Right to Work Checks From 1 October 2026: New Rules for Contractors, Platforms and Supply Chains

Reviewed by: Paul Gulbenkian , Senior Consultant & Former Tribunal Judge

Last updated: October 2, 2026

Reviewed by: Oshin Shahiean , Managing Partner

Last updated: October 2, 2026

In Brief

From 1 October 2026, the UK Right to Work Scheme will extend beyond conventional contracts of employment to specified worker contracts, individual subcontractors and online matching arrangements. Separate extended-liability provisions may also affect businesses operating through labour-supply chains or allowing workers to provide substitutes. The changes do not mean that every contractor, agency worker or self-employed person must be checked by every organisation involved.

Employers should now map their working arrangements, identify who contracts with each individual, review subcontracting and substitution clauses, and confirm that compliance procedures work in practice. Our Immigration Solicitors can assess contractual structures, right to work processes and overlapping sponsor licence duties before the new provisions take effect. As at 29 September 2026, the legislation and implementing regulations had been made, but the principal employer guidance republished on 11 September 2026 remained labelled as draft and should be checked again when the reforms commence.

What Is Changing on 1 October 2026?

The first point to understand is that this is an enacted legal reform rather than a consultation proposal. Section 48 of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025 expands the illegal-working provisions in the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006. The relevant commencement instrument, S.I. 2026/683, brings section 48 into force on 1 October 2026, while S.I. 2026/700 supplies prescribed requirements and introduces the revised codes from the same date. The statutory framework can be reviewed in the official legislation and explanatory material.

Until 1 October 2026, businesses must continue to apply the existing rules. For newly covered arrangements, civil penalty liability under the expanded direct-liability provisions may arise where the relevant employment commences on or after 1 October. The prescribed requirements governing extended liability apply where the relevant contractual arrangements are entered into on or after that date. Those different transitional rules matter because a business may have several layers of contracts created at different times, so the date of the individual’s engagement cannot safely be used as a substitute for checking the date and function of each contractual arrangement.

At the date of this update, the Home Office had republished its draft employer guidance on 11 September 2026. It states that it will come into force on 1 October and contains materially revised explanations of contractual assessment, genuine independent businesses, personal service companies, subcontracting, online matching services and substitution. Employers can prepare using that guidance, but a live compliance decision made on or after commencement should use the final version then available rather than an undated internal copy of the draft.

Which Working Arrangements May Be Covered?

In practice, the reform is aimed at arrangements where an individual personally carries out work but falls outside the conventional employee model. The expanded definition used for the Right to Work Scheme includes an individual working under a worker’s contract, an individual subcontractor in the specified statutory circumstances and a service provider introduced to customers through an in-scope online matching service. References to an employer or employment in the guidance therefore have a scheme-specific meaning.

A worker’s contract generally involves an individual undertaking to perform work or services personally for another person where that other person is not genuinely the client or customer of a profession or business carried on by the individual. An individual subcontractor may be covered where the individual contracts with a person to perform work or services, that person has contracted with a third party to provide or arrange those services, and the individual is not directly party to the third-party contract.

Online matching services also require careful assessment. The statutory concept involves a business maintaining a register of service providers, operating an online process through which potential customers can seek a match, and charging a fee or commission for making that match. A platform’s description of itself as a marketplace, directory or technology provider will not, by itself, determine whether it falls within the definition; the business model and the way matches are made must be examined.

The important distinction is that these definitions apply for the purposes of the Right to Work Scheme. Businesses should not assume that the scheme automatically determines employment status for every separate purpose, such as employment rights or tax. Equally, an organisation cannot avoid the expanded scheme merely by describing an individual as self-employed if the legal test and the reality of the working arrangement point in another direction.

Direct Liability and Extended Liability Are Different

Perhaps most critically, employers must separate direct liability from extended liability. Direct liability concerns the organisation treated as engaging the individual under one of the covered arrangements. Extended liability can reach another person in a contractual chain even though that person does not hold the direct contract with the individual performing the work. Confusing the two may lead a business to carry out the wrong check, seek assurance from the wrong party or preserve evidence that does not address the applicable statutory excuse.

