UK. Home Office employer's guide, 26 June 2025 edition
Which right to work check do you need in the UK?
The right prescribed check before employment gives a statutory excuse against a civil penalty of up to £60,000 per illegal worker. Checks: manual documents, a Home Office share code check online, or digital verification for British and Irish passports.
Question 1
What are you trying to do?
This wizard is written for employers. It follows the Home Office employer's guide, which since 1 October 2026 also covers people engaged under a worker's contract, individual sub-contractors and online matching services (see the subcontractors guide).
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Which right to work check applies, by who you are hiring
Last updated
The three prescribed checks mapped to the situations employers actually meet, with what you must retain in each case. This is the same logic the wizard applies.
| Who you are hiring | Check that gives a statutory excuse | Follow-up needed? |
|---|---|---|
| British or Irish citizen with a valid passport or Irish passport card | Manual List A check, or a certified digital verification service | No |
| British citizen with no current passport | Manual List A check using the alternative documents, for example a birth certificate with official evidence of a National Insurance number | No |
| Anyone with an eVisa (including former BRP and BRC holders) | Home Office online check using their right to work share code | Only if the permission is time-limited |
| EU Settlement Scheme settled status | Home Office online check using their share code | No |
| EU Settlement Scheme pre-settled status | Home Office online check using their share code | Yes, on or before expiry |
| Student with a term-time hour limit | Home Office online check, plus obtain and retain term and vacation dates from the education provider | Yes, on or before expiry |
| Sponsored worker on your own licence | Home Office online check, alongside your separate sponsor record-keeping duties | Yes, on or before expiry |
| Outstanding application, appeal or administrative review, Certificate of Application or Application Registration Card | Employer Checking Service, Positive Verification Notice | Yes, the notice gives a six-month excuse |
| EU, EEA or Swiss employee already working for you who came to the UK before 1 July 2021 | No check required, and no retrospective check expected | No |
- An employer who does not carry out the correct right to work check can face a civil penalty of up to £60,000 for each illegal worker (gov.uk, penalties for employing illegal workers).
- A Home Office right to work share code is 9 characters long, begins with the letter W, and is valid for 90 calendar days; codes beginning R or S are for other services and cannot be used for a right to work check.
- Physical biometric residence permits and cards are no longer acceptable evidence of the right to work: gov.uk tells employers to ask for a share code instead.
- Right to work check evidence must be kept for the duration of the person's employment and a further two years after they stop working for you, then securely destroyed.
How this was compiled, and how to cite it
Mapped from the Home Office employer's guide to right to work checks (26 June 2025 accessible edition, page updated 16 July 2026) and the gov.uk pages on checking a job applicant's right to work and penalties for employing illegal workers, read on the updated date above. Where the guide restricts a route to a category of person, that restriction is reproduced rather than generalised. Retention in every row is the duration of employment plus two years, then secure destruction.
Cite this page
“Which right to work check applies, by who you are hiring”, Right to Work Wizard, https://righttoworkwizard.co.uk/ (updated 2026-10-28). Mapped from the Home Office employer's guide to right to work checks (26 June 2025 accessible edition, page updated 16 July 2026) and the gov.uk pages on checking a job applicant's right to work and penalties for employing illegal workers, read on the updated date above. Where the guide restricts a route to a category of person, that restriction is reproduced rather than generalised. Retention in every row is the duration of employment plus two years, then secure destruction.
Need right to work checks handled properly?
We will pass your details to up to three immigration solicitors and advisers, who contact you directly.
The detail
Sourced, dated, kept current.
Right to work check documents list: List A and List B
Which documents you can accept for a right to work check, what List A and List B mean for your statutory excuse, and the three steps: obtain, check, copy.
Check right to work share code: how the Home Office online check works
How a right to work share code works, why it must begin with W, why 90 days matters, and how to run the Home Office online check so it gives you a statutory excuse.
Right to work check with a BRP: why it no longer counts
Biometric residence permits and cards are no longer acceptable evidence for a right to work check. What replaced them, what to ask candidates for, and what to fix.
Right to work check cost: what is free and what you pay for
The Home Office online right to work check is free. What you may pay for is a digital verification service, an audit or advice. What drives those prices, and what to ask.
Right to work check for employers: the duty, the routes, the penalty
What an employer must do before someone starts, the three routes gov.uk recognises, when a repeat check falls due, and the civil penalty for getting it wrong.
