1 October 2026

Right to work from 1 October 2026 — what actually changes

Duties reach further than your direct staff. The official check is still on GOV.UK. The usual failure is the file.

This page is a plain summary for UK employers, agencies and site operators. It is not legal advice. Read the current Home Office guidance before you change process.

What changes on 1 October

Section 48 of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025 is due to take effect on 1 October 2026. It extends the illegal-working rules beyond a normal contract of employment.

In practice that means more of these arrangements sit inside the right-to-work scheme:

• agency workers and labour supplied through a chain
• people engaged under a worker’s contract
• individual contractors and subcontractors providing their own labour
• some gig and platform workers, including substitutes they send

Genuinely self-employed people running their own business and contracting direct with clients can sit outside. Mislabeling someone as self-employed does not put them outside.

What does not change

• You still carry out the official check. Vernx does not.
• The check methods are still the ones the Home Office publishes on GOV.UK.
• Vernx is not a Digital Verification Service and does not create a statutory excuse.
• Civil penalties already in force: GOV.UK cites up to £60,000 per illegal worker. Confirm the current figure on GOV.UK before you quote it.

Where firms actually fail

Most firms already did a check for payroll staff. The gap is evidence for everyone else — the agency carer on a Saturday rota, the scaffolder sent by another firm, the event steward booked for one night.

If the result lives on a coordinator’s phone, in WhatsApp or in a site folder, you cannot produce it when asked. From 1 October that file has to cover a wider workforce.

What to do this month

• List every person who will work for you in October — direct, agency, contract, casual.
• For each name: was a check done, on what date, where is the copy, when is the next date due.
• Read the current employer guide on GOV.UK. Do not copy a blog and treat it as the code of practice.
• Keep the official check on GOV.UK or a certified digital service. Keep the file somewhere you can find it.

Official sources

• Check a job applicant’s right to work
• Employer guide to right-to-work checks
• Penalties for employing illegal workers
• Section 48 — Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025

Published 10 September 2026. Updated 20 September 2026. Software only — not immigration or legal advice.