Do I need to do a right to work check on a self-employed subcontractor?

Usually yes, from 1 October 2026. If a customer has contracted you to do a job and you take on a self-employed individual to carry out part of it, the law now treats you as their employer for right to work purposes, so you must check their right to work before they start. If they contract directly with your customer, or you simply buy a service for your own business from an independent firm, a check is usually not needed.

Why has this changed?

Section 48 of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025 came into force on 1 October 2026. It widens the meaning of "employer" for illegal working rules. As well as employees, it now covers people on a worker's contract, individual sub-contractors and people found through online matching platforms.

The Home Office guide defines an individual sub-contractor as a person who has a contract with you to provide work or services, where you have a contract with a third party (your customer) to provide that work, but they do not. In plain words: if you pass on part of a job you have been paid to do, the person who does it is in scope.

A worked example

They have a UTR and I pay them through CIS. Does that change it?

No. Being self-employed for tax does not take someone out of the rules. The Home Office says the scheme applies to the real features of the arrangement, not the label, and that a tax decision such as IR35 does not decide whether a check is needed.

The guide lists the things to weigh up, including: does the person do the work personally, who arranged for them to do it, who is responsible to the customer for the work, and can they send someone else in their place. No single point decides it.

There is no written contract. Does it still count?

Yes. The Home Office guide says a contract can be express or implied, and oral or in writing. A phone call agreeing a price and a start date is enough to be an arrangement.

The date that matters is when you agree the arrangement, not when the work starts. An arrangement agreed before 1 October 2026 is not caught just because the work carries on. Any new arrangement from that date is covered, and there is no grace period.

What about a subcontractor with their own limited company?

Usually out of scope, if they run a genuine independent business through their own company. But the guide says there is no blanket exclusion: it depends on how the arrangement works in practice. If you are not sure, the safest step is to do the check anyway, because a correct check is your protection.

How do I do the check, step by step?

1. Before day one, ask for their right to work share code and date of birth, or their original documents.
2. If they have a share code, check it on gov.uk at gov.uk/view-right-to-work and save the result page.
3. If they are British or Irish, they will not have a share code. Hold their original passport or other documents from the Home Office's List A or List B and check them with the person present (in person or on a live video call), or use a certified digital identity provider. Take a clear copy and write the date you checked.
4. Keep the record for as long as they work for you and for 2 years after.
5. Recheck before any time-limited permission runs out.

If you skip it and the person turns out not to have the right to work, your business can be fined up to £45,000 per worker, or up to £60,000 for a repeat breach. A correct check, done before they start and kept on file, gives you a legal defence called a statutory excuse.