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Right to Work changes in October 2026: what businesses need to know
New Right to Work rules will extend compliance responsibilities beyond traditional employees. Find out what is changing on 1 October 2026, who could be affected and how businesses can prepare.
3 September 2026
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At a glance
- New rules take effect on 1 October 2026, expanding the Right to Work Scheme beyond traditional employees.
- Workers, individual subcontractors and online matching services can fall within scope of the expanded regime.
- New extended liability provisions can also apply within certain contractual and labour supply chains.
- Civil penalties can reach £60,000 per illegal worker, making effective checks and record keeping increasingly important.
- Follow a Right to Work readiness checklist to understand what you need to do.
What is changing to Right to Work checks in October 2026?
Right to Work checks help organisations establish whether an individual has permission to work in the UK.
Until now, the statutory scheme has principally applied where an individual is employed under a contract of employment.
From 1 October 2026, the definition used within the Right to Work Scheme becomes broader. Under the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025, Right to Work requirements will extend beyond traditional contracts of employment to cover a wider range of working arrangements.1
The new legislation extends the regime to include:
- Individuals working under a worker’s contract
- Individual subcontractors in circumstances covered by the legislation
- Online matching services that provide details of individual service providers to potential clients or customers.2
The Government says the changes are intended to reflect the way the modern labour market has evolved, including the growth of temporary work, casual work and the gig economy.
For businesses, this means Right to Work compliance may no longer sit solely within employee recruitment and onboarding. Organisations should consider whether their existing processes give them sufficient visibility and control across the different ways people carry out work for them.
With civil penalties for illegal working reaching up to £60,000 per worker, understanding the changes before October will be important for your business.
| What is changing? | Who should review it? | What should you do now? |
| More working arrangements will be in score | Organisations using worker contracts, individual subcontractors, temporary labour or online matching services | Map every route through which people provide work or services |
| Liability may extend through some contractual chains | Contractors, platforms and businesses using other organisations to deliver work or services | Review supplier terms, subcontracting controls, audit right and enforcement provisions |
| Digital providers must be registers for Right to Work | Employers choosing to use a digital verification service | Confirm that the specific service is registered for Right to Work checks |
| Candidate treatment will receive greater attention | Every organisation carrying out initial or repeat checks | Make sure valid digital, online, manual and Employer checking Service routes are handled consistently |
| Acceptable-evidence rules are being updated | Recruitment and HR teams completing document-based checks | Update checking instructions, training and evidence-retention processes |
Why are the Right to Work rules changing?
The way organisations access skills and labour has changed considerably.
People may work through agencies, provide services as contractors, accept work through digital platforms or form part of complex supply chains involving several different organisations.
The Government has said that existing Right to Work legislation has not always reflected these newer working models.
The changes are designed to make it harder for illegal working to take place through working arrangements that fall outside a conventional employer and employee relationship.
The Government has specifically identified example sectors where non-traditional working arrangements can be common, including:
- Construction
- Food delivery
- Beauty
- Courier services
- Warehousing
However, organisations in other sectors should not assume the changes are irrelevant to them. Businesses using flexible labour, contractors or more complex workforce supply arrangements should consider whether any part of their operating model is affected.
What does this mean for employers?
One of the biggest changes is likely to be the way organisations think about Right to Work compliance.
For many businesses, Right to Work has traditionally been treated as an HR or recruitment process:
Candidate accepts role → Right to Work check completed → employee starts work
From October 2026, organisations may need to take a broader view. Depending on how work is arranged, relevant individuals could sit outside the organisation’s permanent employee population.
That means responsibility for understanding who is performing work may increasingly involve HR, procurement, legal, compliance, operations and supplier management teams.
Organisations should therefore consider questions such as:
- What types of workers do we currently engage?
- Where do we use temporary, casual or contingent labour?
- Do we engage individual subcontractors to deliver services?
- Where do third parties provide or arrange labour?
- Do our contracts allow workers to be substituted?
- Who is responsible for checking individuals within each arrangement?
