What is a right to work check? UK rules from 1 October 2026

A right to work check is the check a UK employer makes, before a person starts work, that the person is not barred by their immigration status from doing the job. The Home Office's guide of 1 October 2026 says all employers in the UK have a legal duty to prevent illegal working, and that an employer who carries out the check in the way the Home Office prescribes has a "statutory excuse": if the person later turns out to have no right to work, the employer is not liable for a civil penalty. The scheme applies across the whole of the UK.

What changed on 1 October 2026

Before 1 October 2026 the scheme was about employees. The Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025 widened it. In the guide, an "employer" now means a person who employs an individual under a contract of employment, under a worker's contract, as an individual sub-contractor, or when operating as an online matching service that gives clients the details of a service provider. For those newer arrangements, a civil penalty may be imposed only where the engagement began on or after 1 October 2026.

The same Act adds what the guide calls extended liability. A business contracted to provide work or services to a third party, which uses another employer's workers to fulfil the contract, may be treated as employing the people who do the work, and the same applies where a contract lets an individual send a substitute. The requirements for those arrangements apply to contracts entered into on or after 1 October 2026.

How is a right to work check done?

There are three kinds of check, and each is done before the work starts.

• A manual check of original documents. The employer obtains originals from the guide's lists, checks them with the holder present, in person or by live video link with the originals in the employer's hands, and keeps a dated copy.

• A Home Office online check. The person gives a share code, nine characters beginning with W and valid for 90 calendar days. The employer enters it with the person's date of birth and confirms, in person or by video call, that the photograph shown is the person. British and Irish citizens cannot get a share code.

• A check through a registered digital verification service provider. These providers can check holders of British or Irish passports, and Irish passport cards, digitally. The employer, not the provider, answers for the check.

When is a follow-up check needed, and how long are records kept?

Where a person's permission to work is time-limited, the employer checks again on or before the date it ends. Where the first check showed settled status, no follow-up is required. Copies are kept securely for the length of the employment and for two years afterwards, then securely destroyed.

Who can carry out the check?

The employer carries it out, and can give the task to members of staff or others who act under its control and direction and are accountable to it. The guide's questions and answers add that, apart from a check by a registered provider, an employer cannot establish a statutory excuse by relying on a check carried out independently by an outside party such as a recruitment agency or a professional adviser.

What happens if it goes wrong

The code of practice sets the starting point for the civil penalty at £45,000 per worker for a first breach and £60,000 for a repeat breach within three years. In serious cases the guide lists a criminal conviction with up to five years in prison and an unlimited fine for an employer who knew or had reasonable cause to believe the person could not do the work.

Where does the time go before day one?

The check is short. The work is having everything to hand before day one: the starter who has not sent a share code, the code that has expired, the passport left at a parent's house, the visa end date held in one person's spreadsheet. In a recruitment agency placing temporary workers, on a construction contractor's sites and in a facilities management or cleaning business with new starters every week, that gathering is a job in its own right. Our guides walk through it for a recruitment agency's documents and expiry dates and for checks at volume in cleaning and facilities management.

What is a right to work check confused with?

• A right to rent check. That is a landlord's check on a tenant, in England only, with its own share code. See what a right to rent check is.

• A National Insurance number. Official evidence of the number is accepted only in combination with the right document from the lists.

• A check for foreign nationals. The guide tells employers to check all workers consistently, British citizens included, and warns that checking only people who seem likely to be migrants may be unlawful discrimination.

Where does an AI worker fit?

In this job an AI worker can tell each starter which evidence applies to them, ask for the share code or book the time for the documents to be seen, remind until it is done, file the dated record and keep every follow-up date so that none passes unnoticed. The check stays with your own named person, as does any doubt about a document and any decision about whether someone starts. The role is on our page for right-to-work checks, and it sits beside new starter and HR admin. This article describes the guide as read on 3 October 2026 and is not advice on your own arrangements.

An employer with a steady flow of starters would have the evidence collected and the dates kept by an AI worker, with your people carrying out every check. If start dates slip while you wait for share codes and passports, talk to our agent.