Highly Skilled Workers Category

Previous Earnings

How many documents you should send

It is essential that earnings are corroborated by more than one source, so you must send at least two of the following from different sources as proof of your earnings:

Payslips;

Personal bank statements;

Letter from your employer;

Official tax document;

Dividend vouchers;

Letter from your managing agent or accountant;

Invoice explanations or payment summaries;

Company or business accounts.

You must send at least two different types of supporting document for each source of earnings claimed. Each piece of supporting evidence must be from a separate source and support all the other evidence so that together they clearly prove the earnings claimed.

For example, when sending documents for salaried employment, you should not send payslips together with a letter from the employer, because the authority considers both of these documents to be from the same source.

What the documents should show

Supporting documents must show all the relevant payments you are claiming points for. If earnings from a particular source have been paid in more than one way, you must send two types of document for each part of the payment claimed. For example, if you have been paid for your salaried employment by means of a salary and a dividend. If the gross and net dividend payments are included on your payslips, and can be supported by details of the net dividend payment on your bank statements, you could send bank statements and payslips as supporting evidence for both the salary and the dividend claimed. However, if the dividend details are not included on the payslips, you must also send separate dividend vouchers to support the dividend payments and cross-reference these with the bank statements you send.

You should give full contact details for each source of income you give the authority, so they can verify all supporting documents if necessary.

You should also send any information or explanation of the documents you have sent that may help us to consider the earnings claimed.
For example:

If you are operating through a limited liability company that is administered on your behalf by a managing agent or accountant. The name on the payment advice may therefore differ from the credit payment entries on your bank statements. You should provide a letter from your managing agent or accountant to clarify the relationship between everyone concerned.

If you are one of a number of shareholders in the business and are claiming for net profits made over the earnings period, you should provide a letter from your accountant, confirming the percentage share you are entitled to receive from the business's net profit before tax.

Examples of document combinations to provide

The evidence you provide will depend on your circumstances and how you earned the money. Below are some examples of typical combinations of documents

These examples are not the only combination of documents the authority will accept for each employment type and you can use other combinations of documents.

Employees who receive a salary

A salaried employee could provide a combination of personal bank statements covering the full 12-month earnings period and either:

Payslips for the full 12-month earnings period; or

A letter from your employer.

(We consider that payslips and letters from an employer are from the same source and you should therefore not provide a combination of these two types of document.)

Employees who receive a salary and dividend payments

If you are paid with a combination of salary and dividends, and both payments appear on your payslip, you could send personal bank statements for the full 12-month earnings period and either:

Payslips for the full 12-month earnings period; or

A letter from your employer.

If you are paid with a combination of salary and dividends, and the salary and dividend payments do not both appear on your payslip, you can provide the documents listed above plus dividend vouchers for each dividend payment claimed, showing both the gross and the net dividend.

Self-employed earnings within a business or company structure

If you have worked in a self-employed capacity in your own business or company structure and have chosen to keep your earnings within the business or company, you could send:

Business or company accounts that meet statutory requirements and show the net profit made for the earnings period claimed; and

A letter from your accountant confirming the details in those accounts.

If you are not the sole shareholder of the company you should also provide a letter from your accountant confirming your shareholding and the proportion of net profit before tax to which you are entitled for the earnings period claimed.

Contractors

If you are a contractor who does not operate either through your own company or as an employee, you may send:

An accountant's letter confirming a breakdown of your gross and net earnings for the period claimed; and

Personal bank statements clearly highlighting all credit payments made to your account from employment undertaken during the earnings period claimed.

Full-time study (Earnings)

This section explains what proof of full-time study you must send to support your application to the highly skilled worker category (Tier 1 General) under the points-based system to work in the United Kingdom.
What you must show to qualify

To qualify for the full-time study provision you must show that you either:

Are currently in full-time study; or

Have finished a full-time course within the 12 months immediately before your application.

You must send evidence of earnings for a period of 12 months during the 15 months immediately before starting your period of full-time study.

If you can show that you have undertaken more than one course of full-time study, with less than 12 months between each course, the authority will consider earnings during a period of 12 of the 15 months directly before you started the first course of full-time study.

If you have not finished your studies when you send your application, the authority will consider your earnings up to the date of your application as the end date for your studies.

Maternity or adoption-related absence

This section explains what proof of maternity or adoption-related absence you must send to support your application to the highly skilled worker category (Tier 1 General) under the points-based system to work in the United Kingdom.
What documents you must send

If you want us to consider earnings from a period outside the last 15 months, because of a period of maternity or adoption-related absence from the workplace, you must send the authority two pieces of specified evidence to prove the absence was for maternity or adoption reasons.

The documents are:

The birth certificate or certificate of adoption (as appropriate); and

A letter from your employer; or

Wage slips or other payment or remittance advices.

The birth certificate or certificate of adoption

This should be the original birth certificate or certificate of adoption for the child for whom you took the period of maternity or adoption-related absence.

A letter from your employer

This should be on the company headed paper, and must confirm the start and end dates of the period of maternity or adoption-related absence.

