Right to Work Checks for Pubs, Bars, Restaurants and Hotels

Complete the right-to-work check before a new starter's first shift. Civil penalties for employing a person without the right to work can reach £45,000 per illegal worker for a first breach and £60,000 for a repeat breach within three years. The Home Office's modelling assumes £1.75 to £8 per digital check.

What the Home Office check specifies

The final employer's guide, effective from 1 October 2026, sets out three recognised routes: a manual document check, the Home Office online checking service, or a certified and registered right-to-work Digital Verification Service (DVS).

Check method	Cost basis	Retention requirement	Statutory excuse covers
Manual document	Staff time only	Copy kept throughout employment + 2 years after leaving	Workers with acceptable List A or List B documents
Home Office online (share code)	Staff time only	Saved copy or print of the employer's result page	Holders of biometric residence permits, eVisas, or frontier worker permits
DVS (digital verification service)	Home Office model: £1.75 to £8 per check	Provider-issued verification record	British or Irish passports or Irish passport cards; other List A or B documents supplied digitally by government, initially only name and National Insurance evidence

A right-to-work DVS can check a British or Irish passport, or an Irish passport card, up to six months after it expires. For an expired document, the provider must read and verify its chip. Some providers do not offer this, and a damaged or corrupted chip cannot pass the check. A clipped passport is cancelled and never acceptable. Other List A or B documents qualify only when a government department supplies them digitally; the seventh code says this will initially cover only official evidence of a name and National Insurance number. Ask your provider which checks it offers.

For a manual check, the employer's guide requires:

• Sight of the original document
• Confirmation that the photograph and date of birth match the person, checked face to face or by video call
• Verification that the document permits the work being offered
• A clear copy
• A record of the date of the check

A legible photocopy or a secure scan meets the copy requirement; seeing a document without copying it does not.

For workers who hold biometric residence permits, biometric residence cards, frontier worker permits, or eVisas, the employer's guide requires use of the Home Office online service. The worker provides a share code; the employer enters it on GOV.UK and saves the result. Viewing the worker's phone screen or screenshotting their status page does not establish the statutory defence.

British or Irish citizens without a passport can prove right to work, per the employer's guide, with a UK or Irish birth or adoption certificate combined with an official document showing their permanent National Insurance number (a P45, P60, or letter from a government agency). The National Insurance evidence can be digital if a government agency issued it.

The statutory excuse

Under the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006, an employer who conducts a prescribed check correctly and then employs someone who turns out not to have the right to work holds a "statutory excuse" and cannot be given a civil penalty. The employer loses that excuse if they know the person has no right to work. Where the check is skipped, done late, or done incorrectly, the employer has no statutory excuse, whatever the worker said. A check made after the first shift does not create one, even if it is done before the Home Office finds the problem. The Home Office can still reduce the penalty under its mitigation rules.

Acceptable documents

The Home Office splits documents into two lists. Full details are in the employer's guide to right to work checks.

List A documents prove permanent right to work: a British or Irish passport, or a certificate of registration or naturalisation as a British citizen combined with an official document showing the person's permanent National Insurance number. A List A document, correctly checked and copied before day one, removes any obligation to recheck that worker.

List B evidence proves time-limited permission: a visa, an online share code result showing status with an expiry date, or a positive verification notice from the Employer Checking Service. Biometric residence permits are no longer issued, and an expired card does not count. A visa or share code result creates a statutory excuse only until the permission expires, and where the follow-up check is missed the defence lapses from that date. A positive verification notice works differently: it creates a six-month excuse from the date on the notice. Diary the relevant date at the time of the original check.

Where a worker's visa has expired but an extension application is pending, ask for a share code first. Where the worker cannot provide one, the Employer Checking Service confirms whether a statutory excuse exists during that period.

Student and restricted workers

A right-to-work check confirms someone can work but does not always state how much. Student visa holders on a full-time degree-level course can work no more than 20 hours a week during term time. Below degree level the limit can be 10 hours, and some study routes allow no work at all. The employer's guide requires employers to check the individual's visa or online result for the exact restriction, keep their hours within it, and obtain, copy and keep their term and vacation dates. Exceeding the permitted hours is illegal working, and enforcement action falls on the employer.

