Two visa routes a startup inherits the day it is acquired

Global Business Mobility, or GBM, is a group of UK immigration routes that let overseas businesses bring certain workers into Britain for specific business purposes.

Two of them matter most to a company that is growing across borders, according to Sunny Sandhu, a senior immigration associate at AY&J Solicitors, writing for TechRound.

The UK Expansion Worker route is for an overseas business setting up a presence in the UK. The Senior or Specialist Worker route is for transferring an eligible employee from an overseas group business to a connected UK operation.

The trigger is structure, not size. Sandhu writes that the UK and overseas entities generally need the required relationship through common ownership or control, or another qualifying structure.

That is why GBM tends to appear after a growth event. A UK startup acquired by an American company was standalone yesterday and part of an international group today.

If the new parent wants one of its senior product specialists in London for two years, that move may now sit inside the framework. The same applies in reverse, when an overseas startup incorporates a UK entity and sends someone to run it.

Timing decides which route is open. The Expansion Worker route is intended for a UK operation that has not yet started trading; once the UK business is established and trading, Senior or Specialist Worker may become the appropriate route depending on circumstances.

So the questions are commercial ones in disguise. Has the entity been incorporated? Has it started operating? How is it connected to the overseas company? Where has the employee been working, and what will they actually do in Britain?

Startups get the order wrong because the funding, the new entity, the senior hire and the agreed start date all land at once. The visa question arrives last.

The visa is not the first step in any case. The UK business may first need the appropriate sponsor licence, and a sponsor takes on continuing duties: record keeping, monitoring workers and reporting relevant changes to the Home Office.

A multinational has a mobility team for that work. A startup sponsoring from abroad for the first time probably does not.

The second trap is permanence. GBM routes are temporary and do not themselves lead to settlement. An individual may be able to switch into another category that does, depending on their circumstances.

Sandhu's practical test is four questions, asked before anyone books a flight: are the UK and overseas businesses sufficiently connected, is the UK operation already trading, is the move genuinely temporary, and does the company already hold the right sponsor licence.

For a founder mid-acquisition, the useful move is to put the sponsor licence on the expansion timetable rather than after it — and to settle the long-term question about a key employee before the move, not two years in.