On 12th February 2025, the Home Office updated their Employer’s Guide to Right to Work checks guidance.
The new guidance (and archived versions) can be found on the gov.uk website.
We cover key updates below.
Key updates
- Confirmation that those using Biometric Residence Permits should take action to create a UKVI account to access their e-visa and prove their right to live/work in the UK.
Employers have been required, since 6 April 2022 to do online checks on those with biometric residence permits, but BRPs ceased to be issued on 31 October 2024, and most permits expire on 31 December 2024.
The updated section on “Biometric Residence Permits” gives us more guidance on what to do during the transitional period during which BRP holders (and those with 90 day entry clearance vignette stickers) are registering for e-visas.
Helpful comments from the guidance are:
“To provide additional support during the transition to eVisas, the Home Office has enabled individuals with ongoing permission to stay in the UK to use their expired BRP cards to access the online right to work checking service where they can prove their right to work.”
“For migrants overseas who are granted permission to enter the UK for more than six months, they are issued with a vignette (sticker) in their passport which is valid for 90 calendar days to enable them to travel to the UK. Following their arrival, they will have 10 calendar days or before their vignette expires (whichever is later) to create a UKVI account to access their eVisa… If they need to start work for you prior to creating a UKVI account and accessing their eVisa, they will be able to evidence their right to work by producing the short validity vignette in their passport which they used to travel to the UK. You will need to conduct a manual right to work check on the basis of this vignette, which must be valid at the time of the check. However, as this will expire 90 calendar days from issue, you will have to repeat the check using the online service, for the statutory excuse to continue.”
- Acceptable documents for right to work (RTW) checks update to exclude ‘clipped’ (i.e. cancelled) British passports as acceptable documents.
This update confirms that if a passport has been clipped, this means it has also been cancelled by the authorities and can therefore not be used for Right to Work check purposes.
An alternative for a British Citizen with no passport (or only a clipped passport) could be a UK Birth certificate and HMRC document showing their national insurance number.
Those making RTW checks should always cross-reference the guidance and, when doing a manual check, ensure that the proper procedure is followed:
- Obtain – see the original physical document
- Check – check it has not been tampered with, personal details are consistent, the photo matches the person’s appearance etc
- Copy – take a copy of the document and endorse the copy ‘This is a true copy of the original document seen by me on [DATE YOU MADE THE CHECK]’ and retain a copy of the check (at least 2 years after employment ends).
If you are a sponsor licence holder, failure to follow the correct procedure can lead to the suspension and even revocation of your sponsor licence – even if your worker had the right to work!
- Removal of the section relating to COVID-19 temporary adjusted checks
Previously the guidance confirmed the acceptability of ‘adjusted’ right to work checks during the height of the covid pandemic and clarified that ‘retrospective’ checks were not needed where the checks were done in line with the concession:
“You do not need to carry out retrospective checks on employees who had a COVID-19 adjusted check between 30 March 2020 and 30 September 2022 (inclusive). You will maintain a statutory excuse against liability for a civil penalty if the check undertaken during this period was done in the prescribed standard manner or as set out in the COVID-19 adjusted checks guidance. However, any individual identified with no lawful immigration status in the UK may be liable to immigration enforcement action.”
The paragraph has been removed from the guidance and it is open to interpretation if the Home Office now expects ‘retrospective’ checks to be done.
The Home Office’s employer’s helpline confirmed on 26 February 2025:
“Retrospective checks for covid-19 adjusted checks are not needed. If the Home Office’s intention was to require retrospective checks, this would have been drafted into the guidance. The omission of the paragraph does not infer a new duty to do retrospective checks”.
We hope that helps!
