The UK is a country of opportunity that welcomes businesspeople and anyone with innovative ideas. The UK has a long history of leading innovation in business and science, and it wants to keep doing so in order to expand its economy.

The innovator founder route enables entrepreneurs with an innovative, viable and scalable idea to launch their business idea in the UK.

The business immigration team at JMW Solicitors is an authority on business visas and can help entrepreneurs apply for the new innovator founder visa.

The innovator founder visa leads to settlement after three years; however, you must meet certain milestones set by your endorsing body and report your achievements and results.

In order to qualify for settlement, in addition to validity and suitability requirements, you will need to demonstrate that you continue to be endorsed by the relevant body and take a key role in the day-to-day management of the business. You must also have registered your business with Companies House and be listed as a director or member.

At least two milestones must also be met for settlement:

• £50,000 investment into the business which has been actively spent furthering the business
• You have created at least 10 full-time jobs (or five, depending on salary amount)
• Customers must have doubled, and be higher than the mean number of customers for other UK businesses offering comparable services
• You have engaged in significant research and development activity, and have applied for intellectual property protection
• You had annual gross revenue of £1 million in the last financial year
• The business is generating gross revenue of £500,000 in the last financial year, with at least £100,000 from exporting overseas

Further to obtaining indefinite leave to remain in the UK, you would be permitted to apply for British citizenship after holding indefinite leave to remain/settlement for 12 months, and have total residency in the UK of five years (three years if married to or in a civil partnership with a British citizen).

Candidates can apply for an innovator founder visa with a new business idea or on the basis of an existing business idea. If a candidate is applying from abroad for the first time, they must follow the Home Office's "new business" regulations.

Innovator founders can only rely on an existing business in the UK if they already hold permission as an Innovator Founder, Start-up or Tier 1 (Graduate Entrepreneur) migrant.

Applicants must obtain an endorsement letter from an organisation recognised by the Home Office to be submitted alongside their application for an innovator founder visa.

An endorsing body will evaluate a visa applicant's company idea and plan and determine whether it satisfies the criteria for creativity, viability, and scalability. If the business meets the criteria, an endorsement letter will be provided and the endorsing body will have the responsibility of monitoring the business performance at regular intervals.

Without an endorsement letter, an applicant for a UK innovator founder visa cannot go on to submit their application to the Home Office.

Thanks to our expertise, the immigration lawyers at JMW can assess the individual elements of your business and application through the lens of an endorsing body, to give you the best possible chance of success.

At JMW, our team operates a client-focused approach where your interests come first. Thus, transparency for all parties in all matters, including professional fees is central to our ethos.

For innovator founder visa applicants, we offer a staged fixed-fee structure so that our fees are fully transparent and you are only liable to pay the costs for the next stage of the process upon a successful outcome in the previous stage. There are no surprises or hidden legal fees because we spell out the scope of our work prior to engagement.

Following a free no-obligation consultation to determine whether you have an innovative concept, our fees are broken into three stages:

• Stage 1: Business concept and synopsis
• Stage 2: The endorsement stage, which will include pitching your business concept and providing a more detailed business plan
• Stage 3: The visa application stage

As part of our stage one process, we offer two options, each of which attracts a different fee:

Option A

This is for the applicant who has a business concept in mind and has already conducted research, facts and figures. We will work on the concept to crystallise core elements and formulate a detailed synopsis. The synopsis will be used to gauge interest from the endorsing body and where interest is expressed, we then move to stage two.

Option B

This is for the applicant who has a business concept in mind but may not have conducted any research. We would spend greater time working in more detail on the concept and then ‘stress test’ to crystallise core elements meeting the criteria to formulate a detailed synopsis. The synopsis will be used to gauge interest from the endorsing body and where interest is expressed, we then move to stage two.

As part of the endorsement process, certain endorsing bodies may wish you to pitch your business concept either in-person or via a video conference. While you may be able to talk about your business concept for hours, condensing your concept into a 15-minute presentation and conveying all relevant information would be more useful.

Yes, you can form a team with other innovator founder applicants; all must be co-directors of the same company, and each innovator founder will need their own individual endorsement from an approved endorsing body.The Home Office will also consider the experience and credibility of each team member when assessing the application.

The Home Office recognises that many new businesses fail, and this is not necessarily an indication that you did not have a strong business idea. There is no limit to the number of times that an applicant can be endorsed for an innovator founder visa. However, each time you will need to present a new business idea to a Home Office-approved endorsing body and show that you are capable of making your idea a success.

It is possible to include your spouse and any children under the age of 18 years old as your family members. They will be given leave to enter/remain in the UK in line with the leave that is granted to the main applicant.

Yes, you would be permitted to switch to an innovator founder visa from within the UK. Note that those present in the UK as a visitor, short-term student, parent of a child student, seasonal worker, domestic worker in a private household, or those that hold permission to remain granted outside of the Immigration Rules cannot switch into the innovator founder route. Students must have completed their course of study or (if studying a PhD) have completed at least 24 months of study.

An innovator founder visa lasts for three years. An applicant may submit a three-year extension request for the innovator founder visa in accordance with UK immigration laws. An application to extend an innovator founder visa may be submitted as many times as necessary, although innovator founder migrants may qualify for settlement after three years' residence in the UK.