The biggest shake up to UK right to work rules in years came into force on 1 October 2026. Until now, the legal duty to check someone’s right to work mainly applied to people on a contract of employment. That duty now stretches much further, covering agency workers, zero hours staff, gig workers, individual subcontractors and the online platforms that connect them with work.

It cost up to £60,000 for every person found to be working illegally.

As a recruitment agency supplying temporary and permanent staff across the East Midlands, this affects us directly. It also affects many of the businesses we work with. Below we cover what has changed, who it applies to and what you need to do.

What has changed?

The changes come from the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025, backed by a new Home Office code of practice for employers. Following a government consultation on preventing illegal working, the right to work scheme has been extended in three main ways.

1. More types of worker are covered. Checks now apply to people on a worker’s contract, individual subcontractors and people finding work through online matching services, not just traditional employees.
2. The definition of “employer” is wider. Businesses that engage gig workers, zero hours workers or individual subcontractors, along with platforms that connect service providers with customers, are now treated as employers for right to work purposes.
3. Liability can travel up the supply chain. In certain contractual chains, a business can be treated as the employer of someone it never engaged directly.

For many organisations, a candidate accepts a role, HR runs the check and the employee starts. From October 2026 it needs to cover everyone who carries out work for you, however they’re engaged.

Who now counts as an employer?

Under the new rules, you’re treated as an employer for right to work purposes if someone works for you under any of the following.

• A contract of employment (a contract of service or an apprenticeship)
• A worker’s contract
• An arrangement as an individual subcontractor
• An online matching service, where you provide the details of an individual service provider to potential clients or customers

The Home Office code of practice also covers some temporary workers operating under contracts for services, plus substitutes carrying out work where a contract allows someone to send another person in their place.

Labels don’t decide it

This catches a lot of businesses out. Calling someone a freelancer, contractor or self employed doesn’t automatically take them out of scope. What matters is how the arrangement works in practice. Who finds or allocates the work? Does the person have to do the job themselves? Are they genuinely running their own independent business?

Liability up the supply chain

Civil penalty liability can now extend up contractual chains. Say a business is contracted to deliver a service. It passes some of that work to a labour provider, who passes it to a subcontractor, who sends an individual to do the job. In specified circumstances, a business higher up that chain can be treated as employing the person at the bottom, even with no direct contract between them.

The Home Office says it will first look to the organisation with the direct contractual relationship with the worker. Extended liability is most likely to apply in three situations.

• A business contracted to provide work or services uses another organisation to supply the workers
• An online matching service connects service providers with clients or customers
• A contract allows an individual to send a substitute to carry out the work

This doesn’t mean every customer is responsible for everyone working in a supplier’s business. Buying a service for your own use doesn’t automatically make you liable. But where an arrangement is in scope, a line in a contract saying the supplier handles right to work checks may not be enough on its own.

Supplier and subcontractor terms may now need to include the following.

• A requirement to carry out prescribed right to work checks
• A ban on further subcontracting without written consent
• The same right to work obligations for any approved subcontractors
• Rights to audit compliance
• Clear action if non compliance is found
• A duty to cooperate with any Home Office investigation
• Controls covering substitution and identity checks

Why the rules changed?

Work now comes through agencies, contractors, apps and supply chains with several organisations involved. The government’s view is that the old rules hadn’t kept up, leaving gaps where illegal working could slip through outside a standard employer and employee relationship.

Construction, food delivery, beauty, courier services and warehousing were named as sectors where these non traditional arrangements are common.

Office based businesses are still affected. The government’s consultation found that among the organisations that responded, 41% used agency workers, 35% used self employed workers, 26% used freelancers and 25% used individual subcontractors. Most businesses already run a mix of models, often without a single view of all of them.

A reminder of the basics

The ground rules for a compliant check still apply. The check must be done before the person starts work, with an imposter check on their first day to make sure the person turning up is the person you checked. If their right to work has an expiry date, you’ll need a follow up check before it runs out.

There are four ways to carry out a check.

Manual document check

The person provides an original document from the Home Office list of acceptable documents, such as a passport or a certificate of registration or naturalisation as a British citizen. You must have the original in your hands, although the face to face part can happen over a video call.

Check the document is genuine and belongs to the person. Look at the photo, date of birth, any expiry date, any work restrictions and evidence for any name changes. Some documents, such as a British passport, give you a continuous excuse. Others only give a time limited one, so a repeat check will be needed.

Digital verification service

This can be used for people holding a valid British or Irish passport. The provider confirms the passport is valid and you confirm the details match the person in front of you. The provider must be listed on the government’s Digital Verification Services register and certified for right to work checks. The imposter check is still your job.

Share code

People with an eVisa or limited or indefinite leave to remain can give you a share code. Enter it with their date of birth on the GOV.UK online checking service. Codes last 90 days from issue. Confirm the photo matches the person, check they’re allowed to do the work on offer and diarise any expiry date.

Employer Checking Service

If someone has an outstanding application, appeal or review, holds an Application Registration Card or can’t provide documents because of a technical issue, you can use the Home Office Employer Checking Service. It issues a Positive Verification Notice confirming the person can work, which can take up to five days.

Keep your records

Whatever method you use, keep evidence of the check for the length of employment plus at least two years afterwards. For a passport, keep the photo page and any page showing permission to work. For other documents, keep a full copy. Record the date of the check and, ideally, who carried it out.

The cost of getting it wrong

A compliant check, carried out in the prescribed way, gives you a statutory excuse. That’s your protection against a civil penalty of up to £60,000 per illegal worker. Skip the check or get it wrong and that protection is gone.

The fine isn’t the only risk. Getting right to work wrong can also lead to closer scrutiny from regulators, disruption while an investigation runs, reputational damage and problems for any business holding a sponsor licence. In serious cases where a business knowingly allows illegal working, there can be criminal consequences too.

What this means if you use temporary or agency staff?

Agency workers are now firmly inside the right to work scheme. If you bring in temps, contractors or flexible staff, it’s worth asking a few questions.

• Who carries out the right to work check on each person who works for you, and can they prove it?
• Does your agency subcontract any of its supply to other agencies or umbrella companies?
• Do your contracts with suppliers spell out right to work responsibilities, audit rights and what happens if checks are missed?
• Do you have a process for checking that the person who turns up on day one is the person who was checked?

The agency you use makes a big difference here. A reputable agency should carry out compliant checks before anyone starts an assignment, keep proper records and be able to show you that evidence if you ask. If your current supplier can’t answer these questions clearly, that’s a risk now sitting with your business as well as theirs.

It’s also worth looking beyond your agency. Many businesses engage freelancers, sole trader subcontractors or people found through online platforms without thinking of them as “staff”. From October 2026, many of those arrangements need checking too.

How Express Recruitment can help

We’ve been supplying temporary and permanent staff since 1987, and compliance has always been part of how we work. Right to work checks are built into how we register and onboard every candidate, with records kept so we can evidence them if needed.

What that means for you

When you take on a temp through us, we carry out the right to work check before they start and keep the evidence on file. If their permission to work has an expiry date, we handle the follow up check too. You get the flexibility of temporary staff without having to run those checks yourself.

We’re an independent agency and we don’t pass your vacancies down a chain of other suppliers. That keeps things simple and makes it clear who is responsible for what, which matters more now that liability can travel up contractual chains.

We recruit for office based roles across business support, customer service, finance, engineering and tech. Our consultants aren’t tied to individual clients, so whoever picks up your call knows how our checks work and can answer your questions.