What UKVI Already Knows From Your CAS: The Sponsor Management System, the Eight Statuses and the Sponsor Note

A CAS is a record, not a certificate

The Home Office’s own manual says it: “A CAS is not an actual certificate or paper document, but is a virtual document, similar to a database record.” The university creates it inside the Sponsor Management System, SMS, which is a Home Office system the sponsor logs into with a licence. When the record is assigned to you, it becomes visible across UKVI’s systems, including Atlas (Part 1). The CAS statement the university emails you is a printout of some of the fields. The record itself is what the officer reads.

What the university types in

SMS guide 4A lists the fields. Your passport details and nationality. Whether you were “sourced through an agent”, with the agent’s company name, contact name and address. The course title, level, start and end dates, hours a week, and whether it is a continuation of earlier study. Whether ATAS applies. The English language section: whether a SELT was required, the level attained, the four component scores and the test provider, or the reason no test was needed, with a “gifted student” waiver box. Whether you have studied in the UK before, at what level, and a justification text if the new course is not higher. Course fees charged for the first year, scholarship or bursary awarded, fees paid to date, accommodation fees charged and paid. Work placement percentage. And the one field that matters most for what follows: “Evidence used to obtain offer”, where the sponsor must say which qualifications and which English evidence it relied on, quoting the SELT reference number where there is one.

The eight statuses

A CAS begins as Work in progress, becomes Ready to go when every mandatory field is filled, and becomes Assigned when the sponsor attaches it to you and spends one unit of its annual allocation. From that date you have six months to apply; the Student guidance tells officers the CAS must “be issued no more than 6 months before the date of application”. Once an application relies on it, it is Used, and a Used CAS “cannot support a second application”, which is why a second attempt after a negative decision needs a fresh CAS from the university, with a fresh judgement by the admissions office about whether to issue one (Part 8). A sponsor may mark a CAS Withdrawn, for an unpaid deposit, a changed offer or doubts about the student, and the withdrawal is visible to the officer. Expired, Obsolete and Cancelled are the system’s own housekeeping, the last of them triggered when a sponsor’s licence ends.

What the officer checks against the CAS

The Student caseworker guidance, version 15.0 of October 2026, instructs: “The caseworker must check whether the CAS submitted with an application is valid.” That means the number matches an Assigned record, the record has not been used in an earlier application, it was assigned within six months, the passport number and personal details on the CAS match the passport and the form, the sponsor holds a current licence for the route, and the course and dates on the CAS are the course and dates you have applied for. Any discrepancy between the application and the CAS is to be checked with the sponsor. Fees: “If the applicant has paid all or part of their course fees this must be confirmed on the CAS”; otherwise you need a sponsor receipt. The money you must show (Part 15) is calculated from the CAS fee fields, not from your offer letter.

The sponsor note

The sponsor note is a free text field the university can write at creation or add afterwards. The guidance says “the caseworker must always check the ‘sponsor note’ field on a CAS”. Universities use it for practical things, such as a revised start date, confirmation that a deposit was received after the CAS was assigned, an explanation of a gap in study or of why a course at the same level is justified. Some use it to record that the student passed a pre CAS credibility interview and on what date. You will not normally see the note. If your admissions office offers to add one, say yes to anything that explains a weakness in your file before the officer finds it.

The agent fields

The agent fields exist because the Home Office tracks recruitment channels. Where a sponsor records that you were sourced through an agent, the name goes on the CAS and into the data the Home Office uses to monitor sponsors and the agents they work with. This is not a mark against you. It does mean the officer can see which adviser handled your file, and can connect your application with others from the same source. An adviser whose students produce poor outcomes becomes visible in the data, which is one reason Part 8 advised choosing an adviser as carefully as a university. Westside appears on CAS records as a named representative of the universities we work with, including KEDGE Business School, and we are comfortable with that visibility.

The documents the CAS commits you to

Because the sponsor has stated which qualifications and English evidence it relied on, you are bound to produce them. The guidance: applicants “must provide all the documents that the sponsor used to assign the CAS”, unless an exemption applies. The exemptions are the differentiation arrangements for a list of nationalities in Appendix Student ST 22, and sponsorship by a compliant higher education provider that has assessed the qualifications itself. Pakistan is not on the differentiation list, so a Pakistani student at a provider that has not used the HEP assessment route must upload every certificate and transcript named on the CAS, in the form the officer can verify (Part 4). A CAS that names a bachelor’s transcript you cannot produce is a problem the officer will find in minutes.

When the sponsor’s licence changes

For an application made from outside the UK, “the CAS will be invalid on the day the sponsor licence is revoked”. A pending application then fails on the CAS requirement, and the fee is not returned. Students already in the UK are treated more gently: the guidance gives 60 days to find a new sponsor or leave before a decision is made on the invalid CAS. This is why Part 8’s Red, Amber and Green ratings matter at the moment you choose where to apply. A sponsor on a Final Warning in 2027 is a sponsor whose CAS could stop being valid between your biometrics and your decision.

How to prepare

1. Ask for the CAS statement and read every field, especially fees paid, accommodation paid, the English evidence and the documents listed under evidence used to obtain offer.
2. Correct errors before you apply, not after. The sponsor can amend some fields or add a note; a used CAS cannot be changed.
3. Match the form to the CAS word for word: course title, dates, passport number, fees. Discrepancies go back to the sponsor and cost weeks.
4. Gather every document the CAS names, in original form, from institutions that will answer a verification call.
5. Apply well inside the six months, and never with a CAS that is anything other than Assigned.
6. Keep the admissions office informed of anything that changes; a sponsor note added in time is read by the officer, an email to you is not.

Part 15 takes the CAS fee fields into the money a 2027 student file must show, including the figures that change on 30 November 2026.

Questions applicants ask

About the author

Mujtaba Maharvi

Mujtaba is the CEO of Westside Visa Consultants. He began his career in 2001 as Executive Secretary to the Consul General of the Republic of Korea in Karachi, co founded Westside in London in 2003, and has since guided more than 1,000 students and families through UK, European, North American and Australian visa decisions from the firm’s offices in DHA Lahore and the UK. He holds postgraduate degrees from the University of Karachi, the University of Padua, Loughborough University and the University of West London, and writes this series from more than twenty years of reading decision letters.

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