Control of Housing and Work (Jersey) Law 2012
Moving to Jersey for work
Your residential status decides where you can live and who can employ you. Establish it before you look at a single house.
Unukorno, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
One classification decides two separate things, and it is not a visa.
Jersey controls housing and employment through a single law and a single status. It sets which homes you may occupy and who may employ you, and it is the reason a Jersey move is harder than moving between UK cities.
The controls are administered by the Business Hub (Employment, Social Security and Housing), which older guidance calls the Population Office. The registration card that evidences your status is applied for online. Immigration permission, if you need it, is a separate system and a separate application.
Six things that decide a move for work
The parts people find out about late. Each links to the page that sets out the detail.
The trap
Half
Of the question a job offer answers
It settles who may employ you and says nothing about which homes you may occupy. People accept, start house-hunting, and find most of the market closed.
The six statusesRegistration card
First
Before the tenancy, the job and the bank
Almost every other step asks to see it. Get it late and you spend a fortnight circling, usually while paying for temporary accommodation.
How to get oneLicensed status
Employer's
The licence belongs to them, not to you
It lets you buy or rent one qualified home, which is the real prize. If the job ends, the basis of the status ends with it — understand that before you accept.
Licensed employee statusStandard status
Default
What you almost certainly arrive on
The most restricted position, and the status that replaced Registered on 14 September 2026: employer permission needed to hire you, and housing limited to renting one Registered property.
What that permitsImmigration
Separate
Jersey is not part of the United Kingdom
It runs its own immigration rules. A UK visa gives no right to live here, and housing status is a different system again.
The two systemsFor employers
Before
Test the permission, then recruit
A candidate who resigns for an offer that cannot be permitted has a legitimate grievance, and you have lost the search.
The employer guideThe six statuses
Everyone living in Jersey holds one of these, under the system in force since 14 September 2026. Read the middle column first — it is the one that changes where you can live.
| Status | What it lets you do | How it is obtained |
|---|---|---|
| Permanent Entitled | Buy, sell or lease property. Work for anyone, or for yourself. | Other routes, for example a Jersey-born person who completes ten years’ ordinary residence, or 25 years’ continuous residence. |
| Entitled | Buy, sell or lease property. Work for anyone, or for yourself. | Ten years’ continuous ordinary residence. |
| Licensed | Buy or rent one qualified property, and live in it. Work only in the licensed role. | An employer applies for a permission for a specific role it cannot fill locally. |
| Licensed for Lease Only | Rent one property; no purchase. Work only in the specific role. | An employer applies for a permission for a specific role it cannot fill locally. |
| Entitled for Work | Work for anyone. Housing restricted to registered property. | Five years’ continuous residence, or an eligible partner who holds status. |
| Standard | May rent one Registered property. Work needs the employer to hold a Standard permission. | The default for everyone newly arrived without another route. Replaced Registered on 14 September 2026. |
This table is a summary and the law has more edges than a table can hold — marriage, inheritance, birth on the island and time already spent here all change the answer.The full explanation, with the qualifying routes.
The order matters more than the paperwork
Every item on a Jersey arrival list depends on another one. The registration card comes before the tenancy and before the bank account. The bank account comes before the standing orders. The address comes before the GP registration. Do them out of order and you spend a fortnight in a loop, usually while paying for short-term accommodation.
The workable sequence is: confirm status and employer permission, get the registration card, secure accommodation you are actually permitted to occupy, open the account, then register for everything that needs an address. We run this end to end, or you can work through it yourself with the guides below.
In this section
Residential status explained
The six statuses, Permanent Entitled to Standard — what each allows.
Licensed employee status
The scarce permission employers need, and how it is granted.
Registration cards
The card everything else depends on. Get this wrong and nothing moves.
Work permits and visas
Immigration permission is separate from housing and work status.
For employers
Relocating staff into a constrained licence system.
Work and status questions
- I have a job offer. Is that enough?
- It settles the work half and none of the housing half. Your employer needs the right permission to employ you, and your residential status then decides which homes you are allowed to occupy. People routinely accept an offer, start looking at houses, and discover most of the market is closed to them. Check your status before you look at property.
- What is registered accommodation?
- Housing that people without qualified status are permitted to occupy — largely lodging houses, shares and a defined part of the rental stock. It is a smaller and more expensive slice of the market than new arrivals expect, and it is where most Standard-status and Entitled for Work households live.
- Do I need a registration card?
- If you are 16 or over and moving to Jersey, yes — and again each time you move house or start a new job. You apply online first; it costs £88.15 for Licensed, Licensed for Lease Only and Standard holders and is free for the other statuses. Almost everything else — employment, tenancy, banking — depends on it. How to get one, and the order to do things in.
- Does five years of residence happen automatically?
- Only if the residence is continuous and evidenced. Gaps matter, and so does being able to prove where you lived. Keep tenancy agreements, utility accounts and payslips from the day you land; reconstructing five years of address history later is genuinely painful.
- Do British citizens need a visa for Jersey?
- No, but Jersey is not part of the United Kingdom and runs its own immigration rules. Anyone who is not a British or Irish citizen needs Jersey immigration permission, which is separate from, and additional to, housing and work status. The two systems explained.
Two paths from here
If you are moving for a job, tell us the role, the employer and your timing. If you are the employer, tell us the role you are trying to fill. Either way, the first call establishes whether the status you need is realistic before anyone commits.