A Guide to the Innovator Founder Visa

• Summary
• How It Works
• Requirements
• Endorsing Bodies
• Getting Endorsed
• Applying for the Visa
• Running the Business
• Settlement (ILR) After 3 Years
• Family
• Costs
• Rule Changes
• FAQ
• Sources

• Innovative: customers would switch to it, and a typical competitor could not copy it quickly. The Home Office's guidance for endorsing bodies gives adding an app to a taxi or cleaning company as an example that fails.
• Viable: the plan is realistic for your skills and your money, and there is evidence of real demand.
• Scalable: there is a structured plan to grow nationally and internationally and to create skilled jobs, so that doubling customers needs far less than double the costs. A licensable method or repeatable team delivery counts; a business that stays in one city, or depends on the founder's own hours, does not.

Common Refusals

• Switching cost: the most common innovation refusal is a modest edge over an incumbent customers are locked into. Quantify the buyer's cost of switching, not just your feature gap.
• Easy to copy: without IP, development complexity, deep market knowledge and a defined proprietary method still count. The yardstick is an ordinary competitor in your sector, not a well-funded one.
• Not really UK: the innovation, its control and the head of operations must be in the UK; an operating arm of an overseas business fails. Export share does not matter.
• Common refusal shapes: generic retail and restaurants, another health app or beauty product, basic aggregators, price-based competition, bought franchises, and ideas that work at home but not in the UK. Some bodies also exclude adult, crypto, and political or religious projects, so confirm before applying.

Baseline Rules

• Aged 18 or over
• English at level B2 (a UK degree usually satisfies it)
• £1,270 in personal funds held for 28 days, unless you have been in the UK for 12 months
• A new business you founded or are founding, not a role in someone else's
• The business is your main work, and you run it day to day

A skilled side job (RQF level 3 or above) is allowed, but most of your time must go to the business: a job that displaces your day-to-day role can cost the endorsement, and still working half-time elsewhere at the end of the visa reads as a business that is not growing.

Other routes: to join an existing business, Skilled Worker is the usual route. Global Talent (digital technology) needs no company and settles in 5 years under Exceptional Promise or 3 under Exceptional Talent, but needs endorsement letters from organizations that have known your work for at least 12 months. Scale-up needs 6 months of sponsored employment, then allows self-employment on a 5-year clock.

Only 4 organizations can issue new endorsements (as of Oct 2026). Each runs its own process, as published on its website:

Another 63 legacy bodies (as of Aug 2026) serve only founders they endorsed before 13 April 2023. ### How They Differ

• Innovator International: allows part-time work alongside the business.
• Envestors: requires full-time involvement and an in-house technical team member the business already has, checks about 24 months of runway, wants your settlement targets named at endorsement, and adds a 36-month checkpoint and a monthly trading report.
• UK Endorsing Services: treats innovation as a first yes or no gate, scores outsourced development in bands (largely outsourced scores zero), expects around 21% of revenue spent on R&D, and reads very low startup costs as a sign of weak innovation.

Put anything the rules leave open to the body you choose, in writing, before you apply. A refusal at one body does not count against you at another.

Back every claim in the plan with evidence you can share.

Founder Skills

You need sector or technical skill, plus the business skill to sell and run the company. Gaps are fine if you name them and budget to fill them.

The Business Plan

There is no official template. About 30 pages is a good target: 10 to 60 is normal, and past 60 it gets hard to assess. Write it yourself, using AI for wording at most: the plan has to show your own understanding of the business, and the interview tests it. Keep desk research short and the sales plan specific, show the product with screenshots or a demo, never claim no competition (doing nothing is a rival), quantify the customer's pain against your price, and address regulation now even if compliance comes later.

Most of your income has to come from the innovation you are endorsed for, at endorsement and again at settlement. Consultancy and other services are the usual way founders fail this; if services will fund the build, show their share of income falling over time.

