work check involves seeing original documents (or using the Home Office online service for those with a share code), recording the date you checked them, and keeping copies.
For candidates already in the UK with an existing visa that permits the role, this may be all you need. For candidates who need a new visa — including most international hires coming from abroad — you will need to sponsor them.
Sponsoring a worker: get your licence in order
If the candidate does not already have the right to work in the UK, you almost certainly need a Skilled Worker sponsor licence from the Home Office. Without one, you cannot legally hire them.
Applying for a sponsor licence takes time — the standard processing period is several weeks, and you should build this into your recruitment timeline. You will need to appoint an authorising officer and key contact within your business, demonstrate that your HR systems can track sponsored workers, and pay the application fee.
Once licensed, you assign a Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS) to the candidate. They use this to apply for a Skilled Worker visa. The role must meet the relevant skill level and salary threshold set by the Home Office — check the current requirements on GOV.UK, as these are updated periodically and are not reproduced here.
If you hire a lot of international talent, maintaining your licence and keeping accurate records of sponsored workers is an ongoing compliance obligation, not a one-time task.
Set up the employment contract correctly
UK employment law applies to anyone working in the UK, regardless of nationality. From day one, the employee is entitled to a written statement of particulars — in practice, a contract. Under the Employment Rights Act 2025, day-one rights are strengthened further, so there is little room to delay issuing terms.
The contract should cover pay (in sterling), working hours, holiday entitlement (statutory minimum is 5.6 weeks, equivalent to 28 days including bank holidays for a five-day week), notice periods, and any specific conditions tied to their right to work, such as what happens if their visa is not renewed.
If the employee is relocating from abroad, consider whether you need to address any provisions around relocation costs, probation, or salary in the context of living costs in the UK.
Register with HMRC and run payroll correctly
Once the contract is signed, you register the new employee through your payroll software and report their details to HMRC. UK payroll operates under Real Time Information (RTI): you submit a Full Payment Submission (FPS) on or before each payday, every time. There are no exceptions.
For most international hires working in the UK, standard PAYE applies from day one:
- Income tax is deducted via PAYE. The personal allowance is £12,570. Basic rate is 20%, higher rate 40%, additional rate 45%.
- Employee National Insurance runs at 8% up to the upper earnings limit, then 2% above it.
- Employer National Insurance is 13.8% on earnings above the secondary threshold.
If the employee has been seconded from another country and holds a valid A1 or certificate of coverage, they may continue paying social security in their home country for a period. This is common with international assignees and should be confirmed before you set up payroll.
Auto-enrolment pension obligations also apply. You must enrol eligible workers and contribute at least 3% of qualifying earnings as the employer; employees contribute a minimum of 5%.
Keep records and manage ongoing compliance
International hires bring an additional layer of ongoing admin that purely domestic hires do not:
- Right-to-work re-checks: time-limited visas require follow-up checks before expiry. You must carry these out and document them.
- Sponsor duties: you must report to the Home Office if a sponsored worker does not turn up, leaves early, changes role significantly, or is absent without explanation.
- Payroll year-end: issue a P60 by 31 May. Report any benefits in kind on a P11D by 6 July.
- Tax treaties: some international hires may have dual tax residency implications. This is territory for a tax adviser, not a payroll administrator.
If you have staff working across multiple countries — for instance, a UK-based employee with some days spent working abroad — see how Mellow runs payroll across six countries on one platform for a practical overview of managing that complexity.
The fundamentals are consistent: check the right to work, get the sponsorship in place, issue a compliant contract, and run PAYE correctly from the first payday.
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