Inside the Home Office's own Innovator Founder guidance

When a Home Office caseworker sits down with your Innovator Founder application, they are not working from the friendly summary on the GOV.UK visa page. They are working from a separate, far more detailed internal instruction manual — and that manual is public. Most applicants never read it, which means they prepare for the version of the process shown to the public rather than the version their decision is actually made against. Reading the caseworker guidance is one of the highest-value, lowest-cost things an applicant or their solicitor can do.

Two documents, not one

There are two official documents describing the Innovator Founder route, and they are not the same thing.

The first is the applicant-facing GOV.UK guidance — the page you find by searching "Innovator Founder visa." It is a summary written for the public: eligibility in broad strokes, fees, how to apply.

The second is the caseworker guidance — the internal instruction document Home Office staff use to make decisions. The current edition is titled simply "Innovator Founder," version 10.0, published for Home Office staff on 25 February 2026, and runs to 39 pages. It is published under the Home Office's transparency commitments and is freely downloadable, but it is written for decision-makers, not applicants. It tells caseworkers what to check, in what order, and what to do when something is missing or in doubt.

The gap between the two is where a lot of applicant anxiety — and a lot of avoidable refusals — lives. The public page tells you the destination. The caseworker guidance tells you exactly how the road is patrolled.

How caseworkers verify your endorsement

The endorsement letter is the gateway to the whole route, and the guidance is precise about how it is checked. An endorsement letter must contain the endorsing body's name, its endorsement reference number, the date of issue, the applicant's name, date of birth, nationality and passport number, and — critically — the name and contact details of an individual at the endorsing body "who will verify the contents of the letter to the Home Office if requested."

That verification is not hypothetical. The guidance instructs entry clearance officers to check the validity of any endorsement by contacting the Innovator Founder route inbox, quoting the applicant's name, the secure reference number, the endorsing body's name, and the contact's name on the endorsement letter. Once the route inbox confirms validity, the officer replies with the decision, the decision date, and the submission date. The guidance states plainly: "This process must be followed in all cases."

There is also a hard time limit that trips up applicants who move slowly. An endorsement "cannot be accepted if it has been used in an application made after more than 3 months after date of issue." The date of issue must itself be no earlier than 3 months before the date of application. In practice, your endorsement letter has a three-month shelf life — plan your submission accordingly.

The 70-point scoring table

The guidance sets out exactly how points are awarded. An applicant "must be awarded 70 points," of which 50 must come from either the new business criteria or the same business criteria — but not both. The remaining 20 are mandatory for all applicants: 10 for the English Language requirement at level B2, and 10 for the financial requirement.

Under the new business criteria, the points break down as a business plan (30 points) plus a business venture that is "innovative, viable and scalable" (20 points). Under the same business criteria — for founders extending an existing endorsed business — the structure differs, rewarding a previous qualifying permission, an active and trading business demonstrating significant achievements, and active day-to-day involvement.

For how the B2 English requirement works in practice, see English requirement rises to B2 across all four skills.

The financial thresholds, precisely

The guidance is unusually specific on money. Where an applicant is applying from outside the UK, or has not been in the UK for at least the 12 months before their application, they must show sufficient funds held for a 28-day period. The relevant levels are:

• £1,270 for the main applicant
• £285 for a dependant partner
• £315 for a first child
• £200 for each subsequent child

There is a significant carve-out: where an applicant is applying from inside the UK and has been in the UK for more than 12 months at the date of application, they "automatically meet the financial requirement and will not need to show funds." This is the kind of detail the public page glosses but the caseworker guidance states outright — and it can save an in-country applicant a great deal of unnecessary worry about maintenance balances.

When genuineness is (and is not) assessed

Perhaps the most reassuring passage for a well-prepared applicant concerns genuineness. The guidance states that caseworkers "will not normally need to carry out a genuineness assessment for Innovator Founder applications," because "an endorsing body will already have assessed an applicant's business plan and caseworkers are not expected to duplicate that assessment."

A balance-of-probability test is run only where the caseworker "has reason to believe that there are specific grounds to doubt a migrant's genuineness" — a power "primarily intended to be used where the Home Office has information that would not otherwise have been considered by an endorsing body." Notably, the detailed mechanics of that test are redacted in the public version: the guidance marks a section "Official – sensitive" and removes it as "restricted for internal Home Office use."

The practical lesson is important: the endorsing body is the real gatekeeper of your business's merits, not the Home Office decision step. The caseworker's job is largely to confirm the endorsement is valid, the points add up, and nothing external casts doubt on your genuineness — see Innovator Founder success rate: what the numbers show for why this two-stage structure produces the approval rates it does.

Other procedural details worth knowing

The guidance is dense with operational specifics that never surface on the public page. A few worth flagging:

• The 90-day rescue window. If your endorsing body is removed from the approved list or withdraws support while your application is live, the caseworker will "write to the migrant requesting that they obtain a valid endorsement" and allow "a period of 90 days for this to be sought and returned." You are not automatically refused — but the clock is tight.
• Companies House and directorship. For same-business applications, the guidance points to Immigration Rule INNF 9.5, requiring the business to be registered with Companies House with the applicant "listed as a director or member of that business."
• Financial interest is not enough. The guidance is explicit that "it is not sufficient for an Innovator Founder to solely have a financial interest in a business" — you must be actively involved in day-to-day management and development.
• Settlement continuous residence. For settlement, applicants must have "continually resided in the UK for at least 3 years" with no combined absences "in excess of 180 days in any consecutive 12-month period."

For the tightening of the underlying criteria that these procedures enforce, see the April 2023 criteria changes.

Why this document matters to you

Knowing the caseworker guidance exists — and that it is public — changes how you and your solicitor prepare. It tells you that your endorsement letter will be verified through a named contact, so it must be genuine and current. It tells you the exact financial thresholds and the 28-day holding rule. It tells you that your business's merits are judged primarily at the endorsement stage, not re-litigated by the caseworker. And it tells you the small procedural traps — the three-month endorsement shelf life, the 90-day rescue window — that decide otherwise-strong applications.

The document is published on gov.uk as part of the Home Office's caseworker guidance collection. If you or your solicitor have not read the current version, it is worth the hour.

Key takeaways

• The Home Office publishes internal Innovator Founder caseworker guidance (version 10.0, 25 February 2026, 39 pages) that is distinct from — and far more procedural than — the public GOV.UK visa page.
• Caseworkers verify endorsements directly with the endorsing body through a named contact; this process must be followed in all cases, catching fabricated or unverifiable letters.
• Scoring is a strict 70-point total: 50 from the business criteria, plus 10 for B2 English and 10 for the financial requirement; endorsement letters expire three months after issue.
• Financial thresholds are £1,270 (main applicant) plus dependant amounts, held for 28 days — but in-country applicants resident 12+ months are exempt from showing funds.
• Caseworkers do not normally re-assess business genuineness, deferring to the endorsing body; a balance-of-probability test applies only on specific grounds, and its mechanics are redacted as "Official – sensitive."

• home-office
• caseworker-guidance
• policy
• innovator-founder-visa
• endorsement