CAS agent details in 2026: what UK agencies must know

If your agency refers students to UK institutions, the Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies (CAS) now carries your agency's name in more cases than before. From 7 April 2026, the UK Home Office Student Sponsor Guidance requires sponsors to record agent details on the CAS for every student an agent helped recruit — including one-off referrals and arrangements with no formal contract. This article explains what changed, how sub-agents are recorded, why the agent named on the CAS is tied to commission, and what your agency should keep consistent on its own side.

What changed for agent details on the CAS in 2026?

From 7 April 2026, the UK Home Office Student Sponsor Guidance, Document 2: Sponsorship Duties (Version 04/2026, PDF) added a dedicated "Agents and third parties" section. Paragraph 3.24 puts the duty plainly: "Sponsors must record agent details on the CAS where the sponsor has used an agent in the recruitment of the sponsored student." The change formalises agent reporting that was previously less explicit.

Version 04/2026 took effect on 7 April 2026 and the GOV.UK page carries a last-updated date of 1 June 2026. We re-checked it on 21 August 2026 and it is still the current version — if you are reading this much later, open the guidance link above before you act on a paragraph number, because the numbering moves between versions.

The guidance's own change log describes the change as "agent details requirement amended", and paragraphs 3.24 to 3.31 now set out the rules in one place. The duty is part of routine CAS assignment. In practice, this means the agent behind a student is no longer an informal detail. It is a recorded part of the visa sponsorship file.

What exactly goes into the agent fields on a CAS?

The duty lives in the sponsor guidance, but the boxes live in the sponsorship management system, and the guide that describes them is SMS Guide 4A: Creating a CAS. It is worth knowing exactly what your institution partner is typing, because every one of these fields is something you supply.

It starts with a tick box — "Migrant sourced through agent?" — which the guide lists as optional. Ticking it is what makes the rest mandatory: "Tick if you used an agent to recruit the student. If ticked, the fields below marked * become mandatory". Three fields then have to be filled:

• Agent company name. The guide is specific: "This should be the company's formal legal name used in the contract. No acronyms or shortenings. No cities/countries should be included here - just the company name." The name you trade under is not necessarily the name in the contract, and it is the contract name that belongs here.

• Agent contact name. "The name of the primary agent contract contact." The family name field is mandatory. This is a named person, not an office inbox.

• Address. This is the one most agencies get wrong, because the instruction is not "your head office": "This should be the address for the specific branch from which the student was recruited." Address line, city, postcode and country are each mandatory. A two-office agency that files every CAS under its registered address is not recording what the field asks for.

One caveat on this list, stated plainly: the GOV.UK page for SMS Guide 4A carries a last-updated date of 11 November 2025, which is before the April 2026 duty change. The fields above are what the guide currently describes. If a partner tells you their screen asks for something different, believe their screen and ask them to send you the field list.

The practical consequence is small and worth doing once: write these three values down — legal name as it appears in your contract, a named contact with a family name, and the branch address each student was actually recruited from — and send the same three values to every sponsor. If two institutions record you differently, you have two versions of your agency in the Home Office's records of your students.

Do one-off or informal referrals need to go on the CAS?

Yes. According to paragraph 3.25 of the guidance, sponsors must provide agent details on the CAS in any instance where they used an agent or third party to recruit the student, "even if this is a one-off recruitment and/or the recruitment was done without a formal ongoing contract with the agent or third party." There is no exemption for informal or single referrals.

There is one narrow exception. Paragraph 3.26 says agent details do not need to be provided where an advisor was engaged directly by the student to support their application, and that advisor was not used by the sponsor as part of recruitment. The line that matters is who used whom. If a student hired their own consultant independently, that is different from a sponsor using an agent to recruit. But if you introduced or referred a student and the institution treated your agency as part of recruiting that student, you are an agent for that CAS — contract or no contract.

For a boutique agency, this closes a familiar grey area. The casual referral, the former student who sends a friend, the one-time contact who passes a lead — if the institution recruits on the back of it, the guidance expects an agent record.

How are sub-agents recorded on the CAS?

When a sub-agent is involved, paragraph 3.25 states: "If a sub agent is used, sponsors must provide details of the main agent not the sub agent." The CAS records the main, or primary, agent in the chain — not the intermediary who sourced the student. If students reach an institution through a sub-agent working under your agreement, your agency is the name on that CAS.

This sits alongside the wider expectation, set under the Agent Quality Framework, that lead agents oversee the sub-agents working under them. The recorded main agent is the visible, accountable party. If a sub-agent's file is weak or their conduct raises concerns, it is the main agent's name attached to the student record. Paragraph 3.29 also gives sponsors a route to raise concerns about an agent or third party after a CAS has been assigned — to the Home Office study risk team, or, "if illegal activity is identified or suspected", to report it as an immigration crime. That route runs in the direction of the main agent, which is another reason to know what your sub-agents are doing under your name.

Why do the CAS agent details affect commission?

Paragraph 3.27 says the agent details "should reflect the agent utilised during the recruitment phase, and who the sponsor attributes the recruitment of the student to (for example but not limited to, who will receive any commission payment)". By the guidance's own wording, the agent named on the CAS is linked to commission attribution.

That makes the CAS a sponsor-side record of two things at once: who recruited each student, and who is credited for it. The guidance adds practical detail — if the agent changes after a CAS has been assigned, sponsors do not need to report that to UKVI (paragraph 3.27), and minor errors in the agent section can be corrected through the "sponsor note" field (paragraph 3.28).

The point for agencies is consistency. If your internal record of who sourced a student — which sub-agent, which referral, what split — does not match what the sponsor entered, attribution becomes harder to settle informally later. A documented record on your side, per student, is what keeps your commission position defensible.

What should your agency do to stay aligned?

Give sponsors accurate agent details, keep your own per-student record of who sourced each student, and make sure your AQF and National Code position is in order. The guidance is written for sponsors, but the agent named on each CAS is your agency, so the accuracy of that record depends partly on what you supply.

Paragraph 3.30 states that all student sponsors using recruitment agents "must have committed to adhering to the key principles of the Agent Quality Framework (AQF)". Paragraph 3.31 adds that sponsors "must retain evidence of how they are managing agents in line with the AQF and The National Code of Ethical Practice for UK Education Agents." Sponsors will increasingly ask their agents to evidence the same standards. An agency that endorses the National Code, keeps sub-agent agreements and oversight documented, and supplies a correct legal name, contact, and branch address makes itself an easy partner to record correctly.

A practical checklist for agencies

• Confirm which of your UK institution partners updated their CAS process from 7 April 2026.

• For every referred student, record who sourced them — including one-off and informal referrals.

• Map each sub-agent relationship to the main agent who will be named on the CAS.

• Keep your Agent Quality Framework commitment and National Code endorsement current.

• Give sponsors three fixed values: your legal name as written in the contract, a named contact, and the address of the branch each student was recruited from — not your head office.

• Reconcile your commission records against who each CAS credits as the recruiting agent.

None of this is new compliance machinery on the agency side. It is record-keeping that matches what sponsors now have to do — kept in one place, per student, so it holds up when a commission or an attribution question comes back months later.