Arrangement	Potential responsibility	Main compliance question	Relevant 1 October 2026 rule
Contract of employment	The direct employer remains responsible for the prescribed check.	Was a compliant check completed before employment, with any required follow-up check recorded?	The established direct-liability scheme continues to apply.
Worker’s contract or covered individual subcontractor arrangement	The person engaging the individual may be directly liable.	Does the individual personally perform the work, and is the recipient genuinely a client or customer of the individual’s independent business?	The expanded civil penalty provisions apply where the relevant employment commences on or after 1 October 2026.
In-scope online matching service	The service may be treated as the employer for scheme purposes.	Does the service meet the statutory matching model, and who personally performs the work?	The direct-liability expansion applies to relevant work commencing on or after 1 October 2026.
Contractual labour-supply chain	A person responsible for relevant contractual arrangements may face extended liability.	Who provides or arranges the work, and were the prescribed contractual, assurance and identity controls established before work began?	The prescribed extended-liability requirements apply to relevant contractual arrangements entered into on or after 1 October 2026.
Permitted substitution	The engaging organisation may face liability in relation to work performed by the substitute.	Was the substitute checked before starting, and can the organisation verify who actually carried out the work?	The prescribed substitution requirements apply where the relevant post-commencement contractual arrangements fall within the extended-liability provisions.

For many businesses, this means that a single generic contractor policy will no longer be enough. Procurement may hold the supply contract, HR may manage checks, operations may control site access, and finance may hold payment records. Unless those functions share information, the organisation may be unable to demonstrate who performed the work, which statutory responsibility applied or whether the prescribed requirements were operating effectively.

Not Every Contractor or Self-Employed Person Is Automatically Covered

A common concern is that the reform imposes a direct right to work check on every self-employed person used by a business. That is not the position. The draft guidance recognises that a person may operate a genuine independent business and provide services to clients or customers outside the expanded direct-check regime. The legal and factual assessment should focus on personal service, the contractual parties, how the individual obtains work and whether the recipient is genuinely purchasing services from the individual’s business.

The guidance gives examples of a self-employed tradesperson advertising to the public and serving multiple customers, and of a professional providing services through their own personal service company. In those examples, the customer or client is purchasing services from an independent business rather than engaging the individual directly under an arrangement covered by the scheme. The result may differ where a company structure or self-employed label does not reflect how the work is actually obtained and performed.

Nor does extended liability apply merely because one business buys services from another. The guidance states that it does not apply to every business purchasing work or services, including an end-user purchasing services for its own internal operations. However, that exclusion should not be treated as a universal procurement exemption. The surrounding contractual chain, each party’s function and whether work or services are being provided onwards must still be understood.

The safer approach is to classify arrangements rather than whole groups of people. A business should not decide that all consultants are outside the rules, that all agency workers are covered in the same way, or that every person paid through an invoice is an independent business. Different individuals working alongside one another may fall within different parts of the scheme because their contractual and operational circumstances differ.

Why Contract Labels and Written Assurances Are Not Enough

What matters most is how the arrangement works in practice. The Home Office may consider the structure and purpose of the contracts, which organisation arranges or provides the work, who is responsible for the individual, whether substitution occurs, and what evidence was available when illegal working was identified. A carefully drafted agreement will be relevant, but it cannot repair a compliance system that managers ignore or that cannot identify the person who actually performed the work.

For that reason, businesses should bring legal, HR, procurement and operational reviews together. Our Business Immigration lawyers can provide Business Immigration legal advice on the scheme’s contractual tests, the statutory excuse and any interaction with sponsor duties. The review should also identify who owns each practical control, including onboarding, follow-up checks, subcontracting approval, audit requests, identity verification and escalation when records are missing.

Where extended liability applies, assurances from another party may form part of the compliance process, but a business must take reasonable steps to satisfy itself that the assurances are reliable and that the prescribed requirements are being met. Evidence may include contracts, audit records, assurance information, compliance reviews and records showing how concerns were identified and addressed. The appropriate evidence will depend on the contractual chain’s size, complexity and risk, but it should show active verification rather than passive receipt of a warranty.

Substitution Clauses Need Operational Controls

Substitution presents a particular risk because the individual whose status was checked may not be the person who ultimately performs the work. Under the draft guidance, where a contract permits substitution and the prescribed extended-liability requirements apply, the process must ensure that a compliant right to work check is completed on the substitute before the substitute starts. Responsibility for that control should not simply be left to the original worker.