Write forecasts you can beat: cost every item, get supplier quotes for anything costly, model 3 scenarios, and divide annual sales by 365 to check the daily figure is believable. Forecasts become the benchmark at every checkpoint and at settlement, so write any allowance into this first plan, because it cannot be added later: pre-revenue or loss-making years, a long development phase, or targets that will take 5 to 6 years rather than 3. Pre-revenue, you are judged on the metrics you nominate, so choose them deliberately. Include a risk section that scores each risk's probability and impact and says whether you avoid, tolerate or repair it.

Evidence of Demand

Desk research alone is weak. Instead:

1. Interview likely customers about their problem.
2. Test a priced solution with them.
3. Collect letters of intent from the people who hold the budget, sent from company email addresses.

Aim for 5 to 10 letters; a few signed letters from real buyers beat a survey of hundreds. One can be enough if a large customer commits money up front, while a low-priced product needs many more. Free users, bare expressions of interest and letters from people with no spending authority are weak. Interview buyers, not only users, and ask what they already tried and why it failed; each letter should say why they want it and what they would pay. Name contacts in the appendix and get their permission to be called, since assessors may phone them. UK demand is needed even for an export business.

Funding

There is no fixed minimum. You need enough to cover the deepest dip in your cash-flow forecast, plus contingency, and about 12 months of runway to forecast profit, with the time to self-sustainability stated. A small sum is credible only if key resources (someone to build, someone to sell, a network or a built MVP) are already in hand, and it must cover finding customers, not only finishing the product; a funded year 1 with an unfunded year 2 is a named refusal. The money must be cash you already hold, shown on about 6 months of bank statements (a bank letter cannot show how long it has been there); it can sit in a personal account. Property, future salary, a grant not yet awarded and a raise planned after arrival do not count. No outside investor is needed: your own or a family member's money is fine if documented. The plan must also say how you will live while drawing little or no salary. Money from someone else needs their bank evidence and a signed letter of terms. Shares count if they convert easily to cash, and money held abroad must be transferable to a UK account. Build the main forecast on money you hold and show any raise as a second scenario.

Expect to send your passport, one document holding the plan, financials and CV, evidence of funds, and optional appendices and a 2-minute video, and nothing else unless asked.

Before You Submit

• Plan written by you, with the product shown
• Supplier quotes for every costly item
• Forecast in 3 scenarios, built on money you hold
• Pre-revenue or loss-making years stated
• Letters of intent from budget holders, with contacts named in the appendix
• Bank statements for the launch money, and funder evidence for any third-party money
• Innovation designed by you, with a technical owner for the build
• Evidence ready for every claim in the plan

Interview and Due Diligence

The interview is usually a recorded video call that goes to the Home Office as proof the plan is yours. It tests that you can explain how the numbers build up, what happens if something goes wrong and how you would cover a shortfall. A decision inside a week with no questions is usually a refusal, and silence during the wait is normal; bodies do not give progress updates or expedite. Due diligence covers your identity, sanctions checks and the source of your funds. Deal with the bodies directly: scammers forge endorsement letters and falsely claim to partner with a body.

After a Refusal

The usual grounds, in order: not innovative enough, no customer validation, weak development plans, unrealistic projections, viability or scalability doubts, and the founder's capability. Some refusals are flat: no intent to build, a bought plan, or a business that works at home but not in the UK.

• Second assessment: Innovator International gives 1 free, to be requested within about 10 days, and 95% fail. It wins only on a fact the assessor missed, never on repeating or amending the plan: say what was missed and what you hold, attach nothing, and expect 4 to 5 weeks.
• Appeal: a separate assessor rereads the original submission only. Appeals succeed occasionally, each time on a plan the assessor misread. At Envestors, new information means a fresh paid application, and the Home Office is told an appeal was made.
• Reapplying: no limit, but £1,000 each time. Assessors read a later application alongside earlier ones and ask why the strongest version was not sent first, and after 2 refusals they doubt you will ever be accepted. Fix the proposition on the feedback first.

