Your Self-Employed Cleaner Is About to Become Your Problem

Right to work checks: the October 2026 change UK SMEs can't ignore

Right, here's the sentence that made me sit up. From 1 October 2026, you can be liable for someone you have never met, never interviewed, never paid and never knowingly hired. This is about right to work checks expanding beyond employees. It's four weeks away and plenty of brilliant small businesses haven't heard a whisper. You don't need panic. You do need a plan.

Right to work checks: what's actually changing

Section 48 of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025 comes into force on 1 October 2026. Most of the Act is already live. This part was held back, and now it switches on the same day tribunal time limits double.

Here it is in one line. Right to work checks currently apply to employees. From 1 October, they apply to a much wider group who work in your name.

Who is now in scope for right to work checks

• Workers engaged under a worker's contract, including many casual and flexible arrangements
• Individual subcontractors doing work in a supply chain
• Operators of online matching services who must check providers on their platform

In plain language: the self-employed cleaner on a Tuesday, the courier, the chair renter in the salon, subcontracted trades on site, the person the agency sent, the delivery driver, and the freelancer on your rota. All need right to work checks.

Chain liability: the bit that goes further than you'd expect

Here's the big shift. Liability can reach a business with no direct contract with the person doing the work.

Two routes make this happen:

• Subcontracting chains. If you contract work out and your subcontractor passes it on, right to work checks are expected down the chain, including on people brought in by your subcontractor's subcontractor.
• Substitution. If a contract allows a substitute and one turns up, that person needs a check too.

The Home Office will look at the nature of the contracts and what each party did. Translation: if you wrote nothing into your contracts and asked nobody, don't expect the chain to save you.

This moves right to work checks from a pure HR task into a procurement task. Your protection isn't a photocopied passport. It's the terms in your contracts, what you asked for, and whether you checked it happened.

Who this does not cover

Deep breath. There's a limit, and it matters.

Genuinely self-employed people who run their own business and contract directly with you for goods or services sit outside this. Your accountant isn't suddenly your problem. Nor is the plumber you used once, the marketing agency on retainer, or the firm that services the boiler. None of them need right to work checks under this change.

One rider, though. That carve-out doesn't rescue someone who gets work through an intermediary or platform and isn't genuinely running a business on their own account. "They invoice us" isn't the test.

And here's the sting. The label on the contract doesn't decide it. The reality does. That's the same status test you know from tax and holiday pay cases. If someone is called self-employed, works only for you, is on your rota, does your work in your name and wears your branding, that's exactly the sort of arrangement right to work checks are now aimed at. If that description made you wince, you have your answer.

Penalties, statutory excuse, and why timing matters

The penalties aren't new. The pool of people they apply to is. Getting right to work checks wrong can mean a civil penalty per worker, rising for repeat breaches within three years. Knowingly employing someone without the right to work, or having reasonable cause to believe it, is a criminal offence.

I won't quote figures here, because they change. For current numbers see Gov.uk: Penalties for employing illegal workers.

Your protection against a civil penalty is called a statutory excuse. You get it only by doing the prescribed checks properly, before work starts. Not afterwards. For indirect arrangements, the statutory excuse comes from having the right clauses, substitution controls, and identity verification in place before the work or services begin.

Expert note

• "You must carry out a right to work check before employing a person to make sure they are allowed to work." Source: Gov.uk Employer's guide to right to work checks
• ACAS also reminds employers to apply checks consistently to avoid discrimination. See: ACAS: Right to work checks

Suggested stat sources: Home Office enforcement data on illegal working civil penalties, and ONS labour market data on sectors using casual or platform-based work.

Two honest caveats about right to work checks

• Codes still in draft. Two revised Codes of Practice are due on 1 October: one on preventing illegal working, one on avoiding unlawful discrimination while preventing illegal working. A draft updated Employer's Guide is also out, with worked examples expected. Keep an eye on Gov.uk in September for the final versions: Employer's guide to right to work checks.
• This is forward-looking, not a retrospective audit. The new duty applies to initial checks from 1 October 2026, and to repeat checks that fall due on or after that date. You don't need to re-check everyone by breakfast. There's some debate about how chain liability interacts with contracts already running on 1 October. That's a reason to get your list done now, not to relax.

Equality and the discrimination trap

Here's where nerves can get you into tribunal trouble. Anxious teams sometimes avoid candidates who seem "complicated" on right to work checks. Time-limited permission. An eVisa. A share code that won't load at 4.55pm. The quiet choice is the easier candidate.

Don't do that. That's race discrimination. A rejected applicant can bring a claim without any service.

