The Home Office Made Right-to-Work Checks Harder to Follow

Two updates in five weeks. Still nobody knows the answer.

On 6 March 2026, the Home Office updated its sponsor guidance and quietly expanded the rules on right-to-work checks for sponsor licence holders. Five weeks later, on 8 April, they published a "clarification." And somehow, the position is now less clear than it was before either update.

I've been following the commentary from immigration law firms since the March changes dropped. Free Movement, Lewis Silkin, Bates Wells, Capital Law, Ward Hadaway, and several others have all published analysis. They don't agree on what the new rules mean. When firms of that calibre can't reach a consensus on what the Home Office is asking for, the guidance has a problem.

Here's what happened, why it matters, and what sponsors should probably do about it.

What the guidance used to say

Before March 2026, the position was relatively straightforward. Sponsors had to carry out right-to-work checks on their sponsored workers. That included workers who weren't direct employees but were sponsored under the licence. For everyone else on the payroll, the normal employment law rules applied: employers had a separate legal obligation to check right to work under the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006, but that was an employment law duty, not a sponsor licence duty.

The two systems ran in parallel. Failing a right-to-work check as an employer could result in a civil penalty. Failing one as a sponsor could cost you your licence. But the sponsor licence rules only applied to sponsored workers.

What changed on 6 March

The March 2026 guidance update added new wording in several places. Paragraph C1.42 of Part 3 now says sponsors must "ensure any worker you sponsor or employ has the legal right to work for you." That's new. It explicitly extends the sponsor duty to all employees, not just sponsored ones.

But the March update went further. It also used the phrase "employ or engage" in several places, without defining what "engage" means. Does it cover self-employed contractors? Agency workers? Secondees from another company? Someone you've brought in through a platform to fix the plumbing?

Nobody knew. And the consequences of getting it wrong aren't theoretical. The same guidance update lowered the threshold for compliance action to "reasonable suspicion" and confirmed that sponsor licences can be revoked for unintentional breaches. I wrote about those changes in detail when they first landed.

The 8 April "clarification"

Five weeks later, the Home Office amended paragraph S1.40 in Part 2 of the guidance. The key sentence now reads: sponsors must check "any worker you wish to sponsor (including a worker who is not your direct employee), or any worker you otherwise wish to employ or directly engage."

The addition of "directly" before "engage" is supposed to narrow the scope. It rules out some of the more extreme scenarios, like checking the immigration status of a courier delivering a parcel. But "directly engage" still isn't defined, not in the guidance, not in the glossary that was published alongside the March update, and not in the underlying legislation.

Lewis Silkin's analysis from 13 April suggests that at a minimum, sponsors should be checking partners in LLPs, self-employed contractors directly engaged to carry out work, and zero-hours workers contracted by the organisation. Bates Wells takes a similar view but notes the operational difficulty for sponsors who engage large numbers of non-employee workers. Free Movement's James Lamont, writing on 15 April, points out that the guidance now contradicts itself in places and that the expanded revocation ground means sponsors could lose their licence even when they've done everything the guidance asks.

The contradiction nobody has resolved

This is the part that should genuinely worry sponsors.

The caseworker guidance for compliance visits, updated on 25 March 2026, says one thing. The sponsor guidance says another.

The caseworker guidance states that right-to-work checks for non-sponsored staff "are not mandatory" and that a sponsor "is not in breach of their sponsor duties" for not conducting them. But paragraph S1.40 of the sponsor guidance (updated 8 April) says failure to carry out checks on anyone you employ or directly engage "will be in breach of your sponsor duties and may be liable for a civil penalty."

Both documents are published by the Home Office. Both are current. They say the opposite thing.

For a compliance visit, which set of rules does the caseworker follow? If the answer is the caseworker guidance (which says checks on non-sponsored staff aren't mandatory), then what's the point of S1.40? If the answer is S1.40, then the caseworker guidance is wrong and needs updating. Either way, sponsors are left guessing.

The legislation hasn't caught up yet

There's a deeper issue here. The Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025 is expected to expand right-to-work obligations to cover a broader range of working relationships, not just traditional employment. Ward Hadaway's April 2026 analysis suggests the Home Office is using the sponsor guidance to get ahead of that legislation, imposing duties on sponsors before the law formally requires them.

That's a problem. Sponsor guidance is not legislation. It can be updated overnight, with no parliamentary scrutiny, and sponsors are expected to comply immediately. When the guidance creates duties that go beyond what the law actually requires, and then threatens revocation for non-compliance, something has gone wrong with the process.

For context, the compliance guide covers the four core sponsor duties (record keeping, SMS reporting, monitoring, and wider UK law compliance) and the consequences of falling short. But right-to-work checks for non-sponsored, non-employee workers weren't part of those duties until five weeks ago. And arguably, depending on which piece of guidance you read, they still aren't.

What sponsors should do now

The honest answer is that nobody knows exactly what the Home Office expects, because the Home Office hasn't told us clearly. But based on what the major immigration law firms are advising, here's the practical position.

Check everyone you employ. This is now explicit in the guidance and was always good practice. If you're a sponsor and you haven't been checking right to work for all employees (not just sponsored workers), fix that immediately.

Check self-employed contractors and directly engaged workers where practical. The definition of "directly engage" is unresolved, but the risk of not checking is higher than the cost of checking. If someone works on your premises, under your direction, on a regular basis, check them. The eligibility guide covers the broader requirements for holding a licence, including the HR systems the Home Office expects to see.

Document everything. Even if the scope of the duty is unclear, documenting that you've taken reasonable steps is your best defence during a compliance visit. Retain evidence of checks in line with Appendix D.

Watch for further updates. The guidance has been amended twice in five weeks. A third update is not unlikely. Log into the Sponsorship Management System monthly, check the message board, and track changes to the published guidance documents.

And if your business is thinking about applying for a sponsor licence or you're unsure whether your current compliance setup meets the March 2026 standards, AssessNow has a sponsor licence eligibility assessment that checks your position against the current requirements. It won't tell you whether to check the plumber's right to work. But it will tell you whether you're likely to meet the Home Office's eligibility criteria before you spend £611 or £1,682 on the application fee.

A note on how this article was written

AI tools were used to assist with research and fact-gathering for this article. The analysis, opinions, and conclusions are my own. Views expressed here are mine and do not represent the official position of AssessNow.