UK right to work expansion – are you ready?

1st October 2026 | Nelli Shevchenko | Immigration, Right to work checks, employed workers

There has been a significant update in relation to right to work checks for all businesses, which will come into force from 1 October 2026.

All UK companies need to act now, if they want to avoid the liability that will arise if they are found to be employing someone illegally including fines up to £40,000 per worker for first offence and £60,000 per worker for repeat breaches within three years. This means that processes will need to be updated, and employees will need to be trained to ensure they are meeting the new requirements.

What is changing?

The change comes from section 48 of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025, which amends the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006. Until now, the duty to carry out right to work checks has mainly applied to traditional employees. From 1 October 2026, that duty widens considerably.

The definition of employer is being expanded. It will now cover a person who engages an individual under a worker’s contract, an individual sub-contractor, and a person found through an online matching service, such as a gig economy or delivery platform. In each case, the business will need to check that the individual has the right to work in the UK before they start work, in the same way it already does for direct employees.

Who is affected?

The changes are particularly relevant to businesses using gig-economy labour and flexible working arrangements, including those in construction, food, courier services, beauty and warehousing. The government’s consultation response highlights the different operational pressures facing businesses that rely on contractors, agency labour, seasonal workers and self-employed individuals.

Simply describing someone as “self-employed” should not be treated as the end of the assessment. Businesses should examine the nature of the relationship and how the work is actually delivered, rather than relying solely on contractual labels.

Could your business be liable for someone it does not directly employ?

A new form of extended liability is also being introduced. Under a subcontracting chain, a business further up the chain can be held responsible if a worker further down the chain does not have the right to work, even where there is no direct contract between them. The same principle applies to online matching services, and to arrangements where a worker is allowed to substitute someone else to do the work in their place. This is designed to close a gap that allowed some businesses to distance themselves from the hiring practices of their suppliers.

However, this does not mean that every business buying services from another company automatically becomes responsible for that company’s workforce. The distinction between a business subcontracting service it has agreed to deliver and an end customer purchasing services for its own operations is important. The contractual structure must be assessed carefully.

How can businesses protect themselves?

For direct employment relationships covered by the scheme, completing the prescribed right to work check before work starts can establish a “statutory excuse”: a defence against a civil penalty if the individual is subsequently found to have been working illegally. A missing or defective check does not, by itself, mean that a civil penalty is payable. The penalty is applicable is only where illegal working has occurred and then the business needs a valid defence.

Extended liability for subcontracting relationship requires a different approach. The new requirements include contractual safeguards addressing right to work checks, restrictions on further subcontracting without written consent, audit rights, enforcement provisions and cooperation with Home Office investigations. A generic promise that a supplier will “comply with immigration law” will not be treated as sufficient without checking the prescribed requirements and the contract should contain specific terms.

Businesses must also have proportionate identity-verification processes to establish that the person doing the work is the person whose right to work was checked. These arrangements must operate in practice and clear line of responsibility for the checks needs to be established.

What should you do to protect yourself?

Businesses should not wait for the deadline to arrive. Our advice is to address the changes in two separate exercises:

• Direct responsibility for workers. A sensible starting point is to map every way that individuals carry out work for the business, not just those on payroll. This should include agency staff, contractors, subcontractors, casual workers, and anyone engaged through an online platform.
• Extended liability and subcontracting chain. Businesses should work out where the direct contractual relationship sits, and where they might face extended liability further up a supply chain. New contracts from 1 October 2026 with agencies, suppliers, and subcontractors should be reviewed and updated to include the right clauses, audit rights, and controls over further subcontracting.
• Additional training and record keeping. HR teams and hiring managers should be trained on the new categories of worker and the checks that go with them, as well as where the checks are required as part of the subcontracting relationship. Evidence of checks should be stored consistently, so that a statutory excuse can be demonstrated on request and an audit request from a client can be satisfied.
• Digital checks. Businesses using digital identity-checking services should also review their providers. From October, where an employer chooses to use a digital verification service provider for the relevant checks, the provider must be government-registered for Right to Work. The reforms do not mean that every business must purchase a digital checking service.

Final thoughts

The changes represent a real shift in how the government expects businesses to manage their workforce and their supply chains. Immigration compliance is moving from a routine HR task to a matter of wider corporate governance. Businesses that rely on contractors, agency staff, or platform-based labour have a limited window before 1 October 2026 to get their house in order.

If you would like advice on how these changes affect your business, please get in touch with Sherrards’ immigration team.