Request the endorsement letter only when the visa application is ready: it is valid for 3 months. Upload the plan and evidence again with the application, because the caseworker reads the file afresh. Your body shares its files with the Home Office, assessor notes and the interview included, so the plan and what you said must agree. Some cases get written questions, often several per round: who built the product, proof of funds, skills gaps, pricing against competitors, or proof of the customer conversations the plan claims. Answer fast with evidence you can forward.

Switching From Another Visa

Most visa holders, Graduate, Student and Skilled Worker included, can switch inside the UK. Visitors cannot and must apply from outside.

• Graduate: a Graduate visa applied for from 1 January 2027 lasts 18 months, not 2 years (PhD graduates keep 3 years), so start the plan early. It can be used once and allows self-employment, so the business can start on it; lodge the switch before it expires.
• Student: you can switch once you complete your course, or during a PhD after at least 24 months of study (the Rules say 24; the caseworker guidance says 12). Until then, Student leave bars self-employment and business activity, including taking money, accepting orders or becoming a company director; desk research and customer interviews are fine, and a breach risks refusal of later applications. Since 25 November 2025 you may work self-employed on the business once your Innovator Founder application is pending.

If you apply before your current visa expires, your permission to stay (called leave) continues while the Home Office decides, but you cannot make a new application during that time, so apply well before it expires, leaving time for a second endorsement attempt. Do not travel outside the UK, Ireland, the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man while the application is pending: it is treated as withdrawn from the day you leave. The 3 years start when the Innovator Founder visa is granted; time on other visas does not count.

Processing Times

The Home Office aims to decide in 3 weeks from outside the UK and 8 weeks from inside. Paid priority takes 5 working days and super priority the next working day.

In practice, founders report 3 to 6 months from application to decision, priority included (as of Oct 2026): priority buys a place in the queue, not a date. Your endorsing body cannot chase the Home Office, so plan notice periods, leases and moves around 3 to 6 months, and budget for an immigration adviser if the wait runs long. Checkpoints count from the grant, so the wait does not eat year 1.

First Steps

• Endorsing body told the day the visa is granted (it may not hear from the Home Office, and checkpoints count from that date)
• Company registered (£100 online), with you as a director and your Companies House identity verified
• Business bank account open (often the slowest step)
• All business money running through that account (settlement evidence is read from its statements)
• Main trading premises in place by the 12-month checkpoint (a co-working space or incubator counts)
• Companies House filings kept current from year 1 (the settlement assessor checks them first)

Identity verification is free online only with a UK passport, UK photocard license, UK residence permit or a biometric overseas passport; otherwise use a participating Post Office or an authorized accountant or formation agent. Relocation and setup usually cost 6 to 12 months against the plan's timeline, so build that in.

Checkpoints

Your endorsing body meets you at 12 and 24 months and visits your main trading premises at either one; having none by 24 months puts the endorsement at risk. Attend both: a body can withdraw endorsement from a founder who stops keeping in contact, and an extension needs at least 2 checkpoint meetings.

• 12 months: progress should be reasonable for the time; profit is not expected.
• 24 months: the body also expects commercial progress, such as engaged customers or sales, and reviews the past year rather than future plans.
• Money in: bodies record investment obtained at each checkpoint, and the notes go into the settlement file, so aim to have the £50,000 in by 12 months.

Expect little contact between checkpoints. Keep your own quarterly record (dated milestones, P&Ls, management accounts) in a data room that serves the checkpoints, an extension and settlement.

Changing the Business Plan

Agree any change to your product, market or forecasts with your endorsing body in writing before you make it: progress is judged against your last endorsed plan, and activity the body never approved may not count at settlement. The test is whether the body can still assess you against that plan:

• Minor: adding a revenue stream, segment, pricing model or market, or lowering a forecast. Carry on, but file it. Ten or more minor changes can add up to a major one.
• Major: changing the innovation or the problem you solve, or drifting into consultancy. That is a new assessment (£1,000 plus VAT) on the same visa, allowed only once you show you exhausted reasonable attempts at the original plan; a better opportunity is not a ground.

