Immigration update – May 2026 

Right to Work U-turn  

In a welcome update to the sponsor guidance on 20 May 2026, the Home Office has reversed its April 2026 position, which had previously required sponsors to start to carry out right to work checks on ‘directly engaged’ workers – extending the remit of the checks beyond employees to also include contractors and self-employed individuals. After concerns were raised by businesses of all types and sizes about how to practically implement the new obligations, the guidance has now reverted to the previous approach, which limits the obligations on organisations to check only the right to work of employees and sponsored workers. 

Under the latest updated position, sponsors must ensure that any worker they intend to sponsor (including those who are not direct employees), as well as any other individual they employ, has the appropriate valid immigration permission to work in the UK before employment begins. This includes carrying out right-to-work checks and any necessary follow-up checks. Failure to do so may result in a breach of sponsor duties, civil penalties, and, in most cases, licence revocation. 

The Home Office has also updated related guidance, including Appendix D (record-keeping duties), to reflect and confirm the revised position. 

Sponsor Management System activity 

The Home Office has clarified that sponsors are expected to access the Sponsorship Management System (SMS) at least monthly to review licence details, manage CoS allocations, and ensure timely updates are made. All SMS users are encouraged to log in regularly. In particular, authorising officers are responsible for the activities of all SMS users and should therefore have a system in place to monitor user activity. 

Failure to access the SMS consistently may indicate weak sponsor management and could trigger compliance action. Regular SMS activity is also treated as evidence of effective licence management and may be taken into account when assessing compliance risk. Sponsors should ensure that appropriate processes are in place to maintain regular access and meet reporting obligations. 

It is important to remember that authorising officers are not automatically granted licence access simply by virtue of being appointed key personnel on the licence. Sponsors with an authorising officer who does not currently have licence access should apply to have their access appointed as a priority. It can take 18 weeks or more for the Home Office to grant licence access (without use of the priority service), so timely action is highly recommended.  

eVisas for UK Ancestry applicants   

The Home Office updated its UK Ancestry caseworker guidance on 20 May 2026 to confirm that all applicants granted entry clearance from this date will receive only an eVisa, rather than physical documentation such as a visa vignette or biometric residence permit. 

This change is consistent with the Home Office’s broader move towards a fully digital immigration system, in which immigration status is evidenced by an online record rather than physical documents. Applicants should therefore expect to rely on digital status checks, including the Home Office’s online right to work and right to rent services. 

Children eligible for eGates 

Up to 1.5 million additional children will be eligible to use UK eGates from this summer, under new Home Office plans aimed at easing travel and border entry for families. 

From 8 July 2026, children aged eight and nine who are at least 120cm tall and travelling with an adult will now be able to use eGates (currently, eGate use is restricted to those aged ten years and upwards). The change will apply across more than 290 eGates in UK airports and juxtaposed controls in Europe. 

The expansion is intended to speed up border processing and reduce queues, particularly during peak holiday periods, making entry to the UK more efficient for families travelling with younger children. 

 Cuts to net migration 

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has confirmed a sharp and sustained reduction in net migration across 2024–2025, there has been a sharp fall in net migration (year ending December 2025) to just 171,000. This represents a reduction of nearly 48% in one year (2024 to 2025), and a fall of approximately 82% from the peak of around 944,000 in 2023. Overall, the ONS describes net migration as having “nearly halved” between 2024 and 2025, with levels now comparable to those seen during the early post-Brexit system period. 

This has been driven by a significant fall in work visas – non‑EU arrivals for work fell by 47% in 2025. Notably, across key sub-categories, we’ve seen Health and Care visas fall sharply to 17,000, an 89% reduction from the 2023 peak and Skilled Worker visas declined to 35,000 
a 46% reduction year‑on‑year. 

These trends follow a series of policy reforms, including increased salary thresholds for Skilled Worker visas and restrictions on dependants. The data therefore reflects a structural tightening of the UK immigration system, with the most significant reductions concentrated in sponsored work routes and associated dependants.