- What evidence do we retain to demonstrate that appropriate requirements have been followed?
For larger organisations in particular, answering those questions consistently across multiple sites, suppliers and business functions could be challenging.
Start with how people really work for you
A permanent employee working under a contract of employment is already subject to Right to Work checks. From October, the Scheme will cover a broader range of working relationships.
The draft Home Office guidance includes:
- Individuals engaged under worker contracts
- Some temporary workers operating under contracts for services
- Individual subcontractors
- People obtaining work through certain online matching services
- Substitutes carrying out work where substitution is allowed
The label used in a contract will not settle the question on its own. Calling someone a freelancer, contractor or self-employed worker does not automatically place them outside the Scheme.
You need to look at how the arrangement operates in practice, including who finds or allocates the work, whether the individual must provide the service personally and whether they are genuinely running an independent business.
Key takeaway
Map the reality of your working arrangements rather than relying on the title at the top of the contract.
What does extended liability in labour supply chains mean?
The new regime also introduces extended civil penalty liability in certain contractual chains.1
This can apply where an organisation is itself contracted to provide or arrange work or services, and then contracts with another party to deliver some or all of that work.
Consider a simplified example:
Organisation → service or labour provider → subcontractor → individual carrying out the work
In specified circumstances, an organisation within that chain may be treated as employing the individual who ultimately performs the work, even where it does not have a direct contractual relationship with that individual.
This does not mean that every organisation purchasing outsourced services automatically becomes responsible for the Right to Work status of a supplier’s workforce. The contractual structure, and the organisation’s role in providing or arranging the relevant work or services, are important.
Organisations operating within relevant labour or service supply chains should therefore understand how those arrangements are structured, where responsibilities sit and what prescribed requirements may need to be met to establish a statutory excuse.
This could make Right to Work an increasingly important consideration when appointing and managing suppliers.
Take a closer look at labour suppliers and contractual chains
The changes will also affect some organisations that do not have a direct contract with the person doing the work.
Where illegal working is identified, the Home Office says it will first seek to identify the employer with the direct contractual relationship with the worker. However, extended liability may apply in certain arrangements involving:
A business contracted to provide work or services that uses another organisation to provide workers
An online matching service connecting service providers with clients or customers
A contract that allows an individual to substitute another person to carry out the work
This does not make every customer or end user responsible for everybody working within a supplier’s business. The rules do not automatically apply whenever an organisation buys a service for its own use.
However, where an arrangement is within scope, a contract saying that the supplier is responsible for Right to Work checks may not be enough.
Depending on the arrangement, supplier and subcontractor terms may need to include:
- A requirement to complete prescribed Right to Work checks
- A restriction on further subcontracting without written consent
- Equivalent Right to Work obligations for approved subcontractors
- Rights to audit compliance
- Action that can be taken where non-compliance is found
- A requirement to cooperate with a Home Office investigation
- Controls covering substitution and identity verification
Key takeaway
Build Right to Work into supplier governance. Your controls should be clear, active and easy to evidence.
Who could be affected?
The precise impact will depend on an organisation’s workforce and supplier model. Businesses should pay particular attention if they use:
Casual or temporary workers
Workers engaged outside traditional employment contracts
Individual subcontractors
Agency or supplied labour
Online matching services to access workers
Multi-party labour supply arrangements
The Government’s consultation found that many organisations already operate across a mixture of workforce models. Among organisational respondents, 41% reported using agency workers, 35% self-employed workers, 26% freelancers and 25% individual subcontractors.3
Businesses with decentralised recruitment or procurement models may also want to look closely at whether they have a consistent view of these arrangements across the organisation.
What happens if businesses get Right to Work checks wrong?
The financial consequences of employing someone who does not have permission to work in the UK can be significant.
Civil penalties can currently reach £60,000 for each illegal worker.4
Carrying out a compliant Right to Work check in the prescribed manner can provide an organisation with a statutory excuse against a civil penalty in relevant circumstances.
But financial penalties are only part of the risk.