Unapproved activity is discounted rather than counted: £1 million of revenue with £950,000 from unapproved consultancy counts as £50,000. A refused change does not withdraw the endorsement; you revert, apply for a full reassessment, or leave the route.

When Endorsement Is Withdrawn

Your endorsing body can withdraw the endorsement if the business never starts, you never move to the UK, it doubts you are genuine, or you stop keeping in contact. The Home Office then normally cancels your permission with 60 days left. If the body is removed from the list or gives up its status, you normally get 90 days. Either way, you should be allowed to find another body. A withdrawal does not bar a new application; explain who withdrew it, why, and what you changed.

Apply for a settlement endorsement about 3 months before your visa ends: the body takes 4 to 6 weeks, and your ILR application must be in before your leave expires. Start the pack about 6 months out, since it takes about 8 weeks to write. The body must confirm that the business is active, trading and sustainable for the next 12 months, has made significant achievements against the endorsed plan and is run by you day to day. It must also meet at least 2 of these 7 targets:

• £50,000 invested and actively spent on the business
• Customers at least doubled in 3 years and above the average for similar UK businesses (no reliable benchmark exists)
• Significant R&D plus a UK intellectual property application (a trademark on branding does not count)
• £1 million annual gross revenue
• £500,000 revenue, £100,000 of it from exports
• 10 full-time jobs for settled workers
• 5 full-time jobs for settled workers, each paying at least £25,000 a year

Meeting both jobs targets counts as 1 target, not 2. Evidence a third target where you can, in case one is disallowed.

Meeting the Targets

• £50,000: new money you put in, not reinvested profit; your own savings or a documented loan count, and a relative's money should be documented as a gift or loan to you. Both the money in and the spending must show on the company's business account, and spend booked properly through the business counts even before the visa. Development, contractors, marketing, event travel and equipment pass if you can state the business reason. Your own salary does not count; check with your body whether visa and endorsement fees do. Avoid employee salaries as proof, spending solely to reach £50,000, and paying suppliers personally or from an offshore account.
• Jobs: each must last 12 months at an average of 30 hours a week, so to settle at 3 years, hire by about month 22, or by about month 10 if a leaver restarts the clock (unsettled; hire early or over-hire by one). Put everyone you count, a co-founder included, on a written employment contract: a director paid through payroll with no contract is an office holder, not an employee. £25,000 roles suit customer success, operations and support, not engineering, so a senior technical hire is extra cost on top.
• Pay: the rules require 5 jobs "each of which has a mean salary of at least £25,000", so each role must reach it on its own. Use employer-only pension contributions on counted jobs, since salary sacrifice lowers gross pay below the line.
• Customers doubled: usually best avoided, because the comparison set is undefined. Where comparable customer numbers do not exist, the guidance accepts credible market share analysis showing an above-average share.
• Revenue that counts: only income the endorsed company invoices and banks for the endorsed product. Revenue run through another business, or work delivered by hand instead of through the product (even for the same customers), does not count. Invoices should name the product so a third party can map the money to it.
• Settled workers: British, Irish and British Overseas Territories citizens and people with ILR or EU settled or pre-settled status, tested when each job starts. Graduate, Student and Skilled Worker visa holders do not count.
• R&D and IP: the target needs an IP application, not a grant. Where nothing can be patented, the Home Office lets a body accept credible peer-reviewed research outputs plus evidence of commercialization instead (from a reviewer independent of the work); keep a dated R&D record from the start. A patent should be professionally drafted, at roughly £6,000 to £7,000 over 3 to 4 years, and filed well inside year 2. A UK registered design is the cheapest filing (about £60) but is doubted where development is purely artistic, and a trademark counts only when tied to the R&D outcome.
• Co-founders: you cannot share a target. If both of you rely on the 5 jobs, the business needs 10; on the £50,000, it needs £100,000 in and spent.
• Cost of the 5-jobs target: about £132,000 to £143,000 a year including employer National Insurance and pension (2026 to 2027 rates), on top of the £50,000.
• Records: from the first payment, keep a spend ledger tying each payment to a line of the endorsed plan, and the bank's own monthly PDF statements, never screenshots. Minute the funding decision the day it happens and file the share allotment with Companies House within a month, since its filing date is an independent timestamp. Keep everything until well after the ILR decision.

