Business relocation
Premises and staff
A Jersey business needs somewhere to operate and a staff permission for each employee who does not already hold Permanent Entitled, Entitled or Entitled for Work status. Commercial stock is limited, licensed staff permissions are scarce, and a business licence application is assessed partly on how credible your plan for both looks.
Two constraints that interact
Jersey has a small commercial property market and a deliberately constrained system of work permissions. Neither is an obstacle on its own. Together they decide what shape your business can actually take here, and they are assessed together when the Business Hub looks at your business licence.
Premises
St Helier holds most of the island’s office stock, including modern space in the waterfront and Esplanade developments and a large quantity of converted period buildings. Serviced and flexible space exists and is the sensible bridge for an arriving business.
Outside town, options narrow quickly. Industrial and warehousing space is genuinely scarce and worth investigating before you commit to an operating model that needs it.
Two practical points. First, availability changes faster than any published list, so a shortlist from three months ago is fiction. Second, a lease signed before the licence is granted is a commitment made against an outcome you do not yet have.
The workable position is a credible plan and a shortlist, not a signature.
Staff
Every employee who does not already hold Permanent Entitled, Entitled or Entitled for Work status requires a staff permission held by you.
Standard permissions are the ordinary case and the more obtainable. Standard replaced the old Registered category on 14 September 2026.
Licensed permissions are for roles that genuinely cannot be filled from the resident workforce. They are scarce, properly assessed, and they let the employee buy or rent one qualified home, which makes them decisive in recruitment. Licensed for Lease Only is the rent-only version. How licensed status works.
Each permission carries a salary test from 14 September 2026: £60,000 or the going rate for Licensed (or a listed qualifying role), £54,000 or the going rate for Licensed for Lease Only, and £30,000 or the going rate for Standard. You also have to show why candidates holding Permanent Entitled, Entitled or Entitled for Work status could not be found. The detail is in the gov.je Control of Housing and Work business guidance; figures checked 2 October 2026.
Assume you will be permitted fewer licensed roles than you asked for. Businesses that arrive planning to relocate an entire team and hire nobody locally tend to be disappointed, and the application reflects the plan.
What a strong plan looks like
A business that intends to recruit in Jersey, train in Jersey and bring in off-island only where the skill genuinely does not exist here makes a materially stronger case than one that treats the island as a location for a team it has already assembled elsewhere.
That is not a rhetorical point about being a good corporate citizen. It is what the assessment is measuring.
The order
Licence first. Premises shortlist alongside it. Staff permissions once the shape of the licence is clear. Then leases and offers. The full business relocation sequence, and the employer’s view of the staffing side.