This page covers who qualifies, the two salary thresholds and the two rules that change between them, what the route costs and which of those costs is your employer’s rather than yours, why five years here counts for nothing toward settlement — and exactly how a lender prices a visa with an end date on it.
Understanding the Intra-Company visa
What the route is and what it was called before 2022, the two salary thresholds and the two rules that move between them, what it costs and who is actually billed, and why none of the time you spend here counts toward settlement.
What is the Intra-Company visa?
The Intra-Company visa lets an employee of an overseas business be assigned temporarily to a UK branch, subsidiary or affiliate within the same corporate group, to fill a role that is genuinely senior or genuinely specialist. It is one of five routes inside the Global Business Mobility framework, alongside Graduate Trainee, UK Expansion Worker, Service Supplier and Secondment Worker. What separates it from the Skilled Worker visa sitting beside it in the Rules is who it is for: not somebody an employer went out and hired, but somebody the employer already has, being moved. That distinction is why there is no English language test on this route. It is also why there is no settlement at the end of it.
Renamed in 2022 — it is the same route
The Intra-Company Transfer (ICT) visa was replaced in 2022 by the Global Business Mobility: Senior or Specialist Worker visa. Nothing about its purpose changed — it still moves staff from an overseas business into a linked UK entity — but the old name is what most people still search for, and it is what a great many HR handbooks and relocation packs still call it. This page uses both names deliberately, and means the current route throughout.
Who is eligible?
- A confirmed job offer from a UK entity linked to your current overseas employer — the same corporate group — which holds a Global Business Mobility sponsor licence
- A Certificate of Sponsorship for a role at RQF Level 6 or above, broadly graduate level, that is genuinely senior or genuinely specialist
- 12 months’ continuous employment with the linked overseas employer immediately before the UK assignment — unless your salary is £73,900 or above, which waives the requirement entirely
- A salary meeting the general threshold and the specific going rate for your occupation code — whichever of the two is higher
- Enough personal savings to support yourself, unless your employer certifies maintenance on your Certificate of Sponsorship
- No English language test. This route does not ask for one, which is the clearest single difference from the Skilled Worker visa
How much do I need to earn?
The general threshold is £52,500 a year, raised from £48,500 on 22 July 2025 — a four-thousand-pound jump in a single step, so check the figure has not moved again before you plan around it. On top of that you have to meet the going rate for your SOC 2020 occupation code, and wherever the going rate is higher, it is the going rate you have to clear. All of that is ordinary. What is not ordinary is the second threshold sitting above it.
| The rule | £52,500General thresholdRaised from £48,500 on 22 July 2025 | £73,900High-earner thresholdWhere two of the route’s rules change |
|---|---|---|
| 12 months’ prior employment overseas | £52,500Required, with the linked overseas employer, immediately before the assignment begins. | £73,900UnlockedWaived entirely. You can be transferred in without having worked for the group abroad first. |
| Maximum stay | £52,5005 years in any 6-year period. | £73,900Unlocked9 years in any 10-year period. |
| The going rate for your occupation | £52,500Applies, and overrides the threshold wherever it is higher. | £73,900Applies, and overrides the threshold wherever it is higher. |
| Time counting toward settlement | £52,500None. | £73,900None. |
Both thresholds are floors rather than targets — the going rate for your occupation code sits on top of each and wins wherever it is higher. And no salary on this route shortens the path to settlement, because there is not one to shorten.
Graduate Trainee is a different route, with a different floor
You will see £25,410 quoted alongside this visa. That figure belongs to the Graduate Trainee route — a separate Global Business Mobility category for structured graduate programmes leading into a senior or specialist role. It is capped at one year and it has its own lower salary threshold. It is not a cheaper version of this visa, and the two are not interchangeable. If your Certificate of Sponsorship says Senior or Specialist Worker, £52,500 is your floor.
How long can I stay on this visa?
Five years in any six-year period is the standard maximum, and the second half of that sentence does more work than the first. This is not five years followed by a renewal. Once the five are used, the route is shut to you until a full six-year period has gone by — a gap the rule creates rather than an oversight you can apply around. For anyone with a mortgage that matters far more than the headline number, because the year you cannot be here on this visa has to be a year you planned for rather than one you discover.
