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United Kingdom: Innovator Founder Visa
For startup founders building innovative, scalable, and viable startups in the UK
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For startup founders building innovative, scalable, and viable startups in the UK
To be endorsed, your business must meet all three criteria below. The endorsing body will evaluate your plan and approve it if it qualifies.
To maintain your visa and qualify for ILR (indefinite leave to remain), you’ll need to attend two mandatory check-ins with your endorsing body (at 12 and 24 months) and show you’re progressing against your original plan.
Hitting projected revenue or customer milestones
Hiring or preparing to hire UK workers
Achieving fundraising or product development targets
Making a measurable market impact
You can apply for settlement (ILR) after 3 years if your business meets at least 2 of the 7 settlement criteria.
Investment: £50,000+ invested and actively used to grow the business
Customer Acquisition: Customer base has doubled and exceeds UK industry average
Intellectual Property: Engaged in R&D and applied for IP protection in the UK
Revenue: £1M+ gross revenue
Export Revenue: £500K+ in revenue, including £100K+ from exports
Job Creation (10 jobs): 10 full-time jobs for UK-settled workers
Job Creation (5 jobs @ £25K): 5 full-time jobs paying at least £25K/year
We recommend planning for at least 3 criteria to increase your ILR success rate.
Before you can apply, your business idea must be endorsed by a UK-recognised endorsing body. Each endorsing body has its own application process and evaluation timeline, but most take 4-6 weeks to review your submission and confirm whether your idea meets the innovation, viability, and scalability criteria.
We guide you through the most complex part of the process – preparing a bulletproof application and securing an endorsement:
Once endorsed, you can apply for the Innovator Founder visa. The Home Office typically processes applications within 3–8 weeks, though this can vary depending on your location and the availability of priority services. You must submit your endorsement letter, a full set of documents, and pay the visa application fee.
You’ll be granted an initial 3-year visa. This route allows you to bring your dependents and work on building your venture – full-time employment outside the business is not allowed. You’ll be expected to progress against the business plan submitted at the endorsement stage, and your endorsing body will conduct 12- and 24-month check-ins to confirm you’re meeting milestones.
After 3 years, you may qualify for Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) – but only if you meet the Home Office’s business progression criteria and can prove continuous residence in the UK.
Continuous Residence Requirements:
To qualify for ILR, you must show you’ve lived in the UK throughout the 3-year period. You’ll need long-term documents that cover each year of residence (e.g. annual bank statements, mortgage or rental agreements, P60s, council tax bills). Gaps, short-term documents, or travel exceeding permitted days can affect your eligibility.
Once you’ve held ILR for 12 months, you can apply for citizenship – provided you meet the physical presence and absence thresholds, and pass the good character assessment. You’ll need to show you were physically present in the UK exactly five years before your application and haven’t been outside the UK for more than 450 days in the last 5 years, or 90 days in the last 12 months.
Important: If you spend more than 2 years outside the UK after obtaining ILR, you may lose your settlement status. Be sure to maintain ties and avoid long-term absences.
You can apply for ILR after 3 years if you meet 2+ settlement criteria and show consistent business progress. After holding ILR for 12 months, you can apply for a British passport.
On the Innovator Founder visa, you can qualify for permanent residence (ILR) after just 3 years — faster than most other UK immigration routes.
To be eligible, you must live in the UK for the full 3-year period without spending more than 180 days outside the country in any 12-month stretch. You must also meet the Innovator Founder visa extension/ILR criteria, including endorsement renewal and demonstrating business progress.
To be eligible, you must have spent no more than 90 days outside the UK in the last 12 months, and generally no more than 450 days abroad over the 5-year period (that’s around 9 months in the UK each year).
Whether you want full hands-on support, guided independence, or just to check if you qualify – we’ve got a path for you.
No. The Innovator Founder Visa does not require a fixed minimum investment like the previous Innovator route, which mandated £50,000. However, your endorsing body must be satisfied that you have adequate resources to launch and grow your business in the UK. That includes showing that you have access to funding or revenue streams sufficient to deliver on the business plan you’ve submitted. If your business model is capital-intensive, you'll need to be even more specific about how you’ll cover those costs. You also need to show maintenance funds for yourself and any dependants as part of your visa application.
Yes, you must demonstrate English language proficiency at CEFR level B2 in reading, writing, speaking, and listening. However, the English language test is not needed at the endorsement stage as it’s required only for Stage 2 - the visa application at Home Office. Also, you don’t necessarily need to take a test. If you hold a degree that was taught or researched in English and is recognised by UK NARIC (now Ecctis), this usually satisfies the requirement. Nationals of majority English-speaking countries (e.g. USA, Canada, Australia) are also exempt.
