For candidates applying for a UK work visa, the required documentation can vary depending on the specific visa route and individual circumstances. However, here's a general overview of the commonly required documents for candidates.
🛂 Core Documents
Valid Passport - Must be valid for the entire duration of your intended stay.
Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS) - Issued by your sponsoring employer.
Proof of English Language Proficiency - Approved test results, qualifications, or exemptions.
Proof of Maintenance Funds (if applicable) - Evidence you can support yourself in the UK.
Tuberculosis (TB) Test Results (if applicable) - Required if you're from a listed country.
Academic or Professional Qualifications - Certificates or transcripts relevant to your role.
Criminal Record Certificate (if required) - For certain roles, particularly in health, care, and education.
🚩 Important: We cannot submit a visa application without a valid passport. A birth certificate cannot be used instead of a passport, as the Home Office requires passport details to process the application.
📌 Additional Documentation
Depending on your circumstances, you may also need to provide:
Marriage or civil partnership certificates
Evidence of dependent family members
Police certificates for time lived in other countries, or refusal letters from previous applications
Additional financial documents
🖥 Applying Through Borderless
When you apply through Borderless, you no longer need to work out this list yourself. The platform now shows you a personalised document checklist at the start of your application, based on your circumstances, and asks a few short questions so you are only asked for the documents that actually apply to you. As you upload, each document is checked straight away, and we only ask you to fill in details we could not read from them.
📋 We request the exact documents required for your specific application.
🔍 We ensure everything meets UK Home Office requirements.
🚀 We guide you through the process step-by-step.
For more on the new experience, see A simpler way to complete your visa application.
When a criminal record certificate is actually required
A criminal record certificate is not part of every Skilled Worker application. Two conditions both have to be met. If either does not apply to you, you do not need one.
First, where you are applying from. The requirement applies only if you are applying from outside the UK. If you are applying for permission to stay from within the UK, whether an extension or a switch from another visa, it does not apply.
Second, the kind of work. You will need a certificate if you are working in:
Education, for example teachers, education advisers and school inspectors, childminders, teaching assistants.
Healthcare, for example nurses, doctors, paramedics, managers, pharmacists, dentists and dental nurses, ophthalmic opticians.
Therapy, for example psychologists, speech and language therapists, counsellors.
Social services, for example social workers, managers, probation officers, welfare and housing officers.
Roles outside these sectors do not require a certificate, whatever the occupation code. If the Borderless platform asks you for one and you believe your role falls outside these sectors, do not upload a placeholder document. Tell your Borderless contact and we will check it against the Home Office requirement and remove the request if it does not apply.
Which countries you need one from
If a certificate is required, you may need one from more than one country. Which countries depends on your age:
If you are under 28, from any country you have stayed in for a total of 12 months or more since you turned 18. The 12 months can be made up of separate stays.
If you are 28 or over, from any country you have stayed in over the last 10 years.
The UK itself is not included. You do not need a UK certificate for a UK visa application.
How to get one
Each certificate has to come from the relevant authority in that country. There is no single body that issues them. Depending on the country that will be a national police clearance body, a ministry of justice, or a ministry of the interior.
Some countries let you apply through their embassy or consulate in the UK. The certificate is still issued by that country's own authority, not by anything in the UK. GOV.UK publishes country by country instructions, including where to apply and what each country calls the document.
Certificates take time, and in some countries a long time. Start them as early as you can. If a certificate is not in English or Welsh you will also need a certified translation.
Government guidance: Criminal records checks for overseas applicants