Right to Work failures can also lead to:
- Greater regulatory scrutiny
- Operational disruption during investigations
- Reputational damage
- Difficulties demonstrating compliance during an audit
- Potential implications for organisations holding a sponsor licence
- Criminal consequences in serious cases where illegal working is knowingly permitted
As the number and variety of working arrangements within scope increases, consistency becomes particularly important.
What should businesses do before 1 October 2026?
Organisations should use the period before October to understand how the changes apply to their workforce.
Your Right to Work readiness checklist
1. Map where the new rules may apply
- Identify all the ways people carry out work for your organisation.
- Get a view of how you manage employees, workers, individual subcontractors, agency staff, freelancers and platform-based arrangements.
- Review where your business acts as an end-user versus where it is part of a supply chain.
2. Review contracts and supplier terms
- Check agency, subcontractor and service-provider contracts.
- Confirm who is responsible for carrying out Right to Work checks.
- Make sure terms are in place before the relevant work starts.
3. Update onboarding and checking processes
- Extend Right to Work checks beyond standard employee recruitment where needed.
- Confirm the correct check route is used in each case.
- Put processes in place to verify the identity of the person actually doing the work.
- Review how follow-up checks and re-verification are handled.
4. Strengthen record keeping and evidence
- Ensure checks are logged consistently across teams, sites and systems.
- Keep evidence of who was checked, when the check took place and which process was used.
- Make sure records can support a statutory excuse if challenged.
- Avoid relying on informal or fragmented storage methods.
5. Train relevant teams
- Brief HR, procurement, legal, operations and supplier managers.
- Make sure managers understand when to escalate borderline cases.
- Explain the risks of relying on labels alone, such as “self-employed” or “contractor”.
- Confirm who owns compliance at each stage of the process.
6. Review and monitor regularly
- Reassess arrangements before October 2026 and again when final guidance is published.
- Check that supplier controls are being followed in practice.
- Review whether your processes remain consistent across the business.
- Update policies and guidance as the new regime takes effect.
Use digital checks without losing control
Digital checks can help make recruitment quicker and easier. They can reduce paperwork, support remote hiring and give HR teams greater visibility over check progress.
Using a digital provider will remain optional. Employers can continue to use a prescribed manual document check or the Home Office online service where appropriate.
Where you choose to use a digital verification service, the draft guidance says that the specific service must be listed on the Digital Verification Services register maintained by the Office for Digital Identities and Attributes, and registered to provide Right to Work checks.
Why consistency matters
Completing a Right to Work check is only one part of an effective compliance process. Organisations also need to be able to demonstrate what was checked, when the check took place and whether the correct process was followed.
At scale, fragmented processes can make that difficult.
For example, one part of an organisation may keep Right to Work evidence within an HR platform, while another relies on local records, email or spreadsheets. Contractors and externally supplied workers may be managed separately again.
As Right to Work obligations expand into a broader range of working arrangements, creating a consistent process and reliable audit trail becomes increasingly valuable.
Digital processes can help organisations reduce manual administration, improve visibility and apply the same checking approach across different teams and locations.
How can Experian help you prepare?
The expansion of the Right to Work Scheme gives organisations another reason to review whether their existing checking processes are ready for the future.
Our Right to Work solution helps businesses manage checks through a consistent digital process, supporting both remote and face to face verification.
With a digital app and central web portal, organisations can improve visibility of Right to Work checks and maintain the records needed to support effective compliance.
For organisations managing checks at scale, bringing processes and information together can help reduce administration while giving teams greater control over their Right to Work programme.
As October 2026 approaches, now is a good time to understand your workforce arrangements, identify where additional checks may be needed and make sure your processes are ready for the expanded regime.
Chat to our team about how we can help you prepare.
Be ready for Right to Work changes
Build greater consistency, visibility and control into your Right to Work checks.
Let's go[1] Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025, Legislation.gov.uk
[3] Extending the Right to Work Scheme, gov.uk
[4] Penalties for employing illegal workers, gov.uk