How to check a worker's right to work?

The organisation must check that the person can work for you in the UK before employment commence. In fact, before issuing any offer of employment, a check should be made first.

Before any engagement or promise of  employment, we recommend you do the following:

• See the worker’s original documents which should be their travel document if they have one.
• If the person is not a UK settled person, ask to see evidence of right to work such as a Biometric Residence Permit, EU Settlement Scheme approval letter or other Home Office evidence.
• Once the checks are made, take copies of the original documents, and record the date you made the check, print your full name and sign each document.

Note: You could face a civil penalty if the organisation employs an illegal worker and you have not carried out a correct right to work check. The civil penalty could be £20,000 per illegal worker and up to 5 years in prison.

Important Notice

You or your organisation must not discriminate against anyone because of their race or ability to do the job if they need permission to work in the UK from the Home Office.

If you need help in verifying a worker rights to work or like us to audit all employee files, contact us below.

Before your organisation should consider employing someone, they need to check that:

• the person to hire documents are originals and belong to them.
• the dates for the person's right to work status in the UK has not expired.
• photos are the same across all documents and look like the person you wishing to employ.
• date of birth are the same across all that persons documents.
• the person has permission to do the type of work your organisation is offering including any limit on the number of hours they can work.
• for students under immigration control, the organisation must see evidence of their study and vacation times. They must verify this directly with the training institute. Tip: Check to see if the training institute still has a valid Home Office sponsor licence.
• if person you wih to employ has different names on different documents, ask why. This could be due to marriage or divorce. Ask the person, has the Home Office been notified if your name changed since your last visa permission?

Read the guidance on preventing illegal employment in the UK for the lists of acceptable documents and how to conduct right to work checks.

Note: Further checks - you don’t have to do further checks if the person doesn’t have restrictions on their right to work in the UK.

You will have to make additional checks on your workers if they have a limited right to work in the UK. This means track when their visas will expire and do not permit employment after the visa has expired if you do not have the following evidence:

• New visa application was submitted before their current visa has expired. If the visa application was submitted after the visa expired that worker cannot work until either their new visa has been approved or the Home Office states otherwise.
• You have seen the new visa before the current one had expired.

Note: If the visa has expired and the worker provides you original evidence of royal mail or courier receipt then this would suffice. I would still ask the worker to provide evidence that the Home Office fee was deducted from their account if applicable and if the Home Office sends out confirmation letter of receipt, request to see the original copy and place a copy on file.

It is very important your organisation takes copies of all original evidence and file.

You could be audited by the likes of the Home Office, HMRC and other regulating bodies. You may have to call upon these documents to demonstrate compliance and if you had to attend an employment tribunal. 

When you copy the documents, you should:

write your full name, date seen original evidence, state you copied the original, your job position and then,

take a photocopy or scan the document and file;

for passports, copy any page with the expiry date, applicant’s details (e.g. nationality, date of birth and photograph) including endorsements, e.g. a work visa or Certificate of Entitlement to the right of abode in the UK;

for biometric residence permits, copy both sides of the card;

for all other documents you must make a complete copy;

keep copies during the worker’s employment and if they leave your employment, keep the file for 1 year.

Make sure your organisation follows the  data protection law when holding onto 'personal data'.

The law states you should not employ a person until a right to work check has been made, but what if the person you are interviewing forgot to bring his/her documents to the interview or they have no documents to prove their right to work, what do you do?

If they have documents, but not on them and you want to offer them a job, you can say, we want to hire you but we cannot do this until you demonstrate your right to work status.

If they have no evidence at all, you must use the Home Office’s Employer Checking Service to see if an applicant has the right to work if:

• they cannot show you their documents (e.g. they have an outstanding appeal or application with the Home Office) or
• they have an Application Registration Card or a Certificate of Application.

To request a check, download and fill in the employer checking service enquiry form and email it to the Employer Checking Service. You can email the Home Office via   employercheckingservice@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk.

Your organisation can contact any regulated law firm like ours and they can check the persons documents to see if they can work or require a new visa.

You can contact the Sponsorship, Employer and Education helpline by emailing them on BusinessHelpdesk@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk or, call them on 0300 123 4699 any time between Monday to Thursday, 9 am to 5 pm and Friday, 9 am to 4.30 pm.

If you do not feel comfortable discussing this with the Home Office you can contact our law firm instead where we will ensure any conversations regarding your workforce is strictly confidential. 

If we find any non-compliance we will simply guide you as to what to do and if requested recommend procedures to follow. 

Our aim is not to change the way you do things, but to guide you on how to avert future immigration issues.

To learn more about preventing illegal employment, you can check out the Home Office guidance document.