The Sustainability Test

The rule asks whether the business is "sustainable for at least the following 12 months, based on its assets and expected income, weighed against its current and planned expenses." It looks forward, so evidence it with accounts, bank statements and a 12-month forecast for the endorsed business itself, with sales broken down by income stream.

Bodies read it strictly. Sales must cover all costs, market-rate salaries included (yours too: you need not draw it, but profit must be able to pay it), with no top-ups: founder money sitting in the business cannot cover a trading shortfall, and money put in solely to reach settlement is not counted. A loss-making growth phase passes only if the original plan declared it. Sustainability is judged on the whole business, so a loss-making services arm drags it down, and no revenue at all by year 3 is a refusal.

Supply what the body cannot check itself: a working demo, invoices, bank statements, accounts, employment contracts and contracts for repeat or coming orders. The settlement assessor has not seen your checkpoint notes, so restate everything against the original plan, and describe your daily tasks rather than a title.

How Progress Is Judged

• Against your own forecast, by trend: you are not expected to hit it, only to be on the way. For a £1 million year-3 forecast, 25% to 30% is about the low end of acceptable, and 10% is nowhere near.
• In absolute terms too: £100,000 against £1 million reads as good progress, a few thousand against £250,000 as a fail, so a low forecast is no safe hedge.
• Offsets: strong hiring or exports can carry a revenue shortfall, but a few targets met do not rescue a missed forecast, and revenue without profit is not maturity.
• Selling, not just building: run customer engagement and a pipeline beside the build and start selling early; first sales weeks before expiry look suspicious.
• Base rate: almost no business goes fully to plan, and about 5 years to reach the targets is typical.

The Extension Fallback

If progress is significant but short of the targets, the body can offer a same-business endorsement instead, on the same timing as settlement. The extension lasts 3 years, with checkpoints again; extensions can repeat, and you can apply for ILR once the targets are met. Below significant progress, the body refuses settlement and offers no extension, so you would need another visa.

A typical extension scorecard rates 5 factors red, amber or green: the state of the innovation, last year's income against forecast (red under 20%, green above 50%), progress for the time spent, whether the business can sustain itself, and whether it can still scale. Red on any of the last 3 is an immediate refusal; founder money funding the business scores amber, not red. The extension forecast replaces the original plan as the yardstick, so a padded one raises your own bar, and viability and scalability are reassessed even though innovation is not.

You can apply for ILR at any point after the 3 years, so being 6 months short costs 6 months, not another 3 years. The settlement endorsement checks only the business: the 3 years, the Life in the UK test and the 180-day limit are yours to check. If the Home Office converts a failed ILR application into an extension, no new visa fee is due, but the ILR fee is not refunded.

Before Applying for ILR

• No more than 180 days outside the UK in any 12 months
• Life in the UK test passed (if you are 18 to 64)
• Settlement endorsement in hand
• Application submitted no earlier than 28 days before you complete 3 years, and before your leave expires
• No travel outside the UK, Ireland, the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man until the decision (up to 6 months)

Your partner and children under 18 can apply as your dependants. Each pays the visa fee and the Immigration Health Surcharge (£1,035 a year for adults, £776 for children). Unless you have all been in the UK for 12 months, each also needs maintenance funds held for 28 days: £285 for a partner, £315 for the first child and £200 for each further child.

