With these figures and the extended UK Right to Work regime only a month away, now is the time for employers to familiarise themselves with the RtW requirements to best protect against the cost of enforcement action.

 

What is the Right to Work scheme?

All employers in the UK have a responsibility to prevent illegal working. At present, direct employers are required to conduct a Right to Work (“RtW”) check before employment begins, to make sure an individual is not disqualified from carrying out the work in question by reason of their immigration status. Conducting a valid RtW check will establish a statutory excuse against liability for civil penalty in the event someone is found to be illegally working.

A civil penalty can be up to £60,000 and applies to all employers; however, UK sponsors should also be aware that they could also risk having their licenses revoked as a direct result of failing to prevent illegal working.

 

What is changing?

From 1 October 2026, changes introduced by the Border Security, Asylum, and Immigration Act 2025, will expand the scope of the RtW scheme beyond the traditional employment arrangement. A wider scope of businesses could become subject to RtW obligations, and importantly, civil penalty exposure under the illegal working regime.

The new regime will expand the definition of “employer” for the purpose of RtW checks and it will now mean that additional categories of direct contractual relationships will be required to conduct RtW checks, including:

• workers engaged under a worker’s contract;
• individual sub-contractors; and
• online matching services e.g., individuals hired via digital platforms.

 

Additionally, and importantly, the new regime seeks to expand civil penalty liability beyond the employer who holds the direct contractual relationship with the worker. This could include:

• individuals contracted to provide work or services to a third party;
• an online matching service; or
• the employer in the case of a substitution clause.

 

The extended liability regime

The Home Office will first look to identify the direct employer, but where that cannot be identified, or where a RtW check is not compliant, liability may move further along a contractual chain. Where extended liability may arise, businesses will need to be able to demonstrate that they have taken reasonable and proportionate steps to ensure RtW compliance by meeting the “prescribed requirements”.

Prescribed requirements under extended liability regime:

• Contractual terms and conditions (written statement) – there must be, before the work or service commences a written statement in place which sets out the five prescribed terms and conditions to be included in the contract in relation to RtW;
• Substitution controls – where a contractual arrangement permits substitutions it must be demonstrated that before the work or service commences, the five prescribed processes are in place in relation to RtW;
• Identity verification – must have proportionate systems and processes in place to ensure that the individual carrying out the work or services is the same individual on whom a RtW check has been conducted.

The government’s draft RtW guidance outlines these prescribed requirements in full.

 

Things to watch

While the draft guidance goes a long way in outlining where the extended regime will and will not apply, including a series of worked examples, there are still some questions.

In particular, when considering self-employment arrangements, which are said to fall outside the regime, it emphasises that labels are not determinative and consideration should be given to the “nature of the arrangement”. Where an organisation is relying on self-employment models, it should consider how the arrangement works in practice. Interestingly, this could impact law firms.

 

What should employers do now?

Businesses should review their contracts and worker-checking processes before the proposed changes take effect on 1 October 2026. Despite not being retrospective, a useful exercise would be to review all current contracts as this will inform what future contractual relationships will look like and the compliance processes that need to be in place.

The Home Office is holding a series of information events on the new expanded RtW scheme ahead of 1 October 2026. We would recommend employers, HR professionals and staff responsible for conducting RtW checks attend where possible.

 

A clear understanding of the UK RtW scheme is key for all employers and not just UK sponsors. At Lee & Thompson our Immigration team can assist you with the practical impact of this upcoming expansion.