An identity check establishes that a person is who they say they are. A right to work check establishes that they are permitted to do the work. They are separate obligations, they protect against different things, and neither satisfies the other. Conflating them is one of the more expensive mistakes available in UK recruitment, because a business can hold a perfect identity verification and still receive a civil penalty of up to £45,000.
The confusion has become more consequential since 1 October 2026, when the right to work scheme extended well beyond employment.
What Each Check Is For
Identity Verification
Identity verification confirms that a document is genuine and that the person presenting it is its holder. It protects against impersonation, proxy candidates and synthetic applicants. It is a fraud control, and its value is commercial rather than statutory.
The Right to Work Check
A right to work check is a prescribed statutory process. Completed correctly before work begins, and evidenced properly, it gives a statutory excuse against a civil penalty for employing someone without the right to work. Its value is legal, and it is only available by following the prescribed route.
The critical asymmetry: doing a thorough identity check to a high standard gives you no statutory excuse whatsoever if it was not a prescribed right to work check.
The Prescribed Routes
There are three, and which applies depends on the person rather than your preference.
- Online status check. For anyone whose right to work is evidenced digitally. The candidate provides a share code, you complete the check through the Home Office online service, and you compare the photograph on the result to the person.
- Identity service provider check. Available for British and Irish citizens holding a valid passport, carried out through a certified provider using identity document validation technology.
- Manual document check. Against the prescribed lists, with the original document, in the person's presence, retained as a clear copy with a date.
Where status cannot be established by any of these, the Home Office Employer Checking Service is the route, and you should not allow work to start while waiting.
The Trap in the Middle Route
An identity service provider check covers British and Irish passport holders. It is not a universal substitute. For someone whose right to work depends on immigration permission, an identity check through a provider does not replace the online status check. Businesses that adopted digital identity verification and assumed it covered everybody have built a gap into their process.
Why October 2026 Widened the Problem
Section 48 of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025 extended the right to work scheme to people engaged under a worker's contract, to individual sub-contractors, and to online services that match people to work. Liability can also run up a contractual chain.
Before that, an organisation could plausibly treat right to work as an employment onboarding step and identity as the control for everything else. That division no longer maps onto the law. Temporary workers, self-employed individuals engaged directly and platform-sourced labour now require the statutory check, not merely an identity check.
Penalty levels are unchanged at up to £45,000 per worker for a first breach and up to £60,000 for a repeat. What changed is how many engagements those figures attach to.
What Each Check Does Not Do
Worth stating plainly, because both are frequently over-relied upon.
A right to work check does not establish suitability. It says nothing about criminal record, professional registration or whether the person did the work on their CV.
An identity check does not establish eligibility, and it does not establish that the verified person is the person who performed the claimed experience. A composite candidate, submitting somebody else's genuine career under their own real identity, passes identity verification without difficulty.
Neither check touches capability. That requires evidence assessment, and no compliance check substitutes for it.
Sequencing That Works
- Sift on evidence. Establish whether claimed capability is actually evidenced before investing verification effort. Verifying the identity of an unsuitable candidate wastes the check.
- Identity at interview. Verify identity when you first engage substantively, particularly for remote processes, so a proxy arrangement is caught before an offer.
- Right to work before work begins. Not before the offer, not after the first shift. Before work starts, by the prescribed route, evidenced and dated.
- Corroborate registration. Check the relevant register where the role depends on one.
- Re-verify identity at onboarding for remote hires. Where weeks pass between assessment and start, confirm the person starting is the person assessed.
- Diary the expiry. Time-limited permission requires a follow-up check before it lapses, driven by the system rather than by memory.
Doing Both Without Discriminating
The Home Office has published a draft code of practice on avoiding unlawful discrimination while preventing illegal working, and the safe position is procedural uniformity.
Check everyone. Do not vary the route or the depth based on a name, an accent, a place of birth or an assumption about nationality. Do not treat a British passport as the only acceptable evidence, and do not ask only some candidates for documents. Selective checking creates Equality Act 2010 exposure while simultaneously producing the inconsistency that generates compliance gaps.
Frequently Asked Questions
If We Use a Digital Identity Provider, Do We Still Need a Share Code Check?
For anyone whose right to work depends on immigration permission, yes. The identity service provider route covers British and Irish citizens with valid passports. It is one route within the scheme, not a replacement for it.
Can We Accept a Scan or a Video Call for a Manual Check?
No. A manual check requires the original document and the person's presence. A photocopy or a video inspection does not create a statutory excuse.
Does a DBS Certificate Prove Right to Work?
No. A DBS check discloses criminal record information. It says nothing about immigration status and provides no statutory excuse.
Who Carries the Obligation in an Agency Chain?
It depends on the engagement and the chain, and since October 2026 liability can extend upward. Allocate responsibility explicitly in contracts, and hold evidence you can produce rather than relying on an assurance that somebody else checked.
How Long Do We Keep the Evidence?
For the duration of the engagement and two years after it ends, in a form that survives staff turnover and system migration. An excuse you cannot evidence is not an excuse.
The Distinction Worth Remembering
Identity answers "is this person who they claim to be". Right to work answers "may this person lawfully do this work". Evidence assessment answers "can this person actually do it". Three questions, three controls, no substitutions.
Most processes do the first well, the second inconsistently, and the third not at all. The October 2026 changes make the second unavoidable across far more engagements, and the rise in fabricated applications makes the third the one that increasingly determines hiring quality.
This article is general information, not legal advice. Take specialist immigration advice on your own processes and contract structures.
Sources
The Stationery Office. Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025, Section 48.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2025/31/section/48
Home Office. Draft Employer's Guide to Right to Work Checks: 16 July 2026.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/right-to-work-checks-employers-guide/draft-employers-guide-to-right-to-work-checks-16-july-2026-accessible
GOV.UK. Checking a Job Applicant's Right to Work.
https://www.gov.uk/check-job-applicant-right-to-work
GOV.UK. Employer Checking Service: Request a Right to Work Check.
https://www.gov.uk/employee-immigration-employment-status
Home Office. Draft Code of Practice for Employers: Avoiding Unlawful Discrimination While Preventing Illegal Working.
https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/right-to-work-draft-code-of-practice-for-employers-avoiding-unlawful-discrimination/draft-code-of-practice-for-employers-avoiding-unlawful-discrimination-while-preventing-illegal-working
Home Office. Code of Practice on Preventing Illegal Working: Right to Work Scheme for Employers.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/right-to-work-checks-employers-guide
Disclosure and Barring Service. DBS Checks: Guidance for Employers, Voluntary Organisations and Third Parties.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/dbs-check-requests-guidance-for-employers
The Stationery Office. Equality Act 2010.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/contents
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