Tier 2 unrestricted certificate allocation processing time

Hi Everyone,

I was offered a job by a new company 6 months ago, whose sponsorship licence had expired. My current tier 2 with my current employer expires early 2021, so that wasn't a problem since the new company was willing to get one to sponsor me and I had enough time to switch.

Its a first time my new employer was sponsoring anybody to his company, so they were bit clueless about the process. Being closely worked with HR manager through Tier 2 licence process earlier on my first application, I did try to tell my new employer that I could help them through this process, but they showed bit reluctancy in asking any advice from me, so I couldn't force myself on them, so I let them do it.

New employer applied for renewal on Aug. 2019 and licence was issued in the middle of Oct. without any problem, but the Home Office did not allocate single certificate to my new employer, reason being (i think) they did not mention about me when renewing the licence. I have no idea why would Home Office issue a licence without any certificate, I mean what is the point of issueing a licence in first place then? may be they thought that my new employer wanted sponsorship licence only to showcase it on the wall.

Back to the desk again, my new employer applied for allocation of an Unrestricted Certificate on Nov. 3rd, 2019. We haven't heard back from Home Office yet. My employer did contact them couple times. Answer was 18 weeks processing time, which I knew from this forum. Also what I knew from this forum is that it never took them Home Office morethan 4-6 weeks to process in almost all the cases.

But mine is still under processing till this day (last logged into SMS today morning by my employer).

I request all the member who are going through same process or have been recently to comment your progress timeline.

Kudos to this forum for bringing like minded people under one umbrella and sharing the knowledge.

Thank You

Unrestricted CoS requests do not take 18 weeks!

If you mean CoS allocation requests for a licence (only for Tier 2 GENERAL (UNRESTRICTED) CoS, or Tier 2 ICT) - then yes they can take months.

You can expedite the request by calling the priority service department with the Home Office (the telephone number is on the sponsor management system only accessible by your employer) where you pay a £200 government fee. It then takes 2-5 working days.

Thanks for the information.

I successfully changed my tier 2 visa to new employer.

Timeline:

- Employer got decision on unrestricted certificate allocation on 20/01/2020.
- Employer issued the certificate to me on 28/01/2020.
- Filed my visa application on same day (28/01/2020), used super priority service with short notice next day premium lounge appointment at 20 Mark Lane (London).
- Gave my biometrics next day (29/01/2020 11:30AM).
- Got decision same day (29/01/2020 at 01:00PM)