In other words, a business needs to control both authorisation and identity. It should be able to show who requested the substitution, who approved it, when the right to work check was completed and how the business confirmed that the approved substitute was the person who attended the site, accessed the platform or performed the assignment. Depending on the operating model, proportionate controls might involve workplace passes, attendance records, assignment logs or periodic identity verification.

The message is not to insert a prohibition on substitution without considering commercial reality. If informal substitution continues despite the wording of the contract, the mismatch may create its own evidential difficulty. Businesses should establish a workable process and train managers not to permit last-minute replacements outside that process merely to maintain staffing levels or complete a customer order.

What Contractual Chains May Need to Show

Where the extended-liability rules apply, the relevant written terms should address more than a basic promise to comply with immigration law. The prescribed framework includes requirements concerning compliant checks, controls on further contracting, written consent where required, audit rights, enforcement provisions and cooperation with a Home Office investigation. Equivalent obligations may need to continue through permitted lower tiers of the chain.

A proportionate assurance programme should then test whether those terms operate effectively. A low-risk, stable arrangement may not require the same frequency of review as a large or rapidly changing labour chain. Nevertheless, a business relying on assurances should understand who carried out the checks, which workers were covered, whether substitutes are permitted, how time-limited permission is monitored and what happens when a supplier fails to provide evidence.

The practical difficulty is that responsibility may cross departmental and organisational boundaries. A supplier may hold the immigration record while the end-user controls site access, or a platform may arrange work while the customer contracts with a separate service provider. A useful compliance map should therefore record the parties, contracts, individual workers, checking responsibility, identity controls, evidence location and escalation route for each operating model.

Sponsor Licence Holders Have Additional Duties

Sponsor licence holders should not assume that an arrangement outside the expanded civil penalty scheme also falls outside sponsor compliance. Sponsor duties require a sponsor to check and retain evidence of the immigration status of every worker it sponsors, irrespective of whether the particular arrangement falls within the Right to Work Scheme. A business that stops its analysis after deciding that it does not need a statutory excuse may therefore overlook a separate record-keeping duty attached to sponsorship.

This is particularly important where businesses use group arrangements, client sites or non-standard engagement models. The civil penalty analysis and the sponsor-duty analysis should be completed separately and then reconciled. A failure to establish a statutory excuse and a failure to comply with sponsor duties are related compliance concerns, but they are not interchangeable legal tests.

Employer Checklist Before 1 October 2026

With commencement imminent, the starting point should be a targeted review of working arrangements rather than indiscriminate checks on everyone who supplies a service. Employers should record the reasoning behind each classification and ensure that the operational evidence supports it. That record may become important if a contract label, invoice or supplier description later conflicts with what happened in practice.

Map every model involving employees, casual workers, agency labour, individual contractors, subcontractors, online matching services and permitted substitutes.
Identify the contracting parties and the organisation responsible for engaging, supplying or matching each individual.
Separate direct-liability arrangements from contractual chains or substitution models that may create extended liability.
Record when each engagement and relevant contractual arrangement begins, because the transitional rules use different commencement tests.
Review personal service, substitution, further contracting, consent, audit, investigation-cooperation and enforcement clauses.
Confirm that right to work checks occur before covered work starts and that follow-up checks are scheduled where permission is time-limited.
Test whether contractual assurances are reliable through proportionate audits, sample reviews and documented escalation.
Ensure systems identify the person who actually performs the work, particularly where shifts, assignments or substitutes can change quickly.
Train procurement, HR, hiring managers and operational teams on their separate responsibilities and the evidence they must preserve.
Review sponsor licence duties separately for every sponsored worker, even where the working model appears outside the civil penalty scheme.
Check the final employer guide and codes on or after 1 October 2026 before approving the completed policy.

Avoiding Discrimination During Expanded Checks

A wider checking programme must still be applied consistently and fairly. Employers should not select people for checks because of nationality, accent, surname, appearance or assumptions about immigration status. The appropriate sequence is to identify the category of working arrangement and then apply the relevant process consistently to everyone in that category. If managers cannot explain why one contractor was checked while another comparable contractor was not, the inconsistent selection may undermine both the compliance record and the employer’s defence to a discrimination complaint.

That does not mean every individual must use the same type of check. The prescribed process may involve a Home Office online check, an eligible digital identity process, a manual document check or the Employer Checking Service, depending on the individual’s circumstances. Managers should be trained not to reject an applicant merely because one particular checking method is unavailable where another prescribed route can be used.