Where the check breaks down

Trial shifts. The check must be completed before any work starts, including unpaid trials, working interviews, and shadow shifts.

The Friday-night hire. A new server starts at 5pm for a weekend peak and the check is left until Monday. If the server has no right to work, the employer has no statutory excuse, whether Immigration Enforcement visits on Saturday or a month later. A Monday check does not create one.

Agency staff. When an employment business engages a temp and supplies them to your venue, the agency is the employer and must do the check. The final guide says a standard agency supply does not require the venue to repeat it; keep written confirmation that the agency has checked each temp. If a recruitment agency or adviser checks someone you employ directly, that check gives you no statutory excuse unless it runs through a registered right-to-work DVS, and even then you remain responsible for the check being done correctly.

Cash-in-hand. Payment method is irrelevant. The obligation applies to anyone working for the employer.

High turnover. The employer's guide requires a check for every new starter. Without a consistent process, the check depends on whoever is managing that day, and some new starters may be missed.

Already non-compliant. Checking existing workers who have no record will not give you a statutory excuse for them, but it shows where the risk lies. Check every worker without a record, not only those you suspect. Continuing to employ someone you know has no right to work is a criminal offence, so get employment-law advice on ending the employment promptly. Report the illegal working on the Home Office employer helpline (0300 790 6268) and get a reference number; reporting before the Home Office identifies the worker reduces any penalty by £5,000 per worker. A case can run from a visit or referral notice, through an information request and a civil penalty notice, to an objection and then an appeal to the County Court in England, Wales or Northern Ireland, or the Sheriff Court in Scotland.

Licensed premises face extra risk

The Home Office is a responsible authority for premises licensed to sell alcohol or provide late-night refreshment under the Licensing Act 2003. Immigration Enforcement officers can enter those premises under section 179 while that licensable activity is taking place, without a warrant. Where illegal working is found, the Home Office can seek a review of the premises licence. The civil penalty progression set out above can run alongside a licence review, not instead of it.

The 1 October 2026 expansion

The commencement regulations brought section 48 of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025 into force on 1 October 2026. For arrangements entered into on or after that date, the scheme now extends beyond employment contracts to worker contracts, individual subcontractors, and online matching services. A person running an independent business and contracting directly with customers is generally outside the scheme.

Some supply-chain and substitution arrangements also create liability for a business that does not engage the worker directly. These extended-liability rules exclude a venue that buys a service, such as contract cleaning, for its own internal operations. They can cover a business contracted to supply work or services to someone else that passes the work to another employer, such as a contract caterer using an agency. A venue is also covered if a contract lets a worker send someone else in their place; each substitute needs a right-to-work check before they work. Before the work starts, an in-scope business needs the guide's prescribed written statement of contract terms, identity-verification processes and, where substitutions are permitted, controls ensuring substitutes are checked. The final guide sets out the requirements on pages 50–55.

The final employer's guide and the seventh statutory code took effect on 1 October. The guide states that there is no general grace period. Arrangements entered into before 1 October are not brought within the expansion solely because the work continues after that date. A renewal or variation may count as a new arrangement; assess the actual terms.

Map any contract that lets a worker send a substitute. If you supply work or services to other businesses, also map the casual, subcontractor, agency or platform arrangements through which you deliver them. Record which business holds the direct contract, who must conduct the check, and which written terms protect the businesses further up the chain.

The premises file

In practice, the premises file needs:

• A right-to-work record for every person you employ directly
• Each check completed before day one
• Follow-up dates recorded for every time-limited document
• Written confirmation from any agency that it has checked each temp it supplies

Records must be kept throughout employment and for two years after the person leaves. Keep the file where a manager can produce it quickly; the guide expects employers to show these copies on request.

In Great Britain the Equality Act 2010 prohibits selective checking based on appearance, name, or perceived nationality; Northern Ireland's race relations rules do the same. Checks must be applied consistently to every worker.