Right to work checks for casual workers and sub-contractors

Most small businesses pay people who never appear on the payroll as employees. The weekend bar staff on zero-hours contracts, the self-employed plasterer brought in for a customer's extension, the rider who collects the orders. Right-to-work checks have so far been a duty owed for employees only, so those engagements sat outside the process.

From 1 October 2026 two of those three move inside it. The question this guide answers is which of the people your business pays now need a check before they start, which stay outside the scheme, and what has to be on file.

As checked on 28 September 2026, section 48 of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025 comes into force on 1 October 2026. Regulation 2 of the commencement regulations, made on 24 June 2026, sets that date, so the change is scheduled and not yet in force. SI 2026/683. Section 48 extends the illegal working provisions of the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006 to three further working arrangements. Section 48, Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025. Right-to-work and illegal working enforcement is UK-wide. The Home Office guide explaining how the checks work is still a draft, version 11 September 2026, and no final version had been published when this was checked, so confirm the detail against the published guide before 1 October. Draft employer's guide to right to work checks; GOV.UK publication page for the employer's guide.

Start with the people who are not on your payroll

The three new categories are defined in the Act, and the draft guide works through each with examples.

The first is employment under a worker's contract. The contract is not one of employment, but the individual has agreed to do the work personally and you are not a client or customer of a business they run. Casual and zero-hours staff normally sit here, so for a weekend bar worker on a zero-hours contract the check belongs before the first shift.

The second is engagement as an individual sub-contractor, and the statutory wording is narrower than the phrase suggests. It covers an individual who contracts with you to provide work or services "in circumstances where [that other person] has entered into a contract with a third party to provide, or arrange for the provision of, the work or services but [the individual] has not". In plain terms, you were engaged to do a job for a customer and you passed part of it to a self-employed person. A builder who takes on a house extension and brings in a self-employed plasterer for the walls is the case this limb is aimed at. Section 48, Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025.

The third is an online matching service that provides a service provider's details to clients or customers. This covers a business that keeps a register of service providers, matches them online and charges a fee or commission for the match. The duty sits with the platform, not with the person who books. The draft guide takes the example of a cleaner found through a matching service and states that "the online matching service is responsible for the right to work check". Draft employer's guide to right to work checks.

So the third category matters to you if you run the platform. If you book a rider or a cleaner through an app, the app carries the check.

Know what stays out of scope

The extension reaches individuals, not companies, and this is where most of the reading time is worth spending.

A contract with a company is not caught. Where an individual works through their own limited company and that company contracts with you, the draft guide is explicit: "A right to work check is not required by the client company." Draft employer's guide to right to work checks. Separate tax rules on employment status may still apply to the engagement, but not the right-to-work duty.

Your own suppliers are also outside it. A self-employed plumber who invoices you monthly for maintenance on your premises is running a business of which you are the client or customer, which takes the engagement outside the worker's contract limb, and you have not sub-contracted work you were engaged to deliver for someone else, which keeps it outside the sub-contractor limb. No check is required under the scheme. That is the statutory definitions applied to the arrangement rather than a worked example from the guide. Section 48, Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025.

For a temp supplied by an agency, the duty belongs to the employment business that engages the individual, not to you as the hirer. The draft guide puts it directly: the employment business is the individual's employer for the purposes of the scheme and is therefore responsible for the right to work check. Draft employer's guide to right to work checks. A practical approach is to ask the agency for written confirmation that compliant checks were made and keep it with the assignment record. The government said in its consultation response of 30 June 2026 that it would clarify how responsibilities apply within supply chains in guidance, so this is one to re-read when the final guide appears. Government response on extending the right to work scheme.

There is no retrospective audit to do. For the new arrangements the draft guide states that "a civil penalty may only be imposed where the employment commenced on or after 1 October 2026". Draft employer's guide to right to work checks. Engagements already running on that date are not brought into the scheme by it. Where casual staff are taken on assignment by assignment rather than under one continuing contract, each new engagement is a new engagement, so check that point against the final guide before deciding how to treat your own arrangements.

Make the same check for everyone, before the work starts

Three routes establish the statutory excuse, which is the protection from the civil penalty. Two of them do not change: a manual check of original documents with the person present, and a Home Office online check using a share code the person gives you. The third route is the one that moves on 1 October 2026. Until then it is an identity service provider using identity document validation technology. From that date it becomes a check through a Right to Work digital verification service provider, which must be registered on the digital verification services register with a note that it provides right to work digital verification services, and it covers holders of a British or Irish passport, or an Irish passport card, current or expired by not more than six months, together with the digital versions of certain documents supplied to the provider by a government department or agency. SI 2026/700; Draft employer's guide to right to work checks.

One thing to watch when you look this up. The public GOV.UK page for employers sets out the position that applies until 1 October, describing the third route as an identity service provider, and it is written around a job applicant, with no mention of workers or sub-contractors. Check a job applicant's right to work. Acas guidance on offering someone a job, updated on 30 June 2026, also sets out the pre-October position, and its right-to-work passage does not distinguish employees from workers. Acas on offering someone a job. The draft guide and SI 2026/700 carry the position from 1 October, so read both sets alongside each other in the days either side of the change.

