What is the UK Innovator Founder Visa? The Essential Guide

The UK’s Innovator Founder Visa is one of the most distinctive business-immigration options in the United Kingdom because it is not built around “being hired” by a sponsor. Instead, it tests whether you can establish and grow a credible, innovative business that has a realistic path to scale in the UK market. In other words, it is an immigration framework where the centre of gravity is the business thesis, the founder’s role, and the endorsement process—not an employer’s sponsorship licence.

That design makes the visa especially appealing to founders who want to relocate with long-term planning in mind. At the same time, it also means the visa is not simply “about registering a company.” The Home Office (UK Interior Ministry) expects a structured, evidence-backed plan, and it expects you to stay actively involved in building the business after you arrive.

If you are exploring this route, the most productive way to think about it is as a two-layer system: first, you are assessed by an approved endorsing body on the business and founder credibility; then UK Visas and Immigration assesses the immigration-side compliance requirements.

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What is the Innovator Founder Visa?

The Innovator Founder is a UK work visa for individuals who want to set up and run a business in the UK and can demonstrate that the business idea is new, innovative, viable, and scalable.

A few high-level features are worth understanding at the outset:

It is endorsement-led. In most cases, you must first obtain an endorsement from an approved organisation before submitting the immigration application.
It is granted for a fixed period. The visa is generally issued for 3 years at a time, with options to extend and (if you meet the requirements) progress to settlement planning.
It is not restricted to only working inside the startup. You may be allowed to take additional work, but it must meet specific conditions (including a skill-level requirement).
It can be a family relocation route. Eligible partners and children can apply as dependants, and their visas typically align with the main applicant’s expiry date.

Innovator Founder Visa Eligibility Requirements

In practice, and most importantly, successful Innovator Founder applications should be coherent. The endorsement and the immigration application stages must align with the founder’s real-world execution plan.

What endorsement actually tests

An endorsement is not a general recommendation letter. It is a formal assessment by an approved endorsing body confirming (among other things) that:

your business proposal meets the visa’s “innovative, viable, scalable” logic, and
you will have a genuine, active role in developing the venture.

The Immigration Rules also place technical requirements around the endorsement letter itself (including timing). For example, the endorsement must be issued no more than 3 months before the date of application.

Because the endorsement stage is foundational, selecting the correct endorsing body and structuring the submission in a way that matches how that body evaluates applications is not a “formality”. On the contrary, it is one of the decisive parts of the application strategy.

The personal and procedural requirements

Alongside endorsement, applicants must also meet baseline requirements, including age, English language, and financial requirements.

Key requirements include:

Age: you must be 18 or over.
English language: the visa is tied to an English language requirement at CEFR level B2 (across reading, writing, speaking, listening) as set out in the Immigration Rules.
Maintenance funds: you generally need at least £1,270 available to support yourself (subject to exceptions depending on where you apply and how long you have been in the UK).

If you are relocating with family, the dependant funding requirements are separate and additive. GOV.UK lists (in addition to the £1,270 for the main applicant) £285 for a partner, £315 for one child, and £200 for each additional child—typically held for at least 28 days before applying (again subject to exceptions in certain in-country scenarios).

Approved endorsing body	Notes	Endorsement-related costs listed by GOV.UK
UK Endorsing Services	Approved endorsing body for Innovator Founder applications	Endorsement application fee and contact point meeting fees apply
Innovator International	Approved endorsing body for Innovator Founder applications	Endorsement application fee and contact point meeting fees apply
Envestors Limited	Approved endorsing body for Innovator Founder applications	Endorsement application fee and contact point meeting fees apply
Global Entrepreneurs Programme	Approved endorsing body for Innovator Founder applications	Endorsement application fee and contact point meeting fees apply

Table: Approved endorsing bodies

Note that the Home Office guidance indicates you pay £1,000 to apply for endorsement, and you pay £500 per contact point meeting, with at least two meetings required.

Innovator Founder visa application in 4 stages

The visa process becomes much easier to manage when you treat it as a staged project rather than single-step process, as institutions are evaluating different questions at varied moments.

Stage 1 Building the endorsement case

Before you submit anything, you typically need to assemble an endorsement-ready dossier. While each endorsing body has its own lens, the core is consistent: prove that the business is genuinely innovative, realistically executable, and built to grow.

This is where founders often underestimate the level of “immigration-grade” clarity required. The goal is not only to show you have a strong idea, but also to document how the idea will translate into UK-market execution in a way that remains valid later.

