Business plan writing service for a Tier 1 (Entrepreneur) visa - from an experienced Immigration Entrepreneur

As many Entrepreneur visa applicants and advisers know, this category is more about ‘extras’ than about proving the funds of £50,000/£200,000 (depending on your category). ‘Extras’ are the documents, which are not included in the Rules, so you won’t find a business plan on the list of ‘Specified Evidence’ (documents required by the Rules). However, it is mentioned on the Genuine Entrepreneur Test, which is, or rather failing which, a most common reason of refusal. If the Home Office simply does not believe your intentions are genuine then they may refuse on the ‘balance of probabilities’ (those who had refusals may recognise this phrase). We usually advise to provide as many documents as possible, examples include business bank statements/insurance (if a business is already functioning in the UK), correspondence with accountants and tax advisers and various research and contacts with potential clients (if you are planning to establish a business after securing a visa).

However, the main 'extra' thing is a business plan. Over the past several years we’ve been dealing with the Entrepreneur visa applications for our clients. As a part of each application, we have to read client’s business plan, ask to make changes and generally, to include the information relevant to the Entrepreneur visa rules as well as based on the questions a client may be asked at a interview (from our experience of clients’ visa interviews).

This allowed us to develop an approach to creating the business plans for clients, from the Tier 1 Entrepreneur visa point of view. It usually means you don’t have to have a very detailed financial analysis (although we do need the figures and a cashflow forecast), since this is not a plan to secure a bank loan. This is why many standard templates from the internet don’t work well for a visa application and have to be changed a lot while we are preparing to submit to the Home Office.

Instead we focus on what the visa officers may want to see, ie on what you will be required to do while holding this visa. For example, we cover investment of £50,000 or £200,000 (depending on your category) and what you are going to spend it on. For example, paying yourself a salary is not counted, yet it is very common for clients to do this after they secure an initial Entrepreneur visa. Paying the money to the owner of a business you are buying does not count either.  

Another example will be including a plan of creating 2 jobs and that they will be for ‘settled’ people. Most business plans we see (usually created from standard templates) do not mention these 2 jobs at all, yet the common questions of a visa interview (for applications inside the UK) are about UK employment law. A real example of our client was “How much is UK minimum wage?” So, we think it is a good idea to mention this, what types of jobs these 2 people will be doing, at least as you imagine it at this stage. Also, to mention how much you are expecting to pay them (ie a salary) and add employer’s National Insurance contributions (‘employment tax’) into the calculation.

If you are still on a Post-Study Work visa then your business plan has also include the type of services which is at NQF Level 4 or above of the Code of Practice. We often see plans with description of services copied from the Code of Practice without being adopted to your business. It is always a good idea to make it more personal to your business idea (while remaining at the required level, as per the Immigration Rules).

As any business person knows, a business plan never works exactly as written on paper. There are too many assumptions for it to work, especially the sales targets. However, writing one helps you (the visa applicant) to clarify your business idea for both yourself (and business partners if any) and for the visa officers. You may have a brilliant idea and extensive experience in the area but how do the visa officers know that? We usually say that a business plan is your thoughts on what you are going to offer your clients, how much you are going to charge, how you are going to promote your products, how you are going to be working (at an office or at home), how much money you need, what you need to buy and so on.

We also advise to explain your business idea in simple and plain language. For instance, there is no benefit in adding many technical IT terms because the visa officers are not IT professionals, yet they have to understand your business idea. If you can explain it to us, we can explain to the UK Visas & Immigration. Finally, we advise to treat it like a CV but for a business. Too many CVs contain information designed to make the applicant look ‘clever’, yet fall apart once an interviewer starts asking questions about it. The Home Office staff do read your business plan and may ask questions! They certainly ask questions about it when you are applying inside the UK, we learnt it from our clients’ cases. So we advise to keep it realistic and only to include what you can genuinely back up with your knowledge or resources.

For more visit: http://www.1st4immigration.com/business-plan-writing.php or contact us: info@1st4immigration.com