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. Against the cost of an Identity Document Validation Technology (IDVT) check — typically £3–£5 per person — the exposure from a skipped check is not an administrative oversight; it is a financial risk of four to five orders of magnitude greater than the cost of compliance.

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	All workers with physical documents (List A and B)
Home Office online (share code)	Staff time only	Screenshot or print of the result page	Biometric residence permits, eVisas, frontier worker permits
IDVT (digital identity service)	£3–£5 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, and a record of the date of the check. The employer's guide treats a legible photocopy or a scan saved to a secure system as sufficient. 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. The employer's guide states that 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, the full penalty applies regardless of what the worker stated. The employer's guide confirms 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, and 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. The employer's guide states that a valid List A document on file removes any obligation to recheck that worker.

List B documents prove time-limited permission: a visa, a biometric residence permit with an expiry date, a positive verification notice from the Employer Checking Service. The employer's guide states these create a statutory excuse only until the permission expires. Where the follow-up check is missed, the defence lapses from that date forward. The employer's guide records the expiry date as information to be captured at the time of the original check.

Where a worker's visa has expired but an extension application is pending, the Employer Checking Service is the prescribed route to confirm 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 commonly face a 20-hour weekly limit during term time, though the employer's guide notes specific conditions vary by permission. 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. The employer's guide treats exceeding the permitted hours as illegal working, with enforcement action falling on the employer.

Where civil penalty decisions show the check breaking down

Trial shifts. The employer's guide states the check must be completed before any work starts, including unpaid trials, working interviews, and shadow shifts.

The Friday-night hire. The Friday-night hire scenario — a new server starts at 5 PM for a weekend peak, the IDVT check is deferred to Monday — is the factual pattern in a majority of civil penalty notices published in the Home Office illegal working civil penalty quarterly register. Operators named in that register had no statutory excuse at the point of employment; the fact that enforcement did not attend until later does not retroactively create one. Operators who maintained a statutory excuse across an enforcement visit had the IDVT check completed before first shift, not after.

Agency staff. The employer's guide states that delegating checks to an agency does not create a statutory excuse for the employer. Written confirmation from the agency that checks have been completed is required, but the statutory excuse obligation for directly engaged workers remains with the employer. The broader contractor/hirer expansion under the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025 is not yet commenced.

Cash-in-hand. The employer's guide treats payment method as irrelevant. The obligation applies to anyone working for the employer.

High turnover. The employer's guide requires a check for every new starter. Published civil penalty decisions show gaps appearing at high-volume venues where there was no consistent process for the person managing that day.

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 ongoing exposure from widening. Where the check reveals someone without the right to work, the enforcement progression — unannounced visit, illegal working referral notice, civil penalty notice, objection period, County Court — begins from the point of employment, not from the point any internal review took place. The employer's guide does not provide a safe harbour for self-correction after the fact; it provides a statutory excuse 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 under the Licensing Act 2003. Immigration Enforcement officers can enter licensed premises under section 179 while 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 enforcement progression — unannounced visit → illegal working referral notice → civil penalty notice → objection → County Court — can run alongside a licence review, not instead of it.

Coming changes

The Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025 extends the regime to contractors, gig workers, and people engaged under worker contracts. Commencement has not been set. When it lands, freelance chefs, self-employed cleaners, and gig-platform delivery riders will all need checks too.

What Employer's Guide compliance looks like at a premises

The employer's guide specifies: 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, and written confirmation from every agency on file. Records must be kept throughout employment and for two years after the person leaves (the legal retention requirement). The employer's guide states the statutory excuse depends on conducting the prescribed check and retaining a copy, not on the speed at which it can be produced.

The Equality Act 2010 prohibits selective checking based on appearance, name, or perceived nationality. The employer's guide requires checks to be applied consistently to every worker.