Discover the importance of Annaizu Compliance Management in today's business landscape and how a Home Office compliance management platform can help your business streamline its compliance efforts, reduce risks, and stay ahead of regulations.
“UKVI login” usually means one of three different things, and each uses a separate account: an individual checking or proving their own immigration status, an employer or landlord checking someone else's status, and a licensed sponsor managing their Sponsor Management System (SMS) account. Confusing the three is the most common reason people can't find what they're looking for.
Individual UKVI account — for the visa or status holder
Someone with a digital immigration status (an eVisa, a visa, or settled/pre-settled status) manages it through their own UKVI account, created when they applied or were issued their status. From there they can view their status, update personal details, and generate a share code to give to an employer, landlord or other checking party. If a candidate can't remember which email address or phone number their account is tied to, that's the single most common reason a new hire turns up without a share code — it's worth asking early rather than assuming the delay means a status problem.
Employer or landlord checking service — no account needed
You don't log into anything to check someone else's status. You use the share code and date of birth they give you, on the employer checking service (or the equivalent right-to-rent service), each time. There's no dashboard on the Home Office side that keeps a history of the checks you've run — GOV.UK gives you the result at the point of the check and nothing more, which is why the responsibility for keeping a dated record sits entirely with you as the employer, not with any government login.
Sponsor Management System (SMS) — for licensed sponsors
If your organisation holds a sponsor licence, your authorised users have their own SMS login, separate from any individual's UKVI account. This is where Certificates of Sponsorship are assigned and reportable changes are logged.
User levels within the SMS matter as much as having access at all
Not every SMS user has the same permissions. A Level 1 user can carry out the full range of sponsor duties — assigning Certificates of Sponsorship, reporting changes, and managing other users' access — while a Level 2 user typically has narrower day-to-day permissions. Getting this structure right is a licence condition in its own right, not just an internal access-control choice: our guide to Level 1 users and key personnel requirements covers what the Home Office expects here, including why a licence with only one Level 1 user in place is a common single point of failure.
GOV.UK One Login and the direction of travel
The government has been consolidating separate sign-in systems across departments into a single GOV.UK One Login, and immigration services are part of that broader shift. What this means in practice for any specific account can change as the rollout continues, so rather than assuming your existing sign-in method will look the same in a year, treat account credentials as something to keep current and check GOV.UK directly if a login screen looks different from what you or an employee remember using before.
When access breaks: common problems and how to resolve them
- An individual has lost access to the email or phone number linked to their UKVI account: they'll need to go through the account recovery journey on GOV.UK, which can take longer than a same-day fix — factor this into onboarding timelines rather than assuming a share code will be available instantly.
- An SMS user's account is locked after failed sign-in attempts: resolve this through the Home Office's sponsorship helpline rather than a self-service reset, and expect it to take longer than a typical corporate IT password reset.
- A Level 1 user leaves the company without handing over access: this isn't just an IT inconvenience — an outdated key personnel record is itself a reportable change and a compliance gap, so removing and reassigning SMS access needs to happen alongside, not after, any HR offboarding process.
How Annaizu handles this
Annaizu's platform doesn't replace any of these three logins — it sits alongside them, giving your team a shared dashboard view of check dates, expiry dates and SMS actions that would otherwise live only inside separate individual and sponsor accounts. Because key personnel and user-level records are tracked in the same place as your day-to-day compliance evidence, a Level 1 user leaving the business shows up as an action item rather than a gap nobody notices until an audit.
FAQ
Can an employer log into a candidate's UKVI account to check their status?
No, and you shouldn't try to. Employers only ever see a status through the share code the individual generates and provides.
What if an SMS user forgets their login details?
Account recovery for the Sponsor Management System goes through the Home Office's sponsorship helpline, not a self-service password reset.
Can more than one person hold Level 1 access on the same sponsor licence?
Yes, and it's generally good practice to do so. Relying on a single Level 1 user means the licence's core administrative functions stop if that one person is unavailable, changes role, or leaves — a risk that shows up quickly if a Certificate of Sponsorship or reportable change needs actioning urgently.
Related: Sponsor compliance software · Onboarding
GOV.UK references: View and prove your immigration status · Sponsorship information for employers
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