Right to Work Scheme to extend coverage as new regulations are confirmed: what employers need to know.

By Sarah Croft | July 13, 2026 | Other

On 30th June 2026, the Home Office laid new regulations before Parliament that will significantly reshape the Right to Work and Right to Rent Schemes. Announced in a written ministerial statement by Alex Norris, Minister of State for Border Security and Asylum, the changes form part of the Government’s continued drive to tackle illegal working and close gaps in the current compliance framework.

The regulations, along with updated statutory codes of practice for employers and landlords, implement provisions from the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025 and will come into force on 1st October 2026.

Here’s what’s changing, and what it means for your organisation.

Right to Work coverage is extending beyond employee to workers, including agency workers and self-employed contractors.

For the first time, the Right to Work Scheme – and the civil penalties that come with non-compliance – will extend to companies that contract workers or individual sub-contractors to provide services under their company name. This includes agency workers and gig economy workers.

Right to Work rules were originally designed with a more traditional, direct-employment workforce in mind. As flexible and platform-based work has grown, gaps have opened up in who is responsible for checking a worker’s eligibility. This change closes those gaps, making sure accountability sits clearly across modern, more complex labour market structures.

On 24th June 2026, the Government published the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025 (Commencement No. 4) Regulations 2026, confirming that Section 48 of the 2025 Act will come into force on 1st October 2026. Section 48 amends the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006, extending the illegal working provisions beyond traditional contracts of employment for the first time.

In practice, this brings a much wider range of working arrangements into scope, including:

• Non-employees engaged under a worker’s contract, such as casual and zero-hours workers
• Individual contractors
• Agency workers and labour supplied through contractual chains
• Gig economy workers and platform-based service providers

Importantly, this doesn’t turn these individuals into employees for employment law purposes – but it does mean the businesses engaging them will have Right to Work obligations and civil penalty exposure that previously sat with someone else in the chain, or with no one at all.

For businesses that rely on contractors, subcontractors, casual workers or gig workers, this is a meaningful shift. Compliance responsibility can no longer be assumed to sit elsewhere in the supply chain, and organisations should start reviewing where their exposure lies well before October.

The changes will also reach platform businesses that match freelancers with clients, not just the end user of the labour. Sectors that lean heavily on flexible and subcontracted workforces – construction, food delivery, courier services, beauty salons, warehousing, logistics, hospitality, cleaning, security, facilities management and production among them — are expected to feel the impact most.

The financial and legal stakes are significant. Beyond the existing civil penalty of up to £60,000 per illegal worker, employers who fail to carry out the required checks could, in serious cases, face criminal prosecution carrying up to five years’ imprisonment and an unlimited fine.

Digital verification providers must be government registered

The regulations also strengthen the rules around digital identity verification. Where an employer or landlord chooses to carry out a Right to Work or Right to Rent check digitally, it must now be done through a government-registered Digital Verification Service (DVS) provider.

This reinforces the importance of working with a certified provider rather than an unregulated tool. Digital checks are only as reliable as the framework behind them, and using a registered DVS is what gives employers the assurance – and the statutory excuse – they need if a check is ever challenged.

Broader use of digital document verification for onboarding

Alongside the Right to Work changes, powers introduced under the Data Use and Access Act 2025 will support wider use of digital document verification more generally in candidate onboarding. The stated aim is to strengthen assurance while giving individuals greater choice and control over how they share their personal information.

Taken together with the Right to Work changes, this points to a labour market compliance framework that is increasingly digital-first, but with tighter guardrails around who is authorised to deliver it.

Consistency matters – and so does avoiding discrimination

Alongside the updated code of practice, the Home Office has also reissued guidance on avoiding discrimination while preventing illegal working. It’s a timely reminder that Right to Work checks must be applied consistently to every worker – including British citizens – and that no assumptions should be made about someone’s status based on nationality, ethnicity, accent, surname or how long they’ve lived in the UK.

As responsibility for checks extends further into supply chains, this consistency becomes harder to maintain without a standardised, well-documented process, which is another reason many organisations are moving toward digital verification rather than ad hoc manual checks.

What this means for employers

With enforcement of the new measures beginning in October 2026, employers, recruiters and landlords have a clear window to prepare. Employment lawyers are urging organisations not to wait for enforcement to begin before acting. In practice, that means:

• Mapping all non-employee labour arrangements: agency workers, individual subcontractors, casual and zero-hours workers, gig and platform workers, and outsourced labour, to understand where they sit and who currently takes responsibility for checks.
• Identifying which functions engage this kind of labour, since it’s rarely HR alone. Your procurement, operations, facilities, logistics and site management teams are often the ones actually engaging contractors and agency staff.
• Auditing supplier, agency and platform agreements to make sure they include clear Right to Work obligations, audit rights, evidence-sharing duties and appropriate indemnities, since compliance responsibility will now sit with the organisation at the top of a contracting chain, not just the immediate employer.
• Looking beyond the paperwork – a worker’s status depends on how a relationship actually operates day to day, not just what a contract says, so practical arrangements need to match the status a business has assigned.
• Deciding how checks will be carried out. This might be centrally, by the supplier, or through a hybrid model. Document the approach so it’s auditable.
• Making sure that your digital verification provider is a government-registered DVS.
• Training HR, procurement, site managers and contract managers on the expanded regime, and updating onboarding and supplier management processes ahead of the common commencement date.

Manual processes and informal arrangements are unlikely to scale as responsibility widens across supply chains. A digital-first approach, delivered through a certified provider, will make it far easier to stay compliant – and consistent – as the rules change.

As a long-established, certified Digital Verification Service, TrustID already helps thousands of employers and landlords across the UK carry out compliant, efficient Right to Work and Right to Rent checks, with the technology and expert team to support you as these new requirements take effect. If you’d like to talk through what the October 2026 changes mean for your organisation, get in touch with our team.