It started with one government spreadsheet.
In May 2024 Sponsor Finder was a few lines of code that read the Home Office’s register of licensed sponsors. This is how it grew into a place where anyone can check an employer before trusting it, and who built it.
- employers on the UK and Dutch registers
- 140,958
- we read the Home Office register
- Every night
- we read the Dutch IND register
- Every Monday
- the first line of code
- May 2024
Three questions the register can’t answer
The Home Office register tells you who holds a licence today. Everything on Sponsor Finder grew from what it leaves out.
- Who held a licence last month?
Every employer page keeps its history: when it joined the register, left it, or came back.
- Does this advert say it sponsors?
We read live adverts on employers’ own job boards and show what each one says about sponsorship.
- Does the pay meet the rules?
Each job is checked against the pay rules for its occupation, with the source beside the answer.
How it was built
- 13 May 2024The first line of code
A parser for the Home Office’s register of licensed sponsors. It read the spreadsheet and nothing else.
- 17 Aug 2025A website
Search any employer by name and see its licence, rating and routes on one page.
- 6 May 2026The Netherlands
The IND’s register of recognised sponsors joins the UK one. Our record of changes begins the same day.
- 3 Jul 2026Ask from Claude or ChatGPT
The registers open to AI assistants through a public MCP server, so people can check an employer from the chat they already use.
- 10 Sep 2026Jobs, from employers’ own boards
Live adverts read where employers post them, each with what it says about sponsorship.
- 12 Sep 2026Names people actually use
Employers linked to Companies House, so a trading name or a brand finds the company that holds the licence.
- 14 Oct 2026An assistant that shows its records
Ask about an employer, a job or a pay rule. Every answer cites the records it used.
- Nov 2026Rebuilt from the ground up
One design for every page, the four checks on every job, watches, and the offer checker.
The rules we work by
- The facts are free.
Every register fact, employer page and job check, with no account. A paid plan raises the assistant’s limits; it never hides a fact.
- Every fact shows where it came from.
The source and the date we read it, on the page, next to the fact.
- We say what the record says.
If an employer leaves the register, we show it. We don’t guess why, and we don’t give verdicts.
- We are not immigration advisers.
For your own case, GOV.UK and a regulated adviser are the place to go. We help you ask better questions.
- No adverts, ever.
Sponsor Finder is paid for by the people who use it, so nobody pays to be shown to you.
“We built Sponsor Finder after doing this the hard way.”
A note from Neda
I built the first version of Sponsor Finder because I needed it. Finding work that comes with a visa meant reading a government spreadsheet with more rows than anyone can read, checking each employer by hand, and guessing whether an advert meant it when it said sponsorship was possible.
So I wrote a script to read the register. Then a page to search it. Then a way to see when an employer’s licence changed, because that mattered more than anything else.
Everything since has followed one idea: show the record, say where it came from, and never pretend to know more than the record says. If something here is wrong, write to me and I’ll fix it.
Neda ArouziFounder and CMO, Sponsor Finder
Check an employer before you trust it.
Questions, corrections or a story of your own: hi@sponsorfinder.io · How we get our data · Report a mistake