OTS Solicitors’ View

The principal compliance risk is not simply failing to add a clause to a supplier contract. It is failing to identify which legal responsibility applies and then being unable to demonstrate that the agreed process operated when the work was performed. Businesses with platforms, subcontracting, agency supply or substitution should first map the contractual model, then allocate checking and identity controls, and finally test the evidence trail. Reversing that sequence by collecting generic warranties before understanding the arrangement can leave a substantial gap between the paperwork and the applicable statutory excuse.

Ultimately, employers should avoid both extremes: doing nothing because workers are labelled self-employed, or conducting unnecessary checks on every independent business and supplier. The Business Immigration team at OTS Solicitors can review the contractual chain, identify the applicable part of the scheme and help align contracts, onboarding, audit procedures and sponsor compliance without treating every commercial arrangement as identical.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do all self-employed contractors need a right to work check from 1 October 2026?

No. The reform does not impose a direct check on every person who calls themselves self-employed or supplies services to a business. The result depends on the statutory definitions, personal service obligations, the contractual parties and how the arrangement works in practice. Genuine independent businesses serving their own clients or customers may remain outside the expanded direct-check regime. Employers should record why an arrangement is classified that way, because an invoice or self-employed label will carry limited weight if the operational evidence shows that the individual was personally engaged through an in-scope model.

Does an end-user need to check every agency worker personally?

Not automatically. The agency or employment business may be the direct employer responsible for the prescribed check. The end-user must still understand the chain rather than assume that physical control of the workplace creates, or removes, liability. An end-user purchasing a defined service for its own operations may be outside the extended-liability provisions, while a person responsible for providing or arranging work onwards may be in a different position. Any assurance, audit and identity requirements that do apply must operate effectively rather than remaining unused contractual wording.

What happens to contracts entered into before 1 October 2026?

The draft guidance states that the prescribed extended-liability requirements apply where the relevant contractual arrangements are entered into on or after 1 October 2026. Separately, liability for newly covered worker contracts, individual subcontractors and online matching arrangements concerns relevant employment commencing on or after that date. Businesses should record both dates and identify which rule they are applying. Using the date on which work starts as the only reference point may produce the wrong conclusion where the contractual chain was established earlier.

Is a supplier warranty that checks have been completed sufficient?

A written assurance may form part of the compliance framework, but it is not necessarily sufficient by itself. Where extended liability applies, the business should take reasonable steps to satisfy itself that the assurance is reliable and the prescribed requirements are being met. Appropriate evidence may include audit records, check confirmations, compliance reviews and documented action when concerns arise. The practical question is whether the business can show what it did to test the assurance, not merely whether a standard warranty appears somewhere in the contract.

Who checks a substitute where substitution is permitted?

The relevant process must ensure that a prescribed right to work check is carried out before the substitute performs the work. The engaging organisation should not leave the original worker to make an informal decision. It should control approval, record the check and use proportionate identity measures to confirm that the approved substitute is the individual who performs the assignment. A process that checks the named contractor but cannot detect an unapproved replacement may fail at the point when the evidence is most needed.

Do sponsor licence holders need checks where the worker is self-employed?

Sponsor duties require a sponsor to check and retain evidence of a sponsored worker’s immigration status irrespective of whether the arrangement falls within the Right to Work Scheme. The important distinction is between preserving sponsor-compliance records and establishing a statutory excuse against a civil penalty: one conclusion does not automatically answer the other. Sponsor licence holders should document both analyses so that a non-standard or self-employed engagement does not create an unnoticed gap in the sponsored worker’s file.

Can an employer rely on the 11 September 2026 guidance now?

The 11 September guide provides the most detailed official explanation available as at 29 September 2026, but it remains labelled as draft and states that it will come into force on 1 October. Employers can use it to prepare, but should check whether a final version, corrected text or further clarification is published when the legal changes commence. Compliance teams should also record the version and date used, because an unlabelled saved copy may later make it difficult to show whether a decision followed the draft or final guidance.

Contact OTS Solicitors

Our Business Immigration solicitors can advise on expanded right to work checks, contractual chains, sponsor compliance and workforce audits. Call OTS Solicitors on 0203 959 9123 or contact OTS Solicitors.