Do You Need to Check a Contractor's Right to Work? New UK Rules Explained
You've hired a self-employed contractor to run your project, and someone in the team asks whether you need to see their passport. It feels like an employee question, not a contractor one. The rules changed in 2025, and getting this wrong now carries a civil penalty of up to £60,000 per person, so it's worth two minutes to get clear.
Short answer. If you're only engaging a genuinely independent contractor who invoices you as a business, you are not legally required to carry out a right to work check on them. That duty applies to people you employ. From April 2025, though, the government widened the net so that many businesses using individual gig and casual workers must now check, and the safest position for most orgs is to check anyone whose working relationship looks like employment in substance.
Who does the legal duty actually apply to?
The right to work check duty comes from the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006. Historically it applied to employers hiring under a contract of employment (or a worker contract). If a person genuinely runs their own business and provides a service to you, the duty to check has not sat with you as the end client. The person's own company, or an intermediary, carried it.
That distinction still matters, but it has narrowed. In 2024 the government announced, and in 2025 confirmed, that it would extend right to work checks and the civil penalty regime to businesses engaging individuals in the gig economy and on zero-hours-style casual arrangements, alongside a wider crackdown on illegal working. The direction of travel is clear: if you're getting labour from an individual, the expectation is that you check.
So the real question is not "is this person called a contractor?" It's "what is the substance of this working relationship?" A label on an invoice does not settle it.
Employee, worker or genuine contractor? Why the category decides the check
UK law recognises three broad categories, and each carries a different obligation. Getting the category right is the same analysis you'd do for tax, holiday pay and, since 2025, right to work.
| Category | What it looks like | Right to work check? |
|---|---|---|
| Employee | Works under your control, set hours, integrated into the org, no genuine right to send a substitute. | Yes. Always check before they start. |
| Worker / casual / gig | Provides personal service, some control by you, limited independence. Includes many zero-hours and platform arrangements. | Yes, under the extended 2025 rules. Check before work starts. |
| Genuine independent contractor | Runs their own business, controls how the work is done, can send a substitute, invoices as a company, bears financial risk. | Not a legal requirement on you, but strongly advisable to confirm status and check where there's doubt. |
The features that push someone toward "employee" or "worker", and therefore toward a check, are the same ones HMRC and the courts weigh: control (do you direct how, when and where they perform the work?), personal service (must they do it themselves, or can they send a substitute?), integration (are they part of your team, using your systems, holding a company email?), mutuality of obligation (are you obliged to offer work and they to accept it?), and financial risk (do they profit or lose on the job, or just get paid for time?).
A worked example. You engage a self-employed developer through their limited company to build a feature over eight weeks. They use their own equipment, set their own hours, could send a colleague, and invoice you monthly. That's a genuine contractor, and the check duty is not yours. Now change the facts: they work your hours, at your desk, under your project lead's daily direction, cannot substitute, and you pay them weekly by the hour. That's employment in substance, whatever the invoice says, and you should be running a right to work check.
What does the extension to gig and casual workers change?
The 2025 change matters most to orgs that use individuals for flexible, on-demand or short-term work: delivery, hospitality, care, cleaning, construction site labour, events staffing, and platform-based services. If you engage those people directly rather than through a compliant agency or their own company, the government's position is that you carry the check and the civil penalty exposure.
Two practical consequences follow. First, review how you take on casual and short-term labour, because "they're only here for a fortnight" is no longer a reason to skip the check. Second, if you rely on an agency or an umbrella company, confirm in writing who is running the checks and keep evidence, because passing responsibility down the chain only works if the other party is genuinely the employer.
How do you carry out a compliant right to work check?
Where a check is required, follow the Home Office process to establish a "statutory excuse", which is the legal protection against a penalty if the person later turns out not to have the right to work. There are three routes:
- Online check. For most non-British and non-Irish nationals, use the gov.uk view a job applicant's right to work service with a share code they provide and their date of birth. This is now the main route.
- Digital identity check via an IDSP. For British and Irish citizens with a valid passport, you can use a certified Identity Service Provider to verify identity digitally.
- Manual document check. Where the other routes don't apply, examine original documents from the Home Office list, in the person's presence or on a live video call, check they're genuine and belong to that person, and keep a dated copy.
Follow the current employer's guide to right to work checks on gov.uk, because the accepted documents and process are updated periodically. Do the check before work starts, record the date, and diarise any follow-up check for people with time-limited permission.
What happens if you get it wrong?
If you employ someone who does not have the right to work and you failed to carry out a compliant check, you face a civil penalty of up to £60,000 per worker for a repeat breach (£45,000 for a first breach). If you knew or had reasonable cause to believe the person had no right to work, that's a criminal offence carrying up to five years' imprisonment and an unlimited fine.
Beyond the penalty, there's reputational and operational fallout: sponsor licence problems if you hold one, contract terminations, and the cost of unwinding a bad hire mid-project. Treating a genuine contractor as if they need a check costs you very little. Treating an employee or worker as if they don't can cost £60,000.
Where does status sit alongside tax, insurance and IR35?
Right to work is one strand of a bigger status question, and it pays to line them up. The same relationship that triggers a right to work check often has tax consequences under the off-payroll working rules (IR35), which decide whether a contractor working through their own company should be taxed like an employee. It also affects who carries employer's liability insurance, who is responsible for the contractor's own professional indemnity cover, and whether statutory rights like holiday and sick pay apply.
Get the category right once, in the contract and in how the relationship actually runs, and these strands fall into place. A well-drafted contractor agreement should reflect genuine independence, describe the service rather than a role, allow substitution, and avoid language that reads as employment. Where the substance genuinely is contractor, the paperwork should say so and match reality. Papering over an employment relationship with a services contract fools no one, least of all HMRC or the Home Office.
A quick decision checklist
- Is the person providing personal service under your control? If yes, treat as employee or worker and run a right to work check before they start.
- Are they a genuine business (own company, substitution right, financial risk, invoices you)? No legal check duty on you, but confirm status in writing and check where there's any doubt.
- Is this gig, casual, zero-hours or short-term individual labour? Under the 2025 rules, check.
- Using an agency or umbrella? Confirm in writing who runs the check and keep the evidence.
- Anyone with time-limited permission? Diarise the expiry and re-check before it lapses.
None of this is a substitute for advice on a genuinely borderline case. If you can't decide whether someone is a contractor or a worker, that ambiguity is exactly where the fine lives, and it's worth a solicitor's view. For the everyday contract itself, GenieAI can draft a contractor services agreement that reflects genuine independence and flag terms that drift toward employment, so the paperwork matches the relationship you actually intend. See how GenieAI reviews and drafts commercial contracts for teams working without an in-house lawyer.