Right to work checks for subcontractors: what changed on 1 October 2026
From 1 October 2026 right to work checks reach individual sub-contractors, worker's contracts and matching platforms, and head contractors up a chain.
Scope of this checker
The 7 things it checks
- The three prescribed checks: manual documents, Home Office online, digital verification service
- Which route is open for British and Irish citizens, and which is not
- eVisas, share codes and why physical BRPs are no longer acceptable
- Sponsored workers, students with term-time hour limits, and EU Settlement Scheme status
- When to use the Home Office Employer Checking Service
- Follow-up checks and how long to keep the evidence
- Based on the Home Office employer's guide to right to work checks (26 June 2025 edition, updated 16 July 2026)
Right to Work Wizard is a guide. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Home Office, UK Visas and Immigration or any government body, and nothing here is legal or immigration advice. Immigration rules and Home Office guidance change: verify the current position in the employer's guide linked in our sources before you rely on an outcome, and take advice on anything unusual. If you ask us to, we will pass your details to immigration solicitors and advisers, who may pay us a fee; you pay nothing and are under no obligation.
The questions we get
What are the three types of right to work check?
A manual check of original List A or List B documents. A Home Office online share code check, for those not British or Irish. A certified digital verification service, which the guide restricts to British and Irish citizens with a valid passport or Irish passport card. Any of them, done correctly before employment, gives a statutory excuse.
What is a statutory excuse?
It is the employer's defence against liability for a civil penalty. The Home Office employer's guide says the prescribed check establishes a statutory excuse against liability for a penalty. If you checked correctly and someone is later found not to have the right to work, you will not have to pay the penalty.
What is the maximum civil penalty for employing an illegal worker?
Up to £60,000 for each illegal worker, per gov.uk's page on penalties for employing illegal workers. You will not pay it if you show you made the correct right to work checks. Separately, knowingly employing someone without the right to work is a criminal offence: up to five years' imprisonment and an unlimited fine.
Can I check a British citizen's right to work online?
No. British and Irish citizens cannot get a Home Office share code, so the online service is not available for them. Check their original documents yourself, or use a certified digital verification service if they hold a valid passport or Irish passport card.
When does the check have to be done?
Before employment commences. The statutory excuse depends on a correct check made before the person starts work, so a check completed after the first shift does not cover that shift. Where permission is time-limited, a follow-up check should take place on or before the date the permission ends.
Do I need to re-check existing EU employees?
No. gov.uk states that you do not need to do checks for existing employees from the EU, EEA or Switzerland who came to the UK before 1 July 2021. Re-checking historic hires selectively by nationality also creates a discrimination risk.
Can a recruitment agency do the check for us?
Not for a manual document check. Except for a certified provider for British and Irish passport holders, the guide says a check by a third party gives no statutory excuse. That includes a recruitment agency or a professional adviser. The liability stays with the employer either way.
Is this a right to work checker?
It checks which right to work check applies to a hire, not the person's status. Immigration status is checked on gov.uk's view a job applicant's right to work details service, with the share code they give you. A British or Irish citizen is checked by manual documents or a certified digital verification service.
Sources
This site's own datasets, every figure quoted from its source and dated:
- The Immigration Route Work Rights carries 4 published figures read from 4 sources' own pages, from 14 to 90 day, read 7 November 2026.
- The Right to Work Check Rules carries 4 published figures read from 4 sources' own pages, from 28 to 90 day, read 7 November 2026.
- The median published figure in the RTW Check Provider Index is 7.96 GBP across 6 sources' own pages (range 5.40 to 10 GBP), read 12 October 2026.
- gov.uk, checking a job applicant's right to work
- gov.uk, check a job applicant's right to work: use their share code
- gov.uk, prove your right to work to an employer
- gov.uk, penalties for employing illegal workers
- Home Office, employer's guide to right to work checks (26 June 2025 accessible edition)
- Home Office, right to work checks employer guidance collection
- gov.uk, right to work checklist
- legislation.gov.uk, Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025, section 48
- legislation.gov.uk, the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025 (Commencement No. 4) Regulations 2026 (SI 2026/683)
- Home Office, employer's guide to right to work checks, 1 October 2026
Check before the first shift, not after
One minute in the wizard against a civil penalty of up to £60,000 per illegal worker.
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