An overseas company that has no commercial entity in the UK may wish to expand and create such a UK entity, either a branch or a wholly owned subsidiary.

In such a situation the company may wish to take advantage of the UK Expansion Worker Visa route, which was designed for this kind of situation, and which used to be called the Sole Representative Visa. This visa route enables an overseas company to appoint a suitably experienced member of the company to come to the UK, set up the UK entity, run it for a limited period and hopefully make it a success.

There is a sponsorship and sponsor licence requirement, and the applicant’s dependants may apply for leave in line with the main applicant, but this visa route does not in itself provide a route to settlement: it is not possible for hold leave in this capacity for more than two years. But after two years it might, depending on the situation and how well the UK entity is doing, be possible for the main applicant to switch to another kind of visa (for example a Skilled Worker Visa) and thus extend their and any dependants’ stay. So potentially there is a route to settlement, depending on how things work out.

There are minimum salary rules but no English language requirement.