Stage 2 Endorsement application

You then apply to an approved endorsing body. If the endorsement is granted, you receive an endorsement letter that you will later use in the immigration application.

At this stage, costs are not limited to government fees. GOV.UK lists a £1,000 endorsement application fee and £500 per contact point meeting.

Stage 3 Immigration application to UKVI

Once you have the endorsement, you move to the visa application stage with UK Visas and Immigration. The application fees are as follow:

£1,274 if you apply from outside the UK
£1,590 if you apply from inside the UK

Processing times are typically as follow:

3 weeks for applications made outside the UK
8 weeks for applications made inside the UK

This stage is also where you pay other mandatory immigration costs and complete identity steps (for example, biometrics), depending on where you apply.

Stage 4 After approval operating and meeting endorsement checkpoints

The Innovator Founder is designed around the idea that endorsement is not only a “front-end filter,” but also an ongoing mechanism. And for that, you must have at least 2 contact point meetings with your endorsing body during the visa—usually after 12 and 24 months.

From a founder perspective, this changes how you plan. You are not only building a company; you are building a company with periodic, formalised progress reviews in mind. The strongest long-term files are the ones where the business metrics, founder role, and documentation discipline are structured early—rather than patched together later.

3 Essential Advantages of Innovator Founder Visa

The Innovator Founder Visa is frequently described as “founder-friendly,” but it is helpful to be precise about what that means in operational terms.

1. Flexibility beyond the startup

Visa holders can work on their endorsed business, but you may be able to do other work in addition to your main occupational activity, provided the job is at the required skill level (the guidance references at least RQF level 3).

This is not a minor point. It can matter in early-stage scenarios where founders may need bridging income, advisory roles, or part-time senior employment while the business reaches product-market fit. The key is staying within the route’s boundaries and ensuring that side work does not undermine the credibility of your “active founder” position.

2. Family planning and dependants

Innovator Founder enables also family members as companies to the main visa holder. Eligible partners and children can apply as dependants, and it sets out the financial requirements that apply to each dependant.

For many founders, this is where the visa becomes more than an entrepreneurial move and acts also as a relocation framework. Furthermpre, it increases the importance of timing and budgeting: you are not only funding the venture; but also the immigration plan and initial UK stability.

3. The long-term dimension

Even though the Innovator Founder is “startup-oriented,” it is not designed as a short-term experiment. The visa is granted for 3 years, and it includes pre-determined checkpoints with the endorsing body.

This architecture tends to reward founders who think in systems: business model, compliance calendar, evidence management, and settlement planning are not separate files—they are parts of the same narrative.

Extension, settlement, and keeping your status secure with the Innovator Founder Visa

Long-term planning is where many founders either gain momentum or lose it. The Innovator Founder can be extended, and it can also intersect with settlement planning, but both are evidence-driven.

Extension of the Innovator Founder Visa

You may be able to extend your Innovator Founder visa if you continue to meet eligibility and your business is assessed by an endorsing body.

In practice, extension preparation is not only about “still having a company.” It is about showing that the venture is real, active, and consistent with what you claimed at endorsement stage as the system functions to detect passive or nominal founder arrangements.

Settlement planning under the Innovator Founder Visa

The Immigration Rules include a specific settlement framework for Innovator Founder. It is endorsement-based and performance-oriented.

At a high level, the rules indicate that settlement applications require (among other things):

a valid endorsement letter for settlement dated within a specific time window,
evidence the business is active, trading, and sustainable,
evidence you remain active in a key role, and
evidence of significant achievements against the business plan.

The rules then require meeting at least 2 out of a defined list of business success criteria. These criteria include (among others):

at least £50,000 invested into the business and actively spent,
customer numbers that have at least doubled within the most recent 3 years,
meaningful R&D activity and an application for intellectual property protection in the UK,
creation of the equivalent of at least 5 full-time jobs for settled workers,
annual gross revenue of at least £1 million, or
annual gross revenue of at least £500,000 with at least £100,000 from exporting overseas.

This is why founders benefit from treating the visa as a long runway from day one. If you build your reporting, metrics tracking, and corporate documentation discipline early, you protect optionality later—whether you pursue extension, settlement, or a strategic switch.

Successful Innovator Founder cases rarely depend on one “magic” document. They depend on consistency: the business logic, the founder role, the financial trail, and the evidence of traction all reinforce each other over time. If you would like a encompassing assessment of whether the Innovator Founder fits your business profile—or you want your endorsement strategy, documentation plan, and long-term timeline reviewed together—you can contact Grape Law’s UK immigration team at info@grapelaw.com.