Tier 1 Entrepreneur Sample Interview Questions

By Amar Ali, Immigration Solicitor

November 27, 2020

Tier 1 Entrepreneur visa applicants may be required to attend an interview with the Home Office. An interview may be necessary where the Home Office needs to clarify certain parts of the business idea or process; or to verify certain uncertainties or assumptions that may have risen whilst deciding your application.

It is important that you prepare well.

Preparing for an interview begins from the point of drafting the business plan to a seat in front of the Home Office' interviewer. Your level of involvement in drafting the business plan has a positive relationship with your preparedness for an interview. It is quite common for Tier 1 Entrepreneur visa applicants to leave everything (possibly apart from the core business idea) to the plan writer. When this happens, the task of learning the business plan almost becomes a full time job on its own.

Once the business plan has been completed, you should ensure that you study it again; at least before submitting the application. Note that the direction of the interviewer's questions will depend on the facts of your application and circumstance as well as specific subjects within the business plan.

The Tier 1 Entrepreneur Interview

The Tier 1 Entrepreneur interview questions can be broadly grouped into 4 main categories viz: -

Background and business idea
Business Plan
Investment
Immigration History

Background and business idea

It is important that your experience and education are relevant to the business that you want to set up or join in the UK. You must be in a position to link your experience and/or education to the business that you are trying to set up in the UK. Examples of questions that may be asked here include:

Do you have any experience in the relevant field?
How do your qualifications complement your business idea?
How are your experience and previous roles relevant to your business?
What research have you carried out on the business?
What is your current occupation?
What is your position in the company?
What business does this company engage in?

Business plan

Understanding the key components of your business plan is key to a successful Tier 1 Entrepreneur application. The business plan forms a major part of the interview process. You will be asked questions on the reasons behind some of your choices on the business plan. It may therefore not be out of place to add justifications for your decisions within the business plan.

Some of the questions that can be asked here include: -

What is your proposed business about?
Why this business and why the UK?
What part of the United Kingdom do you want to establish the business and why?
What research have you done on your business idea?
What other things have you done in relation to the business apart from writing a business plan?
Did you write the business plan?
How many people will you be employing and what will their roles be?
How much will you be paying your employees?
How do you intend marketing your business in the UK?
Who are your competitors?
Will the business need security, what type and how much will you pay the security company?
Will you need a manager and how much will you pay them?
How did you come up with all these figures?
What type of premises and dimensions would you require?
Mortgage or lease? Rent or buy?
Do you have any idea of the business rates and insurance rates for the business?

Investment

This is a major section of interview. It bothers on how you intend raising the investment funds and how you plan to pay back. Some of the questions here include: -

Who is funding your business?
What understanding do you have towards the investment with the investor?(what will you pay him in return)?
Will the payment be paid before audited accounts or after?
When will you return the investment obviously it is not given to you forever?

Immigration History

As with every other immigration application, the Home Office will want to understand the details of your previous entries and activities in the UK. Questions that may be asked here include: -

What was the last time you travelled to UK?
What was the last time you exited the UK?
What was the purpose of stay?
Do you have any relatives in the UK?

It is important to state here that a good Tier 1 Entrepreneur business plan will as much as possible provide answers likely to be asked by the Home Office. Where the business plan provides all the answers, it is fine to make references to the business plan during the interview.

Answering those questions directly or indirectly in the business plan is a key differentiating factor between a conventional business plan and a Tier 1 Entrepreneur business plan. For instance where justifications need to made on certain choices, the business plan should point that out right away. Where there is a need to establish a link between the applicant's background and the business, the business plan must do well to elaborate on the link.

At Reiss Edwards, we have a team of expert Tier 1 Entrepreneur lawyers who will not only guide you on your visa application, but also assist in reviewing your business plan to ensure that it is in line with what the Home Office is expecting to see. We also have links to leading Tier 1 Entrepreneur business plan writers who with their vast experience in Tier 1 applications, can help you put together a business plan that will meet the need.