- Yr 0–4
The window most lenders are comfortable in
Full permission, with enough of it left that a lender does not have to ask what happens next. Most of the panel wants to see roughly twelve months on the clock, so this window closes about a year before your visa does.
- Yr 4–5
The last year of the grant
Under twelve months left. Still perfectly possible, but the panel narrows and the case turns on your deposit and on what your employer has actually said about extending the assignment or switching you onto another route.
- Yr 5–6
The year you cannot hold this visa
The five years are used and the six-year period has not reset. This is the gap the rule creates, and it is why a switch has to happen before your permission ends rather than after — there is nothing left to extend from once you are inside it.
Key dates
- Yr 1Twelve months of UK payslips — the point most lenders stop wanting an employer reference instead
- Yr 4Around twelve months left on the grant, where most lenders start asking what happens at the end of it
- Yr 5Maximum permitted stay reached, unless your salary is £73,900 or above
- Yr 6The six-year period resets and the route reopens, if you still qualify for it
What are the costs?
Three charges attach to this route, and one of them is not yours. The Immigration Skills Charge is billed to the sponsoring employer, and transferees budget for it anyway — out of the same savings they are trying to put down as a deposit. The two that are yours are worth separating too: the application fee is a one-off in a band, while the health surcharge is charged for every year of visa granted and paid in full up front. On a five-year grant that is more than £5,000 handed over before you have looked at a property.
You pay
Application fee£819 – £1,865
A band rather than a figure. Roughly £819 applying from outside the UK for a stay of up to three years, rising to around £1,865 applying from inside the UK for a stay of more than three years.
Immigration Health Surcharge£1,035 per year
Charged for every year of visa granted and paid up front, not annually. A five-year grant is more than £5,000 out of the same account your deposit is sitting in.
Your employer pays
Immigration Skills Charge£1,320
The first twelve months, at the large-sponsor rate. Billed to the sponsoring employer and never to the applicant — check it has not quietly landed in your relocation budget.
Each further six months£660
Added for the rest of the assignment length being sponsored, which is why a longer assignment is a bigger decision for your employer than it is for you.
Fee bands are precise and they move — the figures above are the ones that took effect on 8 April 2026, and gov.uk is the only place they are guaranteed to be right for your own circumstances. The health surcharge is the one to check against your deposit before anything else, because it is the largest and it is due first.
Does this visa lead to settlement?
This is the single most important thing to understand about the route, and the one part of it that is genuinely counterintuitive. You can spend five years in the UK on this visa — working, paying tax, putting children through school here — and reach the end exactly as far from Indefinite Leave to Remain as you were on the day you landed. Not closer by a reduced amount. Not closer at all. This is a business mobility route: it moves you, and the assumption written into it is that it moves you back.
Up to 5 yearsTime you can spend in the UK
Five years in any six-year period, or nine in any ten if your salary is £73,900 or above. Real permission, with dependants, with the right to work, and with nothing stopping you buying a home.
None of itTime counting toward settlement
Time spent on the Senior or Specialist Worker route does not count toward the five years needed for Indefinite Leave to Remain. Not partially, and not at a reduced rate — none of it.
The switch
The usual answer is to move onto the Skilled Worker visa before this permission runs out, if you are eligible and your employer is willing to sponsor you on that route instead. The settlement clock starts at the switch rather than on the day you arrived, which is why this is a conversation worth having with your employer years before it feels urgent.
Which makes the exits the real subject of this section. Each of these is a switch you make before your current permission ends, and each starts a settlement clock of its own from the day it is granted.
- Skilled Worker VisaMost commonThe same employer sponsoring you on a different licence, at the Skilled Worker salary and skill thresholds. This is the switch most transferees make, and the only one that starts a settlement clock without changing who you work for.Read the guide
- Global Talent VisaEndorsement for what you have already achieved in your field, rather than sponsorship for a role. No employer stands between you and your permission, and it leads to settlement in three or five years depending on the endorsement.Read the guide
- Innovator Founder VisaIf what you want to build in the UK is your own business. An approved body has to endorse the plan as new, innovative, viable and scalable, and settlement comes three years after that.Read the guide
All three are switches made before your current permission ends, not after. A lender assessing you on this route will ask which one you are heading for — not because they need a guarantee, but because the answer changes which mortgage term makes sense for you.