The draft discrimination Code says:

• Have and implement an equality policy
• Train the people who do right to work checks on avoiding discrimination
• Don't treat people less favourably because their right to work is time-limited
• If a system issue blocks a check, give a reasonable chance to complete it and keep the job open where you reasonably can

Rule of thumb: check everybody the same way, every time. Don't let the checking process become a filter.

What to do in the next four weeks

None of this needs a project. It needs a list and two conversations.

1. Write down everybody who does work in your business's name. Not just payroll. Include casual staff, regular self-employed, chair renters, subcontracted trades, couriers, agency placements, app bookings, and anyone in your branding.
2. Against each name, note whether a right to work check exists and where the evidence lives. Many small firms find payroll is sorted and everything else is blank. That blank is the job.
3. Read your subcontractor and agency contracts. Do they require right to work checks to be carried out? Can you request evidence? What happens if someone substitutes or subcontracts again? If the answer is no, fix it now. It's often a short clause, not a full redraft.
4. Decide who owns this. One named person. "We assumed the agency had it covered" will not withstand a penalty notice.
5. Make sure nobody new starts after 1 October without a right to work check, whatever their contract is called. That single habit prevents most grief.
6. Train the people who do the checks, both on the process and how to do it fairly. Both halves matter.

Quick RAG checklist for right to work checks

• Red: No contract clauses on checks, substitution or supply chains. No records for non-payroll workers. Nobody owns the process.
• Amber: Clauses exist but you haven't verified delivery. Checks happen but are inconsistent. Training is informal.
• Green: Clauses in place for supply chains. Consistent checks before start. Evidence stored. One named owner. Discrimination training done.

FAQs about right to work checks from October 2026

• What is a right to work check? A simple process to confirm a person is allowed to work in the UK. Done by a face-to-face document check or using the Home Office online service for eVisas and share codes.

• Who needs right to work checks from October 2026? Employees, workers, many individual subcontractors, and providers on platforms that operate in your name.

• Do I need to re-check everyone on 1 October? No. The new rules apply to initial checks from 1 October and to repeat checks that fall due on or after that date.

• How do I protect myself in supply chains? Add right to work clauses to contracts, require confirmation and audit rights, control substitution, and retain evidence before work starts.

• What is a statutory excuse? Your legal defence against a civil penalty if you completed the prescribed checks correctly before work began.

• Can I withdraw an offer if a share code doesn't load? Give a reasonable chance to complete the check and keep the role open where you reasonably can. Don't treat applicants less favourably because of a time-limited status.

Final thoughts and a friendly nudge

This isn't the scariest change of the autumn. It's the most missable. Four weeks is plenty. A list, two contract clauses, one named owner and a rule about new starters, and you're in good shape. Leave it until the Home Office asks, and you're explaining rather than evidencing. That's a worse conversation to have.

Want a quick, honest picture of where you stand? Start with our free HR Health Check. It takes minutes and gives you a simple RAG view across your policies, contracts and processes.

If your managers will be doing right to work checks, we have the practical how-to in plain English. Join Cake, Coffee and Compliance. Block 1 starts on Tuesday 13 October.

I've been turning legal noise into plain English for real businesses for years. You can find coverage on our Press page. Stay informed, not panicked. Kettle On. Standards Up. Until next time, keep buzzing and take care of your people!

External resources for deeper reading

• Gov.uk: Penalties for employing illegal workers
• Gov.uk: Employer's guide to right to work checks
• ACAS: Right to work checks
• CIPD: Right to work checks factsheet

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Article",
  "headline": "Right to work checks: the October 2026 change UK SMEs can't ignore",
  "author": {
    "@type": "Person",
    "name": "Kate Underwood"
  },
  "datePublished": "",
  "dateModified": "",
  "mainEntityOfPage": {
    "@type": "WebPage",
    "@id": "https://kateunderwoodhr.co.uk/blog/right-to-work-checks-october-2026"
  },
  "image": "",
  "publisher": {
    "@type": "Organization",
    "name": "Kate Underwood HR",
    "logo": {
      "@type": "ImageObject",
      "url": ""
    }
  },
  "articleBody": "From 1 October 2026, liability for illegal working can reach beyond employees to workers, individual subcontractors and platform providers. Your defence is a statutory excuse created by completing prescribed right to work checks before work starts and by building clauses and audit rights into your supply chains."
}

---

SEO Elements

• Primary keyword: right to work checks
• Related keywords: October 2026 right to work changes, statutory excuse, subcontractor chain liability, Home Office employer guidance
• Meta description: Right to work checks widen on 1 October 2026. Learn who is in scope, chain liability, and how to build a statutory excuse before work starts. (153 characters, includes primary keyword)
• SEO title: Right to work checks: the October 2026 change for S