From 1 October

Right to work checks: who is now in scope from 1 October

Updated 30 September 2026

From 1 October 2026, the duty to carry out a right-to-work check extends beyond people employed under a traditional contract of employment to a much wider group: contractors, freelancers, agency workers, gig economy workers, casual and temporary workers, and zero-hours workers. The Home Office has published a draft Employer's Guide and a draft Code of Practice setting out how the checks are meant to work in each of those arrangements.

What right-to-work checks are, in plain terms

A right-to-work check is the step an engager is meant to carry out before letting someone start work, to confirm that person has permission to work in the UK. Until 1 October 2026 the duty sat with organisations employing people under traditional contracts of employment, and it covered a narrower set of working arrangements than the labour market actually uses.

From that date the duty extends to a much wider set of arrangements, and the business that engages the worker becomes responsible for the check, not only the agency or platform in the middle. A correct check gives the engager a statutory excuse against civil penalty if it later turns out the worker did not have permission to work. Getting it wrong means civil penalty and, in deliberate cases, criminal liability.

What changes on 1 October 2026

Section 48 of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025 comes into force on 1 October 2026, following the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025 (Commencement No. 4) Regulations 2026 laid on 24 June 2026. That section amends the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006 so the right-to-work regime applies to arrangements beyond ordinary contracts of employment.

Alongside the commencement regulations, the Home Office has published a draft Employer's Guide to right to work checks, updated on 11 September 2026, and a draft Code of Practice setting out the prescriptive measures a business has to satisfy to keep a statutory excuse. The Code is specific on substitution, sub-contracting and online matching platforms, the engagement models that have sat outside the regime until now.

Who is now in scope

The categories the regime now reaches include workers engaged under a worker's contract but who are not employees under employment law, individual contractors and subcontractors, agency workers and labour supplied through contractual chains, casual and temporary workers including those on zero-hours contracts, and gig economy workers and platform-based service providers, plus any substitutes they use.

The change does not turn any of those people into employees for employment-law purposes. The Home Office has created its own definitions of employer, worker and worker's contract for the right-to-work regime, narrower than the employment-law meaning. What matters for the engager is that they may now be on the hook for a civil penalty if they bring someone in without a valid check, and that responsibility does not transfer to the agency, platform or umbrella company in the middle unless the contract actually says so.

Who stays outside the regime

Not every self-employed person is now caught. The Home Office guidance gives the example of a plumber running their own business, obtaining work from multiple customers, with their own tools and their own pricing, as a genuinely independent business where a check is not required. The right test is whether the person is providing their services as their own enterprise rather than being supplied into the engager's operation.

Where the position is unclear, the default for the engager is not assume outside. The new regime is meant to close a gap, and businesses using casual, agency, sub-contracted or platform labour should assume they are in scope unless a genuinely independent setup is clear. If you are a worker being asked for documents and you think the engagement does not warrant one, ask the engager to explain which category they think you fall into, in writing, before refusing.

The civil penalty: up to £45,000 per worker

The headline number for getting a right-to-work check wrong is up to £45,000 per illegal worker for a first breach, rising to up to £60,000 per worker for subsequent breaches. Those are the maxima on a per-worker basis, so a small engagement that turns out to involve three workers without right-to-work documents can mean £135,000 of exposure for the engager.

There is also a criminal route where an organisation knowingly employs someone who does not have the right to work. The Home Office has signalled continuing focus on high-risk sectors: hospitality, construction, logistics, delivery and the gig economy. The consultation response notes significant existing civil penalty activity in those sectors, and the new regime is designed to extend that to engagements previously outside the scheme.

A correct check, done through the prescribed Home Office online service, a permitted digital verification route using a government-registered provider, or the manual document route, gives the engager a statutory excuse against the civil penalty. The check has to be done before work starts, with records retained, and any required follow-up checks completed.

Where this connects to employment status

The Home Office has been clear that the right-to-work changes do not change employment law. A contractor brought within the right-to-work regime is not thereby an employee or worker for unfair dismissal, holiday pay or the minimum wage. The practical effect of compliance is that the engager has to look again at who they engage and how, the same exercise a tribunal would carry out if a worker later argues they have been misclassified.

That is why the Home Office impact assessment links the two. A business that has been calling someone a contractor, paying them through a personal service company, and not doing right-to-work checks is exactly the kind of arrangement that will be re-examined under both regimes in the next year. If your engager has started asking for right-to-work documents where they did not before, keep a copy of the request, the documents you provided, and the dates, in case a later dispute turns on what was understood at the start.

What to do in the meantime

Three things are worth doing now.

First, if you are engaged as a contractor, freelancer, agency worker or on a zero-hours contract, expect to be asked for right-to-work documents in October or shortly after. The Home Office online service and the manual document route are both still operative, and what counts as a valid check has not changed. What has changed is who the duty falls on.

Second, if you work through a personal service company and your engager is treating you as a genuinely independent business, make sure the working pattern genuinely supports that. Genuine independence in the Home Office guidance means multiple customers, your own equipment, your own pricing, and the right to refuse work. A pattern that looks like a personal service company on paper but operates as a single-customer, integrated engagement is now squarely in the new regime, and an employment status claim is a realistic risk if the working reality does not match the paperwork.

Third, keep records. The civil penalty falls on the engager, but the request itself, the documents you provided, and any email or letter about the new regime, is evidence you may need later if your employment status is disputed. Our worker vs employee page sets out the test in employment-law language and is worth a read if the new checks are being put in front of you for the first time.

This page explains the law as it stands on 30 September 2026. It is general information, not legal advice. For your situation, speak to Acas, a solicitor, or your union.