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Can I bring my family?
Your partner and children under 18 can apply as dependants, and their permission runs alongside yours. They will generally have the same work rights as dependants on the other work visa routes, so a second salary is usually available to an affordability calculation — which on this route often matters less than it does elsewhere, given where the income already sits. What dependants do not get is a settlement clock of their own. Their time on this route counts for exactly what yours does, which is nothing. If one of you is going to switch onto a route that leads somewhere, it is worth working out early which one of you that should be.
Getting a mortgage on an Intra-Company visa
Why this is one of the stronger visa profiles a lender sees, the single question it raises that a Skilled Worker application never does, how far the time left on your grant moves the answer, and what to have ready.
Can I get a mortgage on an Intra-Company visa?
Yes — and the honest answer is that you are a stronger applicant than most of the people these pages are written for. Senior or Specialist Worker visa holders are, by definition, in well-paid senior roles backed by an established multinational; that is what the £52,500 floor and the RQF Level 6 requirement select for before a lender looks at anything. Income is rarely the problem here. The one question this route raises that a Skilled Worker application never does is what happens at the end of it, and some lenders will want more clarity on your longer-term plans than they would ask of somebody whose visa leads somewhere on its own.
What matters most to lenders on this route
- Your income, which on this route usually clears standard affordability thresholds comfortably — the £52,500 floor sees to that before anything else is assessed
- How much time is left on your current grant, and whether you are likely to extend it, switch employer visa category, or return overseas when the assignment ends
- Whether your employer has a track record of extending assignments or supporting a switch to a settlement route such as Skilled Worker — a question about your sponsor rather than about you
- Your UK credit history, which is often thin or entirely absent if you have only just arrived as part of the transfer
How much can I borrow?
Standard affordability multiples of 4–4.5× income apply, and because the salary floor on this route is already high, they tend to produce a larger figure here than on most pages on this site. Some lenders will consider higher multiples for strong applicants, particularly where there is a substantial deposit or additional assets behind the application. Use our eligibility calculator for an instant estimate against your own salary and deposit.
What moves the answer most is not the multiple. It is how much time is left on your grant — so much so that the same person, on the same salary and the same deposit, meets two different markets at two points in the same assignment.
Three or more years left
Early in the assignment, with enough permission left that its end is not yet anybody’s problem. This is the broadest lender panel you will have on this route.
- Which lenders are open to you
- Most of the mainstream market. Time remaining stops being a question and the case is assessed on income, deposit and credit like any other.
- What they will ask about
- The usual — payslips, deposit, outgoings, existing debt. Your visa is a document they check rather than a subject they explore.
- What usually decides it
- Ordinary affordability, which on this route is rarely the binding constraint. Where a case stalls here it is almost always the credit file rather than the income.
- What to do now
- Start UK credit history deliberately — a current account, a contract in your own name, the electoral roll if you are eligible. It is the one thing on this route that only time can fix, and this is the time.
Under two years left
Later in the same assignment, on the same salary and the same deposit. Nothing about you has weakened; the question has simply moved from your income to your intentions.
- Which lenders are open to you
- A narrower panel, weighted toward lenders comfortable with temporary business routes. Still a real market, and mostly a broker-only one — these criteria are rarely published anywhere you can read them.
- What they will ask about
- What happens when the assignment ends. Extension, a switch to Skilled Worker, or a return overseas — they want to know which one you are planning for, and what your employer has actually said about it.
- What usually decides it
- Deposit size, and how concretely you can answer the extension question. A written line from your employer confirming the assignment is being extended does more here than another five per cent of income would.
- What to do now
- Have the conversation with your employer before you apply rather than after. Where the answer is a switch to Skilled Worker, making that switch first removes the question from the mortgage application entirely.
