Home Secretary Announces New Start Up Visa
The Tier 1 (Graduate Entrepreneur) route enables foreign national graduates to apply for an endorsement from a UK university or the Department for International Trade (DIT). Under the new scheme, applicants will no longer have to be recent graduates. The group of entities which can endorse an applicant is expanded from Higher Education Institutions and the government’s entrepreneur programme, to “approved” business sponsors. The visa will become process faster and smoother for entrepreneurs coming to the UK.
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The current graduate entrepreneur route does not require applicants to show that they have money to invest in their proposed business, nor are there any job creation requirements after a visa has been granted, unlike the main Tier 1 (Entrepreneur) visa, where the applicant must have £200,000 (£50,000 if the funding is provided by regulated venture capital or the DIT.) Then at least two full-time jobs last 12 months must be created while the visa is valid. The proposals make no mention of these requirements, so it is assumed there will be no investment or job creation requirements.
Does the UK need the entrepreneur visa?
In the main entrepreneur route, civil servants decide what constitutes a good business idea, and the refusal rate is 50%. The graduate entrepreneur route is not widely used, with fewer than 900 applications in the last five (thought the refusal rate is just 5%). With this new route, the government hopes to increase the number of entrepreneurs coming to the UK to set up businesses.
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