The Innovator Founder visa is the UK’s route for a person seeking to establish a business in the UK based on an innovative, viable, and scalable business idea that they generated or significantly contributed to. Every application must be supported by an endorsing body, and the applicant must have a key role in the day-to-day management and development of the business. A partner and dependent children can apply, and the route leads to settlement. Permission is granted for three years.
This guide is based on the Immigration Rules (Appendix Innovator Founder) and the Home Office caseworker guidance and endorsing body list published on GOV.UK. Where a date is given, it is the date of the relevant official publication.
What Changed in 2026
Students can now switch inside the UK
Since November 25, 2025, a Student visa holder can apply to switch into the Innovator Founder route from within the UK, instead of leaving and applying from abroad. Under the current caseworker guidance, an applicant applying for permission to stay who has, or last had, permission as a Student must have completed the course for which their Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies (CAS) was assigned. If the course was leading to a PhD award, they must have completed at least 12 months of that course.
Switching into the route is not open to everyone in the UK. An applicant cannot switch if they have, or were last granted, permission as a Visitor, a Short-term Student, a Parent of a Child Student, a Seasonal Worker, a domestic worker in a private household, or permission granted outside the Immigration Rules.
The endorsing body list keeps contracting
The GOV.UK list of endorsing bodies was last updated on August 7, 2026. Recent updates have removed further organizations from the Legacy Innovator Endorsing Bodies list, and confirmed that the Global Entrepreneurs Programme can issue endorsements for the Innovator Founder visa only. Because an organization can only endorse while it is on the list, checking the list on the day you approach a body is now a practical necessity rather than a formality.
The caseworker guidance has been reissued twice
The Innovator Founder caseworker guidance was reissued as version 10.0, published for Home Office staff on February 25, 2026, and as version 11.0, published on August 4, 2026. Version 10.0 reflected the decommissioning of vignettes in line with the eVisa rollout and removed the key facts table; version 11.0 updated references to immigration bail under the suitability provisions. If you read elsewhere that these updates rewrote the substantive business tests, check the published version history before relying on it.
Who Can Endorse You
Only an organization on the GOV.UK list can issue a valid endorsement. As at the list updated on August 7, 2026, the Business Endorsing Bodies able to endorse new initial Innovator Founder applications are:
- UK Endorsing Services;
- Innovator International; and
- Envestors Limited.
The Global Entrepreneurs Programme (GEP), run by the Department for Business and Trade, can also endorse Innovator Founder applications, but only for founders who have already been invited to participate in its programme.
Legacy Innovator Endorsing Bodies no longer accept new applications. They can only provide further endorsements where they previously endorsed the applicant under the Innovator or Start-up routes before April 13, 2023, and they continue to monitor their existing endorsees.
Cost and validity. Endorsement costs £1,000 per person, paid directly to the endorsing body. The endorsement letter must have been issued no more than three months before the date of application and must not have been withdrawn. It must name the endorsing body, give the endorsement reference number and date of issue, identify the applicant, and provide contact details for someone at the body who can verify the letter to the Home Office.
The Three Tests: Innovative, Viable, and Scalable
For a new business, the endorsing body must be satisfied that all of the following are met, and must say so in the endorsement letter with a short description of how:
- Innovative. The applicant must have a genuine, original business plan that meets new or existing market needs and, or, creates a competitive advantage.
- Viable. The business plan must be realistic and achievable based on the applicant’s available resources, and the applicant must have, or be actively developing, the necessary skills, knowledge, experience, and market awareness to run the business successfully.
- Scalable. There must be evidence of structured planning and of potential for job creation and growth into national and international markets.
The applicant must also have generated, or made a significant contribution to, the ideas in the business plan, must demonstrate a day-to-day role in carrying it out, must be either the sole founder or an instrumental member of the founding team, and must confirm that they will attend at least two contact point meetings with the endorsing body during their permission. Someone who is only investing in a company and does not meet these requirements will be refused.