Wage slips or other payment or remittance advices

These should cover the entire period for which the maternity or adoption-related absence is being claimed and should show statutory maternity or adoption payments made to you.

Other documents

In certain circumstances you will be unable to supply two of the documents specified (for example, if no birth certificate has been issued). In these cases, you should fully explain the reasons and supply alternative documents as evidence of the maternity or adoption-related absence for the period claimed. The alternative documents must be from an official source and must be independently verifiable.

Where two out of the three specified documents listed are not available, the authority will normally accept the following alternative documents or types of documents:

Official adoption papers issued by the relevant authority;

Any relevant medical documents that the applicant is content to let us see; or

A relevant extract from a register of birth provided it is accompanied by an original letter from the issuing authority.

The authority will not normally accept the following documents or types of documents:

Personal letters of confirmation;

Newspaper announcements; or

Other unofficial documents.

The authority can only accept other documents as evidence of maternity or adoption-related absence if we are satisfied that the specified documents cannot be provided.

Payslips

This page explains the requirements for payslips that you send to support your application to the highly skilled worker category (Tier 1 General) under the points-based system to work in the United Kingdom.
What the payslips must show

These should be either formal payslips or on company headed paper. If payslips are on unheaded paper or you receive all pay slips online, you must authenticate the evidence by asking the employer to sign and stamp a printout.

If you send payslips, they must cover the whole period claimed (for example, if payslips are produced monthly, you must provide the payslips for each month of the period claimed).

Personal bank statements

This section explains the requirements for personal bank statements that you send to support your application to the highly skilled worker category (Tier 1 General) under the points-based system to work in the United Kingdom.
What the bank statements must show

Bank statements you send must be on official bank stationery, and must show each of the payments that you are claiming. If you wish to send electronic bank statements from an online account you should also send a supporting letter from the bank on company headed paper confirming that the documents are authentic.

Letter from your employer

What the employer's letter must show

You must send a letter on company headed paper from your current and/or previous employer(s) which clearly shows:

Your earnings during period claimed; and

The date and amount of each payment; and

Your gross and net pay; and

That it is dated after the period for which earnings are being claimed.

Official tax document

This section explains the requirements for the tax documents that you send to support your application to the highly skilled worker category (Tier 1 General) under the points-based system to work in the United Kingdom.
What the tax documents must show

The authority define tax documents as:

A document produced by a tax authority that shows details of declarable taxable income on which tax has been paid or will be paid in a tax year (for example a tax refund letter or tax demand);

A document produced by an employer as an official return to a tax authority, showing details of earnings on which tax has been paid in a tax year (for example, a P60 in the United Kingdom); or

A document produced by a person, business, or company as an official return to a tax authority, showing details of earnings on which tax has been paid or will be paid in a tax year. The document must have been approved, registered, or stamped by the tax authority (this is particularly relevant to some overseas tax systems, for example, SARAL in India).

However, while the authority have included tax documents in the list of acceptable documents, they will rarely be of use. This is because tax documents are usually produced at the end of a fixed tax period and will therefore not show the entire period for which you are claiming previous earnings unless they are for the exact period claimed. You should therefore be cautious about using these documents unless you are sure they show the exact amount of earnings for which you are claiming points.

Dividend vouchers

This section explains the requirements for dividend vouchers that you send to support your application to the highly skilled worker category (Tier 1 General) under the points-based system to work in the United Kingdom.
What the dividend vouchers must show

Dividend vouchers must show the amount of money paid by the company to you, normally from its profits. They should confirm both the gross and net dividend paid. You should provide a separate dividend voucher or payment advice slip for each dividend payment, to cover the whole period claimed.

Letter from your managing agent or accountant

This section explains the requirements for the letter from your managing agent or accountant that you send to support your application to the highly skilled worker category (Tier 1 General) under the points-based system to work in the United Kingdom.
What the letter from your managing agent or accountant must show

You must send a letter from your managing agent or accountant on headed paper confirming the gross and net pay for the period claimed. The letter should give a breakdown of salary, dividends, profits, tax credits and dates of net payments earned. If your earnings are a share of the net profit of the company, the letter should also explain this.

Invoice explanations or payment summaries

This section explains the requirements for invoice explanations or payment summaries that you send to support your application to the highly skilled worker category (Tier 1 General) under the points-based system to work in the United Kingdom.
What the invoice explanations or payment summaries must show

You must send summaries or explanations created by your managing agent (who is usually an accountant). These explanations should include a breakdown of the gross salary, tax deductions and dividend payments made to you. The total gross salary and dividend payments should be the same as your earnings. The payment summary should enable us to check that these correspond with the net payments into your personal bank account.

Company or business accounts

This page explains the requirements for company or business accounts that you send to support your application to the highly skilled worker category (Tier 1 General) under the points-based system to work in the United Kingdom.
What the company or business accounts must show

Accounts must show both a profit and loss account (or income and expenditure account if the organization is not trading for profit) and the balance sheet should be signed by a director. Accounts should meet statutory requirements and should clearly show the net profit made over the earnings period to be assessed.

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