Yes, you can apply with one or more co-founders, but each applicant must individually meet all visa and endorsement criteria. This means every founder needs to:
It’s important to clearly differentiate each founder’s role, responsibilities, and contributions in the business.
Pivots are allowed, but must be handled carefully. If your business evolves after endorsement – for example, changing your product, business model, or target market – you must:
At your 12- and 24-month check-ins, your endorsing body will review whether your new direction still aligns with the intent of your original application and the Innovator Founder Visa route.
To qualify for Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) under the Innovator Founder Visa, you must meet at least two out of seven Home Office criteria after three years. If you fall short, you can:
Note: your partner or child's visa will not automatically extend if you extend yours. If they do not extend their visa, it will be valid until its original end date. They can either apply at the same time as you, or at any time before their current visa expires. You should apply before your current visa expires. You need to have your business or business idea assessed by an endorsing body when you extend your visa.
Extensions are not automatic – your business must show strong momentum and continued alignment with the original endorsement. Failing to meet the threshold without valid justification may result in rejection or the need to switch to a different visa category.
We understand why you ask – you’re trying to choose the right partner and looking for an objective metric to compare. But we do not feel comfortable sharing the exact number of cases publicly (just as we don’t disclose our revenue or other sensitive details). More importantly, the raw number of cases is not the best way to judge expertise. Let us explain and give you some context.
Your case will be handled by a dedicated team of associates, each of whom has personally worked on dozens of applications. Every project is led by a case lead with deep experience, having managed many dozens more. In addition, our team has been trained on and analyzed hundreds of examples – from our own practice (including those delivered by parallel teams), from industry colleagues, and from other professional sources.
It’s safe to say that our expertise and institutional knowledge is based on thousands of cases. Some of this comes directly from cases we’ve handled; other knowledge comes from the collective experience of our partners and colleagues in the field.
What matters most is that we apply best practices drawn from this wide base of experience – including lessons from refusals, successful strategies from across the industry, and our own continuous learning.
If a rejection occurs, there are several possible paths forward:
Not automatically – there are important nuances. One of the key things to keep in mind from the very beginning is the continuous residence requirement:
If your goal is British citizenship, the continuous residence requirement is even stricter: you must not be absent from the UK for more than 450 days in the last 5 years (an average of 90 days per year).
Your business must meet at least 2 of the following criteria:
First, you need to obtain Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR). You may then become eligible to apply for British citizenship and a UK passport. But there are important nuances to keep in mind – and one you should be aware of from the very beginning is the continuous residence requirement.
Other conditions include:
You can switch from a Skilled Worker Visa to the Innovator Founder Visa, but the time you’ve already spent on the Skilled Worker Visa will not count toward your ILR (Indefinite Leave to Remain).
Still, some clients follow this path.
The main reasons are:
For Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) on the Innovator Founder route, you must have lived in the UK for 3 years on an Innovator Founder or Innovator visa only; you cannot include time from any other visa type. This applies to the primary applicant, but family members may be able to count their time as a dependant on another visa, though not their time on their own visa.
Only the following visas are considered for the 3-year continuous residence requirement:
Important Considerations
To learn about the package best suited to your situation, please complete our eligibility assessment or request a personal consultation.
Our pricing philosophy is simple: we aim to deliver superior quality and depth of work at the best possible price. We are not the cheapest option on the market – but we are significantly more affordable than traditional law firms or old-school professional service providers, while at the same time offering much more.
Why do we believe we offer the best value for money?
In short: we deliver more value, deeper involvement, and stronger results – at a fraction of the cost of traditional firms.
We reject far more clients than we take on. Our first step with every client is to carefully evaluate how their business fits the Innovator Founder criteria.
Only when we are convinced that we can build a strong case with a high probability of success do we propose cooperation. We are always honest about how we perceive your chances and what we can do to improve them:
This way, if we agree to work together, you can be confident that we truly believe in your chances.
"They cared to understand the Web3 cybersecurity to deliver a winning case"
"Moved from US to UK on Global Talent thanks to CSMPLT"
“Delivered winning strategy tailored for tricky VC profile”
"Cut time to ILR by switching to Global Talent"
"Approved for US and UK in record time with CSMPLT"
"They understand mobile apps — and how to package it for visa"
"I focused on my startup, they delivered visa approval"
"Translated abstract CEO work into criteria-matching proof"
"They cared to understand the Web3 cybersecurity to deliver a winning case"
"Moved from US to UK on Global Talent thanks to CSMPLT"
“Delivered winning strategy tailored for tricky VC profile”
"Cut time to ILR by switching to Global Talent"
"Approved for US and UK in record time with CSMPLT"
"They understand mobile apps — and how to package it for visa"
"I focused on my startup, they delivered visa approval"
"Translated abstract CEO work into criteria-matching proof"
