Right to work checks in hospitality: how to do them properly

Every pub, restaurant, café, bar and hotel in the UK has a legal duty to prevent illegal working. In practice that means a right to work check on every new starter, done properly, before their first shift. Hospitality is a sector the Home Office pays close attention to, and licensed premises have extra exposure because a civil penalty can put your licence at risk.

The good news: the check itself takes a few minutes. Most problems come from doing it late (after someone's already started), doing it on some staff and not others, or not keeping the evidence.

The Right to Work Scheme applies across the whole UK.

The short version

1. Check everyone, before they start work, in the same way.
2. Use one of the three prescribed methods below.
3. Keep a dated copy for the length of employment plus two years.
4. If their permission is time-limited, diarise a follow-up check before it runs out.

Do this correctly and you have a "statutory excuse": if it later turns out someone didn't have the right to work, you won't be liable for a civil penalty (unless you knew).

The three ways to check

1. Home Office online check (share code)

For anyone with an eVisa, this is the method you must use. The applicant goes to GOV.UK, chooses "Prove your right to work to an employer: get a share code", and gives you a nine-character code starting with W. You enter it with their date of birth on the Home Office's "view a job applicant's right to work details" service.

• Share codes are valid for 90 days.
• Codes beginning with R (for renting) can't be used for work.
• Check the photo on screen matches the person in front of you (in person or on a live video call).
• Save or print the result and keep it.

British and Irish citizens can't get a share code.

2. Manual document check

For British and Irish citizens and people without an eVisa, you can check original documents from the Home Office's acceptable lists. In outline:

1. Obtain original documents from the lists (a British or Irish passport is the most common).
2. Check them while you physically hold the originals. Is the photo them? Are dates of birth consistent? Has it expired (where that matters)? Any signs of tampering? The Home Office guide says not to rely on seeing a document over a live video link, a screenshot or a scan.
3. Copy them in a format that can't be changed later (a PDF or a hard copy), and record the date you did the check. The guide says just writing a date on the copy isn't enough: write "The date on which this right to work check was made: [date]" or keep a separate dated record.

For a passport, copy the page with the photo and personal details, and any page with an endorsement. For other documents, copy the whole thing.

Biometric residence permits and cards can no longer be accepted.

3. A registered digital verification provider

You can pay a provider registered with the government to check British and Irish passports digitally (including Irish passport cards, and passports up to six months past expiry). They use document scanning and facial matching. If you go this way, the provider must be registered; using an unregistered one doesn't give you a statutory excuse. You're still responsible for the check, not the provider.

What changed on 1 October 2026

The Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025 extended the Right to Work Scheme beyond ordinary employment, with changes in force from 1 October 2026 and a new Home Office employer's guide published that day.

• The duty now covers people engaged under a worker's contract, individual sub-contractors, and people found through online matching services, not just employees.
• Extended liability means a business can be liable further up a chain, for example where it contracts for work or services and another business supplies the people.

For a typical venue, the main effect is that "casual" doesn't mean "no check". If you engage people under a worker's contract, such as zero-hours bar staff or event waiting staff you pay directly, check them exactly as you'd check an employee. If you use an agency, the agency (as the employment business) is responsible for its own workers' checks, but read your contract with them. The new guide includes hospitality examples, so read it if you use agencies, platforms or subcontracted staff.

Follow-up checks

If someone's permission to work is time-limited, your statutory excuse lasts only until it expires. Before then, do a follow-up check. The online check result tells you when a follow-up is due. Put that date in your diary the day you do the first check.

For people with a pending application, appeal or administrative review, you may need to use the Home Office Employer Checking Service rather than a document or share code.

Students on your rota

International students are a big part of many hospitality teams. Some can work; some can't.

• Their eVisa (via share code) or passport endorsement shows whether they can work and how many hours a week in term time, often 10 or 20 hours. A "week" runs Monday to Sunday.
• They can work full time before their course starts, in official vacations, and after their course ends while their permission lasts.
• They can't fill a permanent full-time vacancy (with limited exceptions) or be self-employed.

Ask for their term dates and rota within the limit. A student who works 24 hours in a term-time week is in breach of their conditions, and you've lost your statutory excuse for that work.

Penalties

Don't discriminate

Check everyone the same way. The Home Office guide says you shouldn't make assumptions about someone's right to work based on their accent, surname, nationality or how long they've lived in the UK, and you shouldn't only check people you think are migrants. Doing so risks a discrimination claim with no cap on compensation.

Common mistakes in hospitality

• Checking after the first shift. "They started Friday, I'll do it Monday" means no statutory excuse for that weekend.
• Accepting a photo of a passport on someone's phone instead of checking the original.
• Accepting a BRP. No longer valid.
• Not dating the copy properly. The date of the check is part of the evidence, and a bare date scribbled on the copy isn't enough.
• Losing the paperwork when the manager who hired them leaves.
• Missing the follow-up check for time-limited permission.
• Letting students work over their term-time hours.

Where ShiftComplete helps

ShiftComplete doesn't do right to work checks and doesn't store identity documents. It helps with the routine around them. You can add a one-off priority task for the hiring manager ("Right to work check for new starter before Friday"), and every tick is named and timestamped, with optional or required photo evidence, so you can see it was done and by whom. On the rota, staff areas and split shifts make it easy to keep a student's hours inside their term-time limit, and labour cost shows as you build. If you switch on clocking in and out, you also see the hours they actually worked against the rota.

Pair it with our staff induction checklist so the check happens before shift one, every time.

£1.49 per staff member per month, every feature included, free for 60 days with no card needed.

This guide is general information, not legal advice: for a specific case, call the Home Office Employer Enquiry helpline or speak to an immigration adviser.