Right to Work: who must be checked?

Sponsors must check, as part of their sponsor duties, the right to work of sponsored migrants. Recent updates to the Home Office sponsor guidance suggest expansions to the right to work regime, but with poor definitions and the provisions being split across a number of guidance documents, there is a lack of consistency on the scope of this duty.

Right to Work checks

The Employer's guide to right to work checks states that right to work checks apply to employers who employ staff under a contract of employment, service or apprenticeship. However, employers are strongly encouraged to ensure their contractors and labour providers, including anyone in their supply chain who uses substitutes to perform work on their behalf, complete right to work checks.

With regards to workers who are not ‘direct employees’ (i.e. self-employed individuals), currently right to work checks do not have to be performed, but are encouraged. This will change shortly with the implementation of section 48 of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025 (BSAIA 2025).

If the organisation is a sponsor licence holder and sponsoring any workers, they must carry out right to work checks for any worker, whether sponsored or not, employed or self-employed, to ensure compliance with their sponsor duties and avoid a civil penalty. 

Update to guidance 

Under the previous Home Office guidance, sponsors were not required to check right to work for their contractors or workers who were neither employed nor sponsored by them.

The Sponsor guidance Part 2: sponsor a worker (updated on 08 April 2026) has now extended the right to work checks duty and its paragraph S1.40 states expressly who must be checked before starting work:

‘You must check that any worker you wish to sponsor (including a worker who is not your direct employee), or any worker you otherwise wish to employ or directly engage, has permission to enter or stay in the UK and can do the work in question before they start working for you. This applies even if the worker is, or appears to be, a British citizen or other settled worker.’

This suggests there is a positive duty on sponsors to conduct pre-work checks on all workers, sponsored or otherwise, who are ‘employed or engaged’. ‘Engaged’ seems to be limited to ‘direct’ engagement, although that term is not defined anywhere in the guidance.

The newly published Sponsor guidance Glossary  creates some confusion however by describing a “Worker” as ‘a person who is applying for, or has been granted, entry clearance or permission, or someone you are sponsoring or intend to sponsor, on one of the Worker or Temporary Worker routes’. This definition, read into the above paragraph, gives the impression that right to work checks are primarily directed at sponsored workers and visa holders, which is already the case.

To add to the confusion, Sponsor guidance Part 3: Sponsor duties and compliance  (updated on 06 March 2026) introduced wording that suggests a narrower right to work checks expectation. Paragraph C1.42. indicates that sponsors must ensure that ‘any worker you sponsor or employ has the legal right to work for you and do the work in question by carrying out the appropriate right to work checks’. Again, this is the same situation as before the updates. 

In contrast, paragraph C7.29 of guidance Part 3, further states:

‘You must do this check before the relevant employment starts. If you employ or engage someone who has no restrictions on their right to be in the UK and work (for example, if they have indefinite leave to remain), you only need to make this check once. 

This paragraph references employment and engagement again, without limiting this obligation just to ‘workers’.

The way the obligation to conduct right to work checks is spread across different parts of the sponsor guidance, with some references to ‘engaging’ but without a definition, and a relatively constricted definition of ‘worker’, has created uncertainty. 

Summary

The sector is currently asking for further clarity from the Home Office, and we expect further updates to the sponsor guidance.

Overall, this change could be a way for sponsors to prepare for the expanded right to work scheme, but with a poor implementation.

On this basis, we would encourage employers and in particular sponsor licence holders, to complete a right to work check for every person they employ or engage before the individual starts work, regardless of their nationality or whether their role is sponsored, and retain evidence in line with the employer guide and Appendix D, even where they are British or otherwise appear settled.

If you have any queries related to sponsor licence duties and compliance or right to work checks, feel free to contact us.