Intra-Company Transfer Visa

What is a Tier 2 Intra-Company Transfer visa?

You can apply for a Tier 2 Intra-Company Transfer (ICT) visa if your overseas employer has offered you a skilled role in a UK branch of the company with which you work, and you are from outside the EEA and Switzerland.

If you want to read about other Tier 2 visas, click here.

What are the different types?

There are two types of ICT visa:

1. Long-Term Staff, and
2. Graduate Trainee.

Long-Term Staff are staff that have worked for the company for more than 12 months, unless they’re going to be paid £73,900 or more a year to work in the UK.

The Graduate Trainee visa is for transfers into graduate trainee programmes for specialist roles. You must have recently graduated, and you must have worked for the company abroad for 3 months or more.

Eligibility

There are a number of eligibility requirements. Firstly, you will need to be sponsored by one of the 30,000 licensed companies in the UK that can sponsor a Tier 2 application.

For a Long-Term Staff visa, you need to earn £41,500, and for a Graduate Trainee visa, you must earn £23,000.

For both visas, you must have £945 in your bank account for 90 days before submitting the application.

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How long can I stay?

Under Tier 2, you can apply for Entry Clearance or for Leave to Remain.

For Entry Clearance applications, you can arrive in the UK up to 14 days before your start date. The Entry Clearance will be granted for the following lengths of time:

1. As a Long-Term Staff member, you can come to the UK for whichever is the shorter of the period of the employment contract plus 1 month or 5 years plus 1 month based on the job start date.
2. As a Graduate Trainee, you can come to the UK for whichever is the shorter of the period of the employment contract plus 1 month or 12 months based on the job start date.

For Leave to Remain applications, the Leave will be granted for the following lengths of time:

1. As a Long-Term Staff member, you can be granted leave to remain for whichever is shorter of the period of the employment contract plus 14 days, or 5 years. However, the leave you are granted will not put your total leave under the ICT visa, including previous leave, over 5 years if you earn less than £120,000, or 9 years if you earn £120,000 or higher.
2. As a Graduate Trainee, you can be granted leave to remain in the UK for the period of the employment contract plus 14 days. However, the leave you are granted will not put your total leave under the ICT visa, including previous leave, over 12 months.