Documents you’ll need
- Passport, and your current permission — a biometric residence permit or an eVisa share code
- Your Certificate of Sponsorship reference number
- Evidence of your assignment terms or contract with the UK entity, showing how long the assignment runs
- Three to six months of UK payslips — or an employer reference confirming salary, if you have only recently arrived
- Bank statements, UK and overseas both, where you have not been here long enough for the UK ones to tell the whole story
- Proof of deposit, with a documented trail for anything transferred in from abroad
- Your UK credit report — check yours with checkmyfile(opens in a new tab)
Common challenges — and how we solve them
“My visa doesn’t lead to settlement — will lenders even consider me?”
Yes, and this is precisely the case where which lender you approach first decides the outcome. Some treat a settlement route as a proxy for how long you will be around, and on this route there is nothing for that proxy to read, so the file gets declined for a reason that was never really assessed. Others look at time remaining on the grant, income and deposit directly — which is what should be happening anyway, since a Skilled Worker visa is no more a guarantee of staying than yours is. We put you in front of the second group. What makes those cases work is a strong deposit and a specific, unhedged answer about the end of your assignment.
“I’ve only just relocated and have no UK credit history.”
Common on this route, and far less fatal than it feels. A thin file is not a bad file — you have no history rather than poor history, and those are assessed completely differently. Several lenders on our panel see senior corporate transferees often enough to have criteria written for exactly this, using your overseas employment history, the assignment letter and the salary itself in place of the file a UK applicant would have. Meanwhile: register on the electoral roll if you are eligible, open a UK current account, and put one recurring payment in your own name. The picture builds faster than most people expect.
“I don’t know if my assignment will be extended.”
Then say so plainly, in the first conversation. Advisers work with uncertainty every day; what cannot be worked around is finding out at the underwriting stage. Assignment length shapes two separate things — which lender fits, and what mortgage term makes sense — and both are far easier to get right at the start than to unpick later. If your employer has said nothing either way, that is itself useful information and a better position than an assumption nobody has checked.
“My income includes a relocation allowance and a bonus.”
Then the difference between lenders is worth real money to you. Some count allowances and bonus in full, some at half, some at nothing at all — and on a package where a meaningful share sits outside base salary, that spread moves your borrowing figure further than any rate comparison will. We know which lenders treat which elements how. Bring the full package breakdown to the first conversation rather than the base salary figure alone, because base salary is the number that understates you.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the Intra-Company Transfer visa still available in the UK?
Not under that name. The Intra-Company Transfer (ICT) visa was replaced in 2022 by the Global Business Mobility: Senior or Specialist Worker visa, which serves the same core purpose — transferring employees from an overseas business into a linked UK entity. Employers and search engines both still use the old name, so you will meet it either way.
What is the minimum salary for the Intra-Company (Senior or Specialist Worker) visa in 2026?
The general threshold is £52,500 per year, raised from £48,500 in July 2025, or the specific going rate for your occupation if that is higher. Earning £73,900 or above unlocks two additional benefits: the 12-month prior overseas employment requirement is waived, and the maximum permitted stay extends from five years to nine.
Does the Intra-Company visa lead to Indefinite Leave to Remain?
No. Time spent on this route does not count toward settlement. Most people who want to stay in the UK long-term need to switch to the Skilled Worker visa, or another qualifying route, before their Senior or Specialist Worker permission expires — and the settlement clock starts at the switch rather than on the day they arrived.
Can I get a mortgage on a visa that doesn’t lead to settlement?
Yes. Lenders on our panel do lend to Intra-Company and Senior or Specialist Worker visa holders, focusing on income, deposit and the time remaining on your current grant rather than requiring a route to settlement. Time remaining is the variable that moves the answer most.
Do I need to have worked overseas for my employer before transferring to the UK?
Usually yes — 12 months’ continuous employment with the linked overseas entity, immediately before the UK assignment. The exception is salary: at £73,900 or above the requirement is waived entirely.
How long can I stay in the UK on this visa?
Up to 5 years in any 6-year period as standard, extending to 9 years in any 10-year period if your salary is £73,900 or above. Note the second half of that: once the five years are used, you cannot hold this visa again until the six-year period has passed.
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Further reading
