On 6 March 2026, the Home Office updated its guidance for sponsors to include new duties around right to work checks. The changes appeared to extend the duty to conduct right to work checks beyond sponsored workers, potentially capturing anyone ‘engaged’ by the sponsor. ‘Engaged’ was not defined.
A further change on 8 April has clarified this to mean ‘direct’ engagement, but confusion remains. The guidance now contradicts itself in places and the grounds for revocation have been expanded in a way that means sponsors could be penalised even where they have done everything right.
What changed on 6 March 2026
Previously, sponsors had to establish a statutory excuse for their employees and retain evidence of this. This was under section 15 of the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006 and the corresponding code of practice, under section 19 of the same Act. In recent years, Appendix D of the sponsor guidance extended this to include a requirement to retain evidence of right to work for sponsored workers who are not direct employees.
This makes sense as, although a statutory excuse cannot be established for non-employees, sponsors are still responsible for them and should be expected to retain evidence of their right to work. However, sponsors were not expected to check contractors or other workers who were neither employed nor sponsored.
The 6 March update appeared to extend this duty to all workers not directly employed by the sponsor. Various passages now referred to ‘employ or engage someone’ and to a ‘worker you wish to employ or sponsor (including a worker who is not your direct employee)’. But ‘engaging’ was not defined and the rest of the guidance rumbled on with its previous language around ‘employment’.
How broad is the new duty?
The new wording was ambiguous. It could have been read narrowly, as still only referring to sponsored workers who are not direct employees, in line with the earlier changes to Appendix D. Or it could have been read much more broadly, as requiring sponsors to check the right to work of anyone engaged by the organisation, whether employed or not and whether sponsored or not.
A broad interpretation leads to a number of questions. Would a company need to check the right to work of a self-employed plumber or electrician to fix something in their offices? What about employees of a third-party subcontractor providing services on the sponsor’s behalf? If a company procures services from a platform which uses workers or subcontractors, like Amazon or Uber, would it have to check the right to work of each courier at the point of delivery? And would a company receiving secondees from another company need to verify their right to work, too?
This had serious practical implications as to whether it is possible for a sponsor to maintain compliance when this extends to certain non-employees. The requirements need to be both fair and practical. If sponsors do everything that is expected of them, they should be entitled to expect that their licence is safe.
The 8 April 2026 ‘clarification’
On 8 April 2026 the Home Office made an important, further clarification within part 2 of the sponsor guidance at paragraph S1.40. The paragraph now reads (emphasis added for the change):
You must check that any worker you wish to
employ orsponsor (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. If you fail to carry out a right to work check, or any necessary follow-up checks, you will be in breach of your sponsor duties and may be liable for a civil penalty under illegal working legislation. If you are issued with a civil penalty, or otherwise fail to carry out the correct checks, we will normally revoke your licence.
Without this addition, the paragraph arguably only required right to work checks on sponsored workers. It is now much clearer that the intention is to impose a positive duty on sponsors to conduct pre-work checks on all workers, sponsored or otherwise, who are ‘employed or engaged’. ‘Engagement’ is now apparently limited to ‘direct’ engagement. That term remains undefined, but would appear to rule out some of the more outlandish scenarios.
It is worth noting that part 2 of the guidance is normally about how to sponsor a worker. Part 1 covers licence applications and part 3 covers sponsor duties. A provision affecting all employees is wholly out of place in part 2. Sponsors looking for sponsor duties might expect such broad-reaching duties to appear in part 3.
The theme of this change does link to the following passage which appears in part 3 of the sponsor guidance, providing guidance on sponsor duties:
C1.42. You must … ensure 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
This is a new paragraph added on 6 March 2026. It sets an explicit duty to carry out right to work checks on all employees, not just the sponsored workforce, which was previously missing from the sponsor guidance. In practice, the Home Office’s sponsor compliance function has expected this of all sponsors already. Sponsors will have been well-advised to carry these out on all employees in any event, but it is now set out in much clearer terms.
Curiously, ‘or engage’ is missing from this paragraph despite its recent addition elsewhere. Perhaps this reflects the fact that immigration law does not provide any framework for preventing illegal working by non-employees.