• Partner: married, in a civil partnership, or together for at least 2 years (living together, or able to show ongoing commitment). A partner can work in any job except as a professional sportsperson or sports coach. They need 5 continuous years in the UK as your partner before settling, so one who arrives with you settles about 2 years after you, and they must pass the Life in the UK test.
• Children: can apply to settle with you.

Each dependant pays the ILR fee (£3,226) when they settle.

From 26 March 2027, partners and children need B2 English speaking and listening to settle, up from B1. You already meet B2 as a founder.

Fees to settlement for a single applicant applying inside the UK (as of Oct 2026).

• From outside the UK: the visa fee is £1,357, £336 less.
• Same-business extension: about £4,800 more in Home Office fees (the £1,693 visa fee and £3,105 health surcharge), plus endorsing-body fees, which vary by body.
• Refused endorsement: fees are not refunded.

Earned Settlement

A Home Office consultation (Nov 2025 to Feb 2026) proposed raising the standard wait for settlement from 5 to 10 years. It says "most individuals" on the Innovator Founder route "should continue to benefit from an accelerated route to settlement after 3 years, subject to the mandatory requirements", and its proposal to require earnings above £12,570 a year for 3 to 5 years names no exemption for them. The changes would apply to everyone who does not yet have ILR. No government response had been published as of Oct 2026. Draw a payroll salary above £12,570 from the first trading month and keep the payslips, and expect any change to take effect with little notice.

The Endorsing-Body Contract

The Home Office contract for endorsing-body services runs to 23 October 2028, and the published notice allows an extension. The Migration Advisory Committee is reviewing the talent routes, the endorsing-body model included, and intends to finish in winter 2026.

Do I Need £50,000 to Get Endorsed?

No. The fixed £50,000 was removed in 2023; it survives only as one settlement target.

Do I Need a Company or Bank Account Before Applying?

No. A company, trading and a business bank account are only needed once you are on the visa, at the checkpoints, extension and settlement.

Can I Apply Without a Co-Founder?

Yes, sole founders qualify. Co-founders each make their own application and pay their own fees on the same plan, and each needs their own 2 settlement targets, so every extra founder raises the revenue and funding needed to look credible. Apply with fewer and add later, or send the strongest founder first. Someone who joins after the idea or MVP exists is treated as an employee, and a co-founder can run a UK business from abroad without a visa.

Is There a Minimum Shareholding?

Not in the Rules, but hold a significant stake: below 25% draws questions, and 10% to 20% is doubtful. You must also be a director or member of the company and run it day to day, not act only as an investor. Watch this if you gave equity to an incubator or investor early.

Can I Pay Myself a Salary?

Yes, but your salary does not count toward the £50,000 target.

What Happens if My Business Fails?

Your endorsement can be withdrawn, leaving you about 60 days to find another body or leave. A business that is behind but still making significant progress can extend instead of settling.

Can I Spend Time Outside the UK?

Yes. The visa sets no absence limit, but you must move to the UK and run the business here, and ILR allows no more than 180 days outside the UK in any 12 months. Once you hold ILR, it lapses after 2 continuous years away.

Can I Claim Benefits?

No. The visa gives no access to public funds, which covers most benefits and housing help.

When Can I Become a British Citizen?

Usually 12 months after ILR (straight away if you are married to a British citizen), once you have 5 years in the UK with no more than 450 days outside it, and no more than 90 in the last 12 months. The fee is £1,839 (as of Oct 2026).

Rules and Guidance

• Innovator Founder visa
• Immigration Rules: Appendix Innovator Founder
• Innovator Founder caseworker guidance
• Guidance for endorsing bodies
• List of endorsing bodies

Fees

• Home Office immigration and nationality fees
• Immigration Health Surcharge

Settlement and Citizenship

• Indefinite Leave to Remain for Innovator Founders
• British citizenship
• Earned settlement consultation

Statistics

• Immigration system statistics (extensions table Exe_D01, Innovator Founder main applicants)

General information, not legal advice. Check gov.uk or a regulated immigration adviser before you apply.