Physical biometric residence permits stopped being issued on 31 October 2024 and were replaced by a digital immigration status. The draft guide states that a manual check of an original, expired permit is not acceptable proof, and that for these holders the statutory excuse comes only from the prescribed online check. In practice that means asking for a share code rather than accepting a card. Draft employer's guide to right to work checks.

The timing rule does the work. The check has to be completed before the work begins, and you record the date you made it. A copy taken days later, when someone gets round to the file, gives no protection for the period already worked.

Check everyone the same way. The draft code of practice on avoiding unlawful discrimination, published for consultation on 15 April 2026, asks employers to "be consistent in how they conduct right to work checks on all workers, including British citizens" and warns against checking only those who appear to the employer likely to be migrants. It rules out assumptions based on "colour, nationality, ethnic or national origins, accent, surname or the length of time they have been resident in the UK", and says a requirement that a worker has lived in the UK for over five years is likely to be indirectly discriminatory. The consultation has closed, but the code is still in draft, has not been brought into force and may change before it is. Draft code of practice on avoiding unlawful discrimination.

The civil penalty is up to £60,000 for each illegal worker. Separately, an employer who knew or had reasonable cause to believe a person did not have the right to work can be jailed for five years and fined without limit. GOV.UK on penalties for employing illegal workers.

Keep the record, then destroy it on time

The retention rule is short and has two halves. The draft guide says to keep the copies securely for the duration of the employment and for two years afterwards, and that the file or document must then be securely destroyed. Both halves are the rule, and the second is the one that gets forgotten. Draft employer's guide to right to work checks.

From 1 October 2026, where a digital verification provider runs a facial recognition check, SI 2026/700 requires copies of the facial images in a format that cannot later be altered, retained securely for not less than two years after the employment ends. SI 2026/700.

If someone's permission to work is time-limited, a follow-up check is due before it expires. Where you use the Home Office Employer Checking Service and receive a positive verification notice, the draft guide says the excuse runs for six months from the date specified in the notice, after which a further check is needed to keep it. Draft employer's guide to right to work checks.

This is identity-document data about people, so the data-protection side matters. The ICO's guidance on keeping employment records covers holding records for a purpose, telling workers how their information is used and limiting who can see what; the ICO notes the guidance is under review following the Data (Use and Access) Act. ICO on keeping employment records. The two-year period is what the immigration rules require you to keep; the destruction date is what stops it becoming an open-ended store.

Give the audit an owner before 1 October

The work in the next week is a list, not a policy. Write down everyone the business pays who is not an employee, decide which column each falls into and name the person who makes the check.

Scroll across the table if needed.

Then move the check to the point where the engagement is agreed rather than where the paperwork is filed. Ask for the share code when you offer the shift or the job, not on the morning it starts. Put the two-year destruction date and any time-limited expiry in the same diary that holds the shift rota, and add one line to your sub-contractor terms saying the check comes before the first day on site.

Our new starter checklist sets out the employee side of this, including where the right-to-work check sits among the other day-one deadlines, and the action list sorted by status is where an item like this belongs once the final guide is published. For a question about a particular person's status, or about how long to hold their documents, check the current GOV.UK and ICO guidance and seek appropriate advice.

Common questions

Do I need a right to work check for a self-employed contractor?

Only where the individual is an individual sub-contractor in the statutory sense: you were engaged to provide work or services for a third party and passed part of that work to them. A self-employed supplier who invoices you as their own client or customer is outside the scheme, and so is an individual working through their own limited company, where the draft guide states that "a right to work check is not required by the client company". Draft employer's guide to right to work checks.

Do I need a right to work check for casual or zero-hours staff?

From 1 October 2026, yes, where they are engaged under a worker's contract: they do the work personally and you are not a client or customer of a business they run. The check belongs before the first shift, with the date recorded. Section 48 of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025 was brought into force on that date by regulation 2 of SI 2026/683. SI 2026/683.

Who does the right to work check for agency workers?

The employment business that engages the individual, not the hirer where the work is done. The draft guide states that the employment business is the individual's employer for the purposes of the Right to Work Scheme and is therefore responsible for the check. Draft employer's guide to right to work checks. A practical approach is to ask the agency for written confirmation that compliant checks were made and keep it with the assignment record. The government said on 30 June 2026 that it would clarify how responsibilities apply within supply chains in guidance, so check the final guide when it is published. Government response on extending the right to work scheme.

Do I have to check people already working for me before 1 October 2026?

Not for the new categories. The draft guide states that for those working arrangements "a civil penalty may only be imposed where the employment commenced on or after 1 October 2026", so engagements already running are not brought in by the change. Where casual staff are taken on assignment by assignment rather than under one continuing contract, confirm how that is treated against the final published guide. Draft employer's guide to right to work checks.