What the payment link is
The Immigration Skills Charge (ISC) is normally paid at the point you assign a Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS). If the Home Office finds the full ISC has not been paid, it asks for a "top up" payment and sends a payment link by email. Two situations trigger this:
No ISC was paid at all, in which case the full amount for your size and status is due.
A partial payment was made. The most common cause is a large sponsor paying the small sponsor fee. Only the difference is due.
Until the ISC is paid in full the CoS is invalid, and any application relying on it is held up.
The 72 hour deadline, and the one second chance
The link is sent to the Key Contact on your sponsor licence and is valid for 72 hours. If the payment is not made in that time, the link expires.
The Home Office then sends one further link, also valid for 72 hours. That is the last one. If the payment is not made before the second link expires, the worker's application will be refused.
Because the window is short and the consequence is a refusal, treat an ISC payment email as urgent even when it arrives at an awkward moment. If the named Key Contact is away, make sure someone else is watching that inbox.
Getting the link to the right person
The link often needs to reach a finance colleague rather than the Key Contact who received it. You can forward it. It is tied to the CoS and to the 72 hour window, not to an individual.
Where Borderless is your representative we may receive the Home Office email instead of you. When that happens we forward it to the contacts on your account. If you would rather these emails went to a specific finance address, tell your Borderless contact and we will note it on your account.
If the link has already expired
Contact your Borderless contact straight away and tell us which CoS reference the payment relates to. We will ask the Home Office to reissue the link, the same day where we can. Do not wait to see whether another email arrives on its own.
If both links have expired and the application has been refused, contact us immediately. Any ISC you have already paid is refunded in full where an application is refused, but the worker will need a fresh application, and that has consequences for their permission and their start date.
Avoiding it in the first place
Most top up requests come from a sponsor's size or charitable status being out of date on the licence. If your organisation has changed from large to small, or has gained charitable status, you must tell the Home Office within 20 working days. Reporting it late means you carry on paying the wrong ISC, and refunds of the difference only run from the date you notified the change.
For the amounts payable, see How much is the Immigration Skills Charge (ISC)? For refunds, see ISC and IHS Refunds.
Government guidance: Workers and Temporary Workers: guidance for sponsors part 2, sponsor a worker