The three tests your business must pass
An endorsing body assesses the business against three criteria, and all three must be met.
- Innovative An original business plan meeting a new or existing market need in a genuinely new way. A competent business doing something already done well is not innovative, however profitable it might be.
- Viable Realistic and achievable given your resources, with the necessary skills, knowledge, experience and market awareness to run it. This is where your own background matters as much as the idea.
- Scalable Evidence of structured planning and potential for job creation and growth into national and international markets. A business intended to stay small does not meet this.
What "no investment requirement" actually means
The old Innovator route required £50,000 of investment funds. That requirement is gone, and it is the headline change people repeat.
What it does not mean is that money is irrelevant. Your endorsing body will want to see that the business is viable, which in practice means funded well enough to do what the plan says. A business plan with no capital behind it and no route to any is not viable, and it will not be endorsed.
So the requirement moved rather than disappeared. Instead of proving you hold a specific sum, you must satisfy an endorsing body that your funding — whatever it is — is adequate for your particular plan. For some businesses that is a great deal less than £50,000. For others it is considerably more.
You must also show maintenance funds for yourself, held for the required period, which is a separate and much smaller requirement.
The endorsement, and the contact points after it
Endorsement comes from a body approved by the Home Office for this route. There are relatively few of them, they each have their own focus and application process, and they charge for assessment.
Choosing the right one matters. An endorsing body whose interests align with your sector will understand the business; one that does not may reject a good plan simply because it sits outside what they assess well.
Endorsement is not a one-off. You must attend contact point meetings with your endorsing body — normally at 12 and 24 months — where you demonstrate that you are actively working on the business and making reasonable progress against the plan. If you are not, the endorsement can be withdrawn, and withdrawal puts your leave at risk.
That continuing relationship is the part founders underestimate. This is not a visa you obtain and then forget about; it is one you have to keep earning.
Working outside your business, and settlement
Secondary employment. Unlike the old Innovator route, you may take employment outside your business, provided the role is at an eligible skill level. That flexibility matters more than it sounds — it lets a founder support themselves while the business builds, which is when most new businesses are least able to pay anyone.
Settlement. The route can lead to indefinite leave to remain after three years, which is faster than most. The settlement criteria are assessed against the business: what it has achieved, jobs created, revenue, investment raised or customers won, measured against a set of criteria of which a number must be met.
The honest framing is this. Three years to settlement is genuinely attractive, and the route is real. But it is assessed on whether the business actually did something, not on whether you intended it to — so the plan you are endorsed on is the plan you will be measured against.
We advise on the route, the endorsement application and the visa application, and we will tell you frankly if we think a business will not clear the innovation test before you spend money finding out.