Right to work checks: what a recruitment agency actually has to verify

Right to work checks are a statutory duty under the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006, and for a recruitment agency, they typically sit alongside — not instead of — whatever checks the hirer might also want to run. The specifics of who's actually responsible for the check depend on the contractual arrangement, but the underlying duty doesn't disappear because a worker is placed through an agency.

What a compliant check involves

A compliant check generally means verifying original, valid documents (or using the Home Office's online checking service where applicable), checking they belong to the person presenting them, and retaining evidence of the check — for a specific, defined period — not just a note that a check was done.

Who's actually responsible — agency, hirer, or both

This is one of the most common sources of confusion on a temp desk. Where an agency is the one engaging the worker — the standard employment business arrangement — the duty to check sits with the agency, and a hirer running its own check on top doesn't remove that. Where an agency is purely making an introduction for a direct hire, responsibility shifts to the hirer as the actual employer. The safest working assumption for any agency running temporary placements is that the check is theirs to get right, and any additional check the hirer wants to run is a belt-and-braces extra, not a substitute. Gov.uk sets out the current position on statutory excuse and who holds it in a given arrangement, and it's worth confirming against a specific contract rather than assuming.

What this looks like for multi-client and multi-role assignments

A worker who moves between several hirers through the same agency doesn't need a fresh right to work check for every new assignment, provided their original check remains valid and their circumstances haven't changed — but a worker whose visa or permission to work has a time limit does need that limit tracked, and a follow-up check scheduled before it expires, regardless of how many different hirers they've worked for in the meantime. Losing track of an expiry date because a worker has been juggled across several client codes is a real, specific risk worth designing against.

Why this is worth building into onboarding, not treating as a separate step

The safest position is to treat the right to work check as a hard gate in onboarding — a worker doesn't start an assignment until it's complete and evidenced — rather than a check that happens around the same time. Building this into a standard onboarding checklist removes the risk of a check being skipped under time pressure to fill a role quickly.

It's also worth remembering that a check verified against one role can't simply be assumed valid for a different one if the worker's circumstances change materially in between — a right to work check is about the person's status, not the role, so this is less of a live risk than DBS portability, but it's still worth a moment's thought rather than pure assumption whenever a gap between assignments has been unusually long.

Common mistakes that slip through

• –Accepting a photocopy or a photo of a document sent over email instead of verifying an original, or using the Home Office online service correctly.
• –Checking the document but not evidencing the check — no copy retained, no record of the date it was verified.
• –Assuming a hirer's own check covers the agency's separate statutory duty.
• –Losing track of a time-limited right to work as a worker moves between assignments or hirers.
• –Starting a worker on assignment before the check is actually complete, on the understanding it'll be finished this week.

What good practice looks like for a busy temp desk

A high-volume temp desk placing workers quickly and repeatedly is exactly where right to work checks are most likely to slip, because speed is the whole point of the desk's value to hirers. The agencies that manage this well don't slow the desk down across the board — they make the check itself fast and standard, so it doesn't compete with speed of placement at all. That usually means having a single, well-understood method (original document verification or the Home Office online service, consistently) rather than a mix of approaches depending on which consultant happens to be handling a given placement, and a clear record of exactly what was checked attached to the worker's file the moment it's done, not filed away later when there's time.

Using the Home Office online checking service

For workers who hold digital immigration status, the Home Office's online checking service is often the most reliable route — it gives a real-time result tied to the specific individual, generated with a share code the worker provides. The check still needs to be evidenced properly: saving the outcome of the online check, and the date it was run, rather than just noting informally that it came back fine. Where a worker presents physical documents instead, the same discipline applies in the other direction — verifying an original document in person or via an approved method, not a scan or photo sent digitally.

Handling a worker whose right to work has an approaching expiry

For a worker with time-limited permission to work, the agency needs a reliable trigger well before the expiry date — not a check that only happens because someone happened to notice. Good practice is flagging an upcoming expiry with enough lead time to complete a follow-up check and, if needed, have an honest conversation with the worker and the hirer about what happens if updated status can't be confirmed in time. Leaving this until the expiry date itself arrives removes any room to handle it smoothly, and risks the worker having to stop work abruptly mid-assignment.