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

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. A check through a Digital Verification Service (DVS) costs a few pounds per person; the Home Office's own modelling assumes £1.75 to £8 per check. Against that, the penalty for employing someone with no right to work and no check on file runs around ten thousand times the cost of the check.

What the Home Office check specifies

An Employer's Guide to Right to Work Checks (the employer's guide) sets out three recognised routes: a manual document check, the Home Office online checking service, or a digital identity verification service for British and Irish passport holders.

Check method	Typical cost per check	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 identity service)	£1.75 to £8 per check	Provider-issued verification record	British and Irish passport holders only

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 present
• 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 scan saved to a secure system is sufficient under the employer's guide. A mental note is 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). This is common in hospitality, where young workers and part-time staff often don't hold passports.

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 defence holds even though the outcome was wrong.

Where the check is skipped, done late, or done incorrectly, there is no statutory excuse, regardless of what the worker stated. The amount can still fall under the Home Office's mitigation rules. The check must have happened properly before the first day of work.

A deferred right-to-work check is not a delayed check. It is a missing statutory excuse. The civil penalty attaches at the point of employment, not at the point of discovery.

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 the online checking service result for the exact restriction, record the restriction at the time of the check, and obtain evidence of 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 enforcement visits over the weekend, there is no statutory excuse for that worker, and enforcement arriving later does not retroactively create one. The check either happened before the first shift or it did not.

Agency staff. Delegating checks to an agency does not create a statutory excuse for the employer. Get written confirmation from the agency that checks have been completed, but the statutory excuse obligation for directly engaged workers remains with the employer. The contractor and supply-chain expansion described below starts on 1 October 2026.

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 that fails reliably.

Already non-compliant. Where workers are employed with no check on file, conducting the check does not create a retrospective statutory excuse, but it stops the exposure from widening. Where the check reveals someone without the right to work, the enforcement progression dates from the start of the employment; a later internal review does not move that starting point. That progression can run: unannounced visit, illegal working referral notice, civil penalty notice, objection period, then the County Court in England, Wales or Northern Ireland, or the Sheriff Court in Scotland. There is no safe harbour for self-correction after the fact; the statutory excuse exists only where the prescribed check was completed before the first day of work.

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 bring section 48 of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025 into force on 1 October 2026. For arrangements beginning on or after that date, the scheme expands beyond employment contracts to worker contracts, individual subcontractors, and online matching services. Some supply-chain and substitution arrangements also create liability for a business that does not engage the worker directly. A person running an independent business and contracting directly with customers is generally outside the scheme.

The same date brings a new employer's guide and a new statutory code, both published in draft. Under the draft guide, digital verification extends beyond British and Irish passports to other acceptable documents where they can be verified digitally. Check the final versions when they land.

Before 1 October, map who works at each premises under casual, subcontractor, agency, or platform arrangements. 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 who works at the premises
• Each check completed before day one
• Follow-up dates recorded for every time-limited document
• Written confirmation from any agency on file

Records must be kept throughout employment and for two years after the person leaves. The statutory excuse depends on conducting the prescribed check and retaining a copy, not on the speed at which it can be produced.

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.