Government Authorised Exchange: one visa, over 30 options

The Government Authorised Exchange category of the immigration rules is one of the least known of all the UK’s visa options. It can be found in Appendix Temporary Work – Government Authorised Exchange to the immigration rules.

The temporary work routes offer visas for temporary workers. According to the original immigration rules at the time the route was first published, temporary workers’ time in the UK should “help to satisfy cultural, charitable, religious or international objectives including volunteering and job shadowing, and for meeting seasonal employment needs”. The other temporary work routes are charity worker, religious worker, seasonal worker, creative worker, and the international agreement route.

So what is the Government Authorised Exchange route?

The sponsor guidance explains that the Government Authorised Exchange route is for:

individuals coming to the UK through approved schemes that aim to share knowledge, experience and best practice.

But the GAE route is only for “supernumerary” roles which are above normal staffing requirements:

It’s not the purpose of the scheme to facilitate the supply of labour — participants must not fill vacancies and must be supernumerary.

An internship is a good example of the kind of thing the Government Authorised Exchange route was established for.

Overarching sponsor

The route is different to skilled worker and student visa routes because, in general, an overarching sponsor is needed. Under the skilled worker or student route, the employer or education provider sponsors the individual directly.

Under this route, those offering or seeking work experience, internship opportunities and other supernumerary work options engage with a third party sponsor instead. This is typically a government agency or umbrella body for a particular profession. The third party assigns the certificate of sponsorship as long as it is satisfied that all of the conditions for doing so are met. The visa applicant then uses this certificate to get their visa from the Home Office.

The list of overarching sponsors is contained in Appendix Government Authorised Exchange schemes of the immigration rules. When the route first launched there were around 60 schemes but there are now 32 schemes listed. Examples include:

• Bar Council
• BAE Systems Training, Intern and Graduate Programme
• BUNAC Blue Card Internships
• Chatham House Fellowship
• The Ofgem International Staff Exchange Scheme
• GTI intern scheme
• Law Society GAE scheme for migrant lawyers
• Serious Fraud Office
• UK Research and Innovation – Science, Research and Academia

One of the few exceptions to third party sponsors relates to UK universities. They are able to sponsor researchers under the Government Authorised Exchange route in certain scenarios. This includes academics, researchers, scientists, research engineers and other skilled research technology specialists who will be hosted at the sponsoring higher education institution in a supernumerary role.

Example

David, a Professor of Social Anthropology at Harvard University, is one of the world’s leading experts on anthropological linguistics. Sofia, who is also a leading expert in the field based at the University of Cambridge, has been working on a project that is important to David’s own research. Harvard has arranged funding that will enable David to spend 12 months at Cambridge with Sofia and her team. Cambridge will sponsor David under a temporary work visa.

Requirements for the visa

In order to be authorised by the Home Office to be a Government Authorised Exchange sponsor, the provider of each scheme must explain how it will meet the objectives of the route. They must also set out specific requirements that must be met before they will sponsor a candidate and issue a certificate of sponsorship.

For example, the Law Society (which represents solicitors in England and Wales) says its scheme is for:

Sharing knowledge, experience and best practice with practitioners from around the world through work experience, secondment and internship programmes is essential to business development.

Law firms seeking to participate in the scheme must:

• Be regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority
• Operate an exchange programme that meets the requirements of the Temporary Worker – Government Authorised Exchange visa (T5) scheme. You must run suitably robust programmes for secondments, internships or work experience, and keeping records.
• Hold a current UK Visas and Immigration sponsor licence with an A rating.
  
  Your firm will need to enter into a contract with the Law Society. This requires you to meet the sponsor obligations defined within the government’s points-based immigration scheme.

Some of the other scheme providers work directly with individuals, as opposed to employers.

How long does the visa last and what are the requirements?

Those who obtain a certificate of sponsorship can apply to enter or stay in the UK for up to:

• 12 months, for work experience;
• 24 months, where they will be doing research, training or an Overseas Government Language Programme.

Applications can be made from inside the UK where the applicant last had permission on the Government Authorised Exchange route or was a university student. 

Entry clearance permission will be granted for the length of the role plus 14 days before and 14 days after that period. If it is an extension application, permission will be granted for whichever is the shorted of the following:

• the length of the role plus 14 days after that period
• if the applicant is continuing on the same Government Authorised Exchange scheme, a period of 14 days plus the difference between the maximum period a person is permitted to spend in the UK on that specific scheme and the period that they have already been granted permission to participate in that scheme
• the difference between 25 months and the total period the applicant has already held continuous permission on the Government Authorised Exchange route (including any period where any of the exceptions in paragraph 39E of the rules applied) 

Once a certificate of sponsorship had been assigned, all the applicant has to do is apply for a visa. This will be issued as long as:

• there are no general grounds of refusal;
• they meet the maintenance requirement (meaning that either the sponsor ‘certifies maintenance’ or the individual must demonstrate that they have held £1,270 savings for at least 28 days) as specified in Appendix Finance;
• they pass a tuberculosis test (required from certain countries); and
• the Entry Clearance Officer is satisfied that they genuinely intend to perform the activity on the certificate of sponsorship.

Family members can also join the applicant provided they meet the relevant requirements.

There is no English language requirement for temporary work visas (unless this is a specific condition of the Government Authorised Exchange scheme operator) which has attracted many to the route, enabling them to practice and develop their language skills in the UK, often before making an in-country application to switch to a more permanent work route.

Conclusion

In my experience, the previous Tier 5 route was underused. The route can often offer solutions when others are out of reach. But where the route itself might not need an individual to meet certain requirements (English language or education level for example), individual schemes and sponsors may have their own criteria for approving and assigning a certificate of sponsorship.

When EU citizens began to fall under the UK’s domestic immigration rules post-Brexit, we saw the Government Authorised Exchange route play a more central role in bringing interns into the UK for short-term work placements, often before being offered positions on graduate schemes. In 2022 some providers struggled to keep up with assigned certificate of sponsorships in time for internships to start due to the high volume of applicants. More recently, there has been a significant improvement in turnaround times and the route remains a useful option for EU citizens seeking short-term work placements in the UK.

This post was originally published as ‘Government Authorised Exchange: one visa, 60 options’ in 2019 and has been updated by Rachel Whickman so that it is correct as of the new date of publication shown.