Part 3 appears to instruct sponsors to retain records of checks on all workers. Paragraph C7 deals with right to work checks more generally in relation to section 15 of the 2006 Act and sanctions for employing illegal workers. It is not limited in scope to the sponsored workforce. The ‘or engage’ modifier now appears here under C7.29 which covers migrants in broader categories than sponsored workers:
C7.28. Where the worker is not your direct employee (for example, if they’re self employed), you are not required to establish a statutory excuse but you must still ensure the relevant checks have been carried out (and retain suitable evidence) to comply with your record-keeping duties, as set out in Appendix D to the sponsor guidance.
C7.29. 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. If the worker has restrictions on their right to be in the UK and to do the work in question (for example, if they have limited permission to enter or stay under a Worker or Temporary Worker route), you need to conduct follow-up checks
Interestingly the theme is then disrupted when looking at the caseworker guidance for Worker and Temporary Worker sponsor compliance visits guidance, updated on 25 March 2026, which states (emphasis added for the changes):
You must check the sponsor: …
- carries out right to work checks on all who carry out work on their behalf, including checking e-visas where applicable
But then:
If a sponsor does not take copies of passports or immigration documents for sponsored workers
or students, where applicable, and undertake right to work checks for all workers, they automatically fail the record keeping and maintaining documents section of the visit report because they have failed the requirement of:
- immigration status monitoring
- maintaining documents
Such checks for non-sponsored staff are not mandatory and a sponsor is not in breach of their sponsor duties if they do not make these checks. If, however, the sponsor was found to be employing an illegal worker, the sponsor would not be classed by the Home Office as having a ‘statutory excuse’. For further information see the section on migrant issues and illegal working.
Contradictions in the guidance
This is confusing. The first quoted paragraph appears to contradict the second. And the second then contradicts the sponsor guidance itself, which imposes a duty under C1.42 to check ‘any worker you sponsor or employ’, and under S1.40 to check ‘any worker you otherwise wish to employ or directly engage’.
The 6 March changes also extend the licence refusal and revocation grounds in annex L2(g) and C2(d) to cover situations where a sponsor is employing or engaging a worker who does not have the right to work. Importantly this does not (yet?) include the clarification made in part 2 regarding ‘directly’ engaging workers.
Taken at face value, this means even full compliance with the letter and spirit of the sponsor guidance may not actually protect a sponsor against adverse outcomes for their licence.
Annexes L2(g) and C2(d) suggest that the simply employing or (very broadly) engaging someone who does not have permission is grounds for revocation. There is no reference to whether the sponsor has carried out compliant right to work checks.
Under the 2006 Act, a sponsor who follows the right to work guidance can sometimes be protected even if a worker turns out to not have the right to work. Common examples include where a compliant check was undertaken but the worker’s permission was later revoked without the employer’s knowledge (e.g. in an unsponsored visa route), where it was not reasonably apparent that a document was false, or where the grace period applied because the employer was reasonably satisfied that the employee had an outstanding application.
But annexes L2(g) and C2(d) do not refer to right to work checks or to a statutory excuse. They simply state that employing or engaging someone who does not have permission is grounds to revoke the licence. The grounds are not mandatory and there is some discretion, though the language is ‘will normally revoke’, creating a presumption in favour of revocation.
This seems unjustifiably harsh when a sponsor may have carried out every step and duty required of it with no way of knowing that anything was untoward. It also seems strange that a sponsor who inadvertently employed or engaged someone illegally despite full compliance faces ‘will normally revoke’, when a sponsor who actively failed to do what is expected and been issued a civil penalty under annex C3(a) only faces ‘may revoke’.
The revocation grounds in annexes L2(g) and C2(d) have been in place for employees for a long time. But the simple addition of ‘or engage’ has dramatically expanded their scope. The Home Office can now take action against employers in circumstances where there is no underlying legal mechanism for them to protect themselves. Where the activity is as broad as ‘engaging’ it may not be practical or even possible for a sponsor to comply.
Jumping the gun on legislation
The 6 March updates appear to be an attempt to bring non-employed workers within the right to work regime in anticipation of section 48 of the of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025. But that provision has not yet commenced. Parliament has indicated its intention to expand the civil penalty regime in a specific way via primary legislation. Extending it in the guidance prior to commencement – and potentially more broadly than the legislation allows – is concerning.
