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Right to work checks extend to freelancers, contractors and gig workers on 1 October: is a £60,000 penalty fair on a firm with no HR department?

ended 15. September 2026

On 1 October, the right-to-work rules stop being about employees. They extend to workers, individual sub-contractors, gig and platform workers and casual staff on zero hours. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/right-to-work-checks-employers-guide

So the self-employed cleaner, the weekend delivery driver and the freelance designer all need checking, and the evidence kept. Fail to establish a statutory excuse, the civil penalty is up to £60,000 per worker. 

The Home Office only updated its draft employer guide on 11 September. That's three weeks' notice. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/right-to-work-checks-employers-guide

A big firm has a compliance team for this. A cafe with nine staff has the owner, a laptop and Sunday night.

It's like handing someone a speed gun and telling them to police their own street, then fining them when a car gets through.

Nobody argues with checking who can legally work here. Argue about who has to do it, and whether three weeks is enough.

Over to you: 

  • Have you started checking your contractors and freelancers yet? 
  • Is £60,000 per worker a fair deterrent, or a trap for firms with no HR? 
  • Should the Home Office police illegal working, or is it right that employers do it? 
  • Will small firms just drop freelancers altogether, and who loses if they do? 
  • What's your practical tip for checking a contractor without souring the relationship?

 

5 responses from the Newspage community

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Kate UnderwoodVerified
Founder & Chief People Strategist at Kate Underwood HR & Training
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Nobody sensible objects to checking who's allowed to work. The row is about who does the checking. A 900 person business has a compliance function. A nine person business has an owner doing paperwork after bedtime, and now she's expected to run immigration checks on the window cleaner or risk sixty grand. Three weeks' notice is not enough for that. If you use freelancers, contractors or casual staff, list every single one this week, check them, save the evidence, and put in writing who owns the job going forward. Then chase your agencies, because they're in scope too. Don't wait for October to find out you missed someone.
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Tony SanchezVerified
Founder at Bridging Loan Directory
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As a small business owner, I have no problem with the principle that businesses should make sure people they engage have the right to work in the UK. What concerns me is the amount of compliance increasingly being pushed onto small firms that don't have HR or legal departments.

A potential £60,000 penalty per worker is significant for any business, but for a small company it could be devastating. If the rules are extending to freelancers and contractors, businesses need clear guidance and reasonable time to understand exactly who needs checking and what records must be kept.

The danger is that complexity and fear of getting it wrong make small businesses more reluctant to use freelancers or give people opportunities. Enforcement needs to deter deliberate illegal working without turning an administrative mistake into an existential risk for a small firm.
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Harvey DhillonVerified
Founder & CEO at Zmartly
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We've started on our own contractors, and the first job wasn't the checking, it was the list of everyone we pay who isn't on the payroll. A first breach tops out at £45,000 per worker, £60,000 is the repeat level, and per worker means it lands again for everyone the checks missed. A warning notice with nothing to pay takes good checking, co-operation, three clean years and a Home Office reference number you got before they found the worker. So it isn't the level that's unfair, it's that the way out asks a firm with no HR to have spotted the problem first. Employers should run the checks, because they're the only ones who know who actually turned up. The rule is fair and the run-up to 1 October isn't. Some may drop freelancers rather than risk it, and the losers would be the cleaners and drivers entitled to work here. Where the check is yours, run it before the work starts and the same way for everyone: at the start it's process, later, on one person it's an accusation.
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Kelly SmallcombeVerified
Fractional Chief People Officer at Meliorem HR Consultancy
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This is a trap and it isn't being talked about enough.

The guidance landed on 11th September, giving employers three weeks to prepare, for one of the busiest trading periods of the year for a lot of small businesses.

It's worth asking what this is actually for. Employers are being handed the job of investigating who's working legally, keeping the evidence, and carrying the risk if they miss something. It's outsourced enforcement with a penalty attached.

It will have consequences nobody's pricing in yet. When checking a contractor becomes a £60,000 gamble, plenty of small firms won't get better at compliance. They'll just stop using freelancers. The people this is supposed to protect from illegal working are the same people who'll lose the work altogether.

There's no denying that something needs to happen, but outsourcing compliance is another blow to SME's trying to build businesses in the UK.
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Debbie PorterVerified
Managing Director at Destination Digital Marketing
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So employers already have to do the work of the Department of Work and Pensions, but now we have to do the work of the Home Office too? At this point they are taking George Orwell’s 1984 as a blueprint, rather than as a cautionary tale.

Businesses already shoulder mandatory pension contributions and NICs for state pension contributions, and have to shell out for sick pay from their own pockets, whilst also being completely hamstrung with legislation on how employees gaming that sick-pay system needs approaching. With very little notice at all - and only surfacing due to journalists picking it up - small businesses with no HR department are now walking into a trap they don’t even know has been set for them. Will we be adopting denunciations next?