We recently wrote about the Home Office’s updates to sponsor guidance in March and April this year. One of our articles specifically explored how changes made to guidance appeared to significantly expand the scope of sponsor duties around preventing illegal working and conducting right to work checks.
However, possibly due to widespread confusion around these changes, on the 20th of May the Home Office reversed its stance on right to work checks, bringing them back much closer to the position they were in before the guidance on the 6th of March was released.
In this article, Alex Christen and Jake Hayward set out the current position and remind sponsors of the changes to the right to work landscape on the horizon.
How was the guidance changed in March and April?
On the 6th of March 2026, Part 2 of the guidance was amended, and the obligation to conduct right to work checks was extended to “any worker you wish to employ or sponsor (including a worker who is not your direct employee).”
A cautious reading of the March 2026 guidance implied that the duty on sponsors to conduct right to work checks extended to employees and sponsored individuals (even where the sponsored individual was not an employee).
On the 8th of April 2026 the same section of part 2 of the guidance for sponsors was amended again. Plainly it affirmed:
An extension to the duty on sponsors to conduct right to work checks on their own employees and anyone that they “directly engage.”, and
If right to work checks were not carried out, a sponsor would be in breach of its duties. The guidance made it clear that sponsors may be liable for civil penalties, or even have their licence revoked, in such instances.
So, what caused the confusion?
Many interpreted the requirement to conduct right to work checks for “any worker you otherwise wish to employ or directly engage” as ambiguous. As touched upon in our article earlier this month, neither the term ‘engage’ nor the term ‘directly engage’ were defined in the guidance, or in the associated sponsor glossary.
With no clear definition, it was assumed that the duty for right to work checks to be carried out by a sponsor may have been extended to:
- Self-employed individuals carrying out work directly for them (whether sponsored or not),
- Independent contractors carrying out work for them,
- Consultants contracted to work for them,
- Workers contracted to carry out work for them,
- Employees, and
- Anyone they sponsor (regardless of their status).
This uncertainty, around the scope of the right to work checks, has intensified with the recent guidance having hammered home the importance of sponsors’ compliance. The updated guidance released in March this year added a key paragraph to the ‘Guiding principles’ section, which states (our emphasis added):
“Participation in the sponsorship scheme is voluntary and sponsors seek membership for their own benefit. Membership is subject to the strict terms contained within this guidance. Sponsors should be aware that a licence is held at the broad discretion of the Home Office and can be terminated at any time. A licence creates no property or other enforceable right.”
This addition to the Guiding principles section has since kept sponsors on their toes and the added vagueness to the guidance has been met with valid concerns from sponsors on how to comply.
How has the Home Office remedied this confusion?
The guidance released on the 20th of May confirms (our emphasis added):
“Amendments to paragraph S1.40 published on 6 March 2026 (version 03/26 of this guidance) and 8 April 2026 (version 04/26) suggested that sponsors were required to undertake right to work checks on unsponsored workers ‘(directly) engaged’ but not employed by them. Following user feedback, this reference has now been deleted and any reference in those versions to unsponsored workers ‘engaged’ or ‘directly engaged’ by the sponsor should be disregarded.”
Therefore, S1.40 of the guidance has been reverted to the following (again, our emphasis added):
- “S1.40. You must check that any worker you wish to sponsor (including a worker who is not your direct employee), or any worker you otherwise wish to employ (whether sponsored or not), has the appropriate immigration permission to work in the UK and do the work in question before they start working for you. This applies even if the worker is, or appears to be, a British citizen or other settled worker. If you fail to carry out a right to work check, or any necessary follow-up checks, you will be in breach of your sponsor duties and may be liable for a civil penalty under illegal working legislation. If you are issued with a civil penalty, or otherwise fail to carry out the correct checks, we will normally revoke your licence. For guidance on how to carry out the relevant checks, and the evidence you must keep, see:
- Right to work checks: an employer’s guide
- Appendix D to the sponsor guidance”
It is again clear that sponsors must undertake right to work checks on all employees and sponsored workers (regardless of if they are sponsored as employees, self-employed workers, or contractors). We are sure that this will come as welcome news to sponsors moving forward.
Changes on the horizon
In our previous article we speculated whether the March and April updates to the guidance amounted to a soft launch of the changes to right to work checks under the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025 (Border Act 2025), which was enacted in December 2025. Whether or not this is the case, sponsors still need to be prepared for the changes that will be coming, in respect of who they must undertake right to work checks on.
Section 48 of the Border Act 2025 will effectively extend the duty on all businesses (not just sponsors) to conduct right to work checks on wider groups than just employees, specifically:
- individuals engaged under a worker contract (ie a contract for services),
- individual sub-contractors, and
- those provided via an online matching service (ie gig economy workers).
Parts of the Border Act 2025 are already in force, save for section 48, which is aimed at further preventing illegal working in the UK by ensuring that a wider range of individuals have the requisite legal right to work in the country before companies can hire them.
Businesses who do not carry out checks on these wider groups face civil penalties of up to £60,000 per person if that person is working in the UK illegally. If the business is a sponsor, it faces compliance action up to and including licence revocation.
There are wider sanctions as well, including disqualification of directors, and even criminal sanctions for those who knowingly engage illegal workers.
The government is yet to confirm the implementation date for section 48, although many believe it will come into force from the 1st of October 2026.
More detailed guidance on how businesses are required to undertake such checks is still to be confirmed but we will be posting an article on this as soon as we know more.
In the meantime, if you would like to discuss how these new updates to sponsor guidance may affect your HR policies and processes, or whether the future changes could have an impact on your plans, please feel free to contact our employment team today.