The Requirements at a Glance
An applicant for entry clearance or permission to stay must score 70 points. Fifty points come from either the new business criteria (30 for the business plan and 20 for the business being innovative, viable, and scalable) or the same business criteria, but not both. The remaining 20 points are mandatory for every applicant:
- English language. Unless an exemption applies, level B2 in all four components — reading, writing, speaking, and listening (10 points).
- Financial requirement. £1,270 for the main applicant, held for a 28-day period, plus £285 for a dependent partner, £315 for a first child, and £200 for each subsequent child (10 points). An applicant who is applying in the UK and has already been in the UK for more than 12 months does not need to show funds.
Conditions of permission. No access to public funds. Study is permitted, subject to the Academic Technology Approval Scheme condition where it applies. Work undertaken outside your own business must be skilled to RQF level 3 or above.
Contact Point Meetings and Staying Endorsed
You must attend at least two contact point meetings with your endorsing body at regular intervals during your permission — normally after 12 and 24 months. Each meeting costs £500, paid directly to the endorsing body, and the endorsing body must tell the Home Office if a meeting is missed.
An endorsing body can withdraw its endorsement at any time, including after permission has been granted, and permission may then be cancelled. If your endorsing body is removed from the list or surrenders its status, you are normally given 90 days to obtain a valid endorsement from another body; if the body withdraws its support for you, the period is normally 60 days. If there is evidence that you were knowingly complicit in wrongdoing, permission can be cancelled immediately.
The practical consequence: sector fit matters as much as business quality. With a small number of active bodies, each with its own published process and areas of interest, a strong proposal sent to a body that does not cover your sector will go nowhere.
Identify the right body before you write the plan, not after.
What a Strong Application Package Contains
Nothing below replaces the published criteria of the body you approach, but these are the elements that consistently do the work:
- A business plan written for an endorsement assessor rather than for investors — the two audiences want different things;
- Market research with sources, not assertions;
- Financial projections with visible, defensible assumptions;
- Evidence of your own relevant background and capability, and of your day-to-day role in the business;
- Any traction you already have: letters of intent, pilot customers, technical validation, grants, or intellectual property filings; and
- Evidence of funding, where the plan depends on it.
On investment funds: the route does not impose a fixed minimum investment figure as a rule of general application. That does not make funding irrelevant. The plan must be realistic and achievable based on your available resources, so an underfunded plan is difficult to endorse.
Settlement After Three Years
The Innovator Founder route is a route to settlement. An applicant must have continuously resided in the UK for at least three years immediately before the application, with no more than 180 days of combined absence in any consecutive 12-month period, and must meet the Knowledge of Life in the UK requirement unless aged 65 or over at the date of application. The settlement application must be supported by an endorsement letter issued no more than three months before the date of application.
That endorsement letter must confirm significant achievements judged against the business plan assessed in the previous endorsement, that the business is registered with Companies House with the applicant listed as a director or member, that it is active and trading, that it appears sustainable for at least the following 12 months, and that the applicant has had an active key role in day-to-day management and development.
It must also confirm that the business venture has met at least two of the following:
- At least £50,000 has been invested into the business and actively spent furthering it;
- The number of customers has at least doubled within the most recent three years and is currently higher than the mean for comparable UK businesses;
- The business has engaged in significant research and development activity and has applied for intellectual property protection in the UK;
- The business has generated a minimum annual gross revenue of £1 million in the last full year covered by its accounts;
- The business is generating a minimum annual gross revenue of £500,000 in the last full year covered by its accounts, with at least £100,000 from exporting overseas;
- The business has created the equivalent of at least 10 full-time jobs for settled workers; or
- The business has created the equivalent of at least 5 full-time jobs for settled workers, each with a mean salary of at least £25,000 a year.
The same criterion cannot be counted twice, and members of the same founding team cannot share the same means of meeting these criteria. Where jobs are relied on, each job must have existed for at least 12 months, must comply with UK employment legislation, and must involve an average of at least 30 hours of paid work per week.
Before You Start
Check the current endorsing body list on GOV.UK on the day you approach a body. Choose the body whose published scope matches your business. Write the plan against the criteria that body publishes, and be ready to defend your assumptions. Build in time: endorsement is a substantive assessment, and a rushed pitch is visible.
