Right to Work Checks for Self-Employed Couriers

Short answer: A prescribed right to work check, done before the work starts, gives a statutory excuse against a civil penalty. From 1 October 2026 this covers workers and individual subcontractors, not only employees, including through chains. Calling someone self-employed does not decide it. Read the Home Office employer's guide.

The Home Office employer's guide of 1 October 2026 extends checks beyond employment contracts to workers and individual subcontractors, under section 48 of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025, in force from 1 October 2026. Reviewed 12 October 2026. This page is general information, not immigration advice.

Employees were already in the scheme. The Home Office employer's guide to right to work checks, published in final form on 1 October 2026, now covers them and the wider arrangements below. Section 48 of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025 brought those arrangements into force on 1 October 2026. It does this by inserting new sections 14A and 15A into the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006, for engagements starting on or after 1 October 2026.

• Who is in scope
• Penalties where the scheme applies
• Checks that create a statutory excuse
• What Zerity stores
• Frequently asked questions
  • Do right to work checks apply to self-employed couriers?
  • What is the penalty?
  • Which check creates a statutory excuse?
  • What does Zerity do with the check?
• Sources

Who is in scope

The Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025 widens who counts as an employer for illegal-working checks. The guide says a civil penalty for the new categories may only be imposed where the engagement commenced on or after 1 October 2026. Look at how the work is arranged, not at the word on the invoice.

A depot that engages drivers to deliver its own client's parcels should not assume the plumber example applies. Whether an arrangement is outside the scheme depends on the facts. The guide also describes extended liability, which can move up a contractual chain where the direct party cannot be identified and the prescribed requirements are not met. That is a reason to know who holds the contract. A limited company invoicing you does not settle the question either way. Buying a service for your own use, like the guide's designer example, needs no check. Delivering work you have contracted to provide to a network or client can bring the driver into scope, even if they invoice through their own company.

Employment rights, holiday pay and National Minimum Wage are a different question. They are covered in employment status for self-employed couriers. Do not decide worker status on this page.

Penalties where the scheme applies

The Home Office code of practice on preventing illegal working, in force from 1 October 2026, sets the civil penalty calculation:

The statutory maximum in the 2024 penalty order is £60,000 per illegal worker. Reductions, including a fast-payment reduction on a first breach, are in the code. A statutory excuse is a prescribed check, not a PDF saved in a folder with no date. The code of practice is about the civil penalty. It does not, by itself, describe closure of the business.

Checks that create a statutory excuse

The guide says that, to establish a statutory excuse, the employer does one of these before the person starts:

1. A manual document-based right to work check, where that route is still allowed for the document.
2. A Home Office online right to work check. For an eVisa, the guide says the online service is the route. The worker generates a share code that begins with W. The guide says the code is valid for 90 days and must not be a code that begins with R. Use check a job applicant's right to work.
3. A check by a registered right to work digital verification service provider, with the employer keeping the provider's output.

Where the person cannot show a right to work in those ways, the guide tells the employer to use the Employer Checking Service. A Positive Verification Notice gives a statutory excuse for the period on the notice. The guide describes six months as the usual period for that notice, and a follow-up check before it ends.

The employer remains responsible for the prescribed check. The guide says the Home Office does not currently endorse the use of technology as a substitute for doing the check in the prescribed way. Keep the evidence for the duration of the engagement and for two years afterwards, which is the retention period the guide states for the online check and for a registered right to work digital verification service provider's output, and then destroy it securely.

Copying a passport into a shared drive, with no date and no named checker, does not follow that method.

What Zerity stores

Courier compliance software can hold the evidence, the date and the name of the checker against the driver, next to the rest of onboarding. The onboarding flow is where the document is collected. The document verification guide explains how to compare a document with the person. The driver licence check is a separate DVLA record, not a right to work check.

Zerity stores the right to work record, the date it was checked and the expiry; the operator remains responsible for the check. It is not the online checking service, and it is not a registered right to work digital verification service provider. A depot still has to carry out a prescribed check where the scheme applies. Multi-site operators can start from Amazon depot codes.

Frequently asked questions

Do right to work checks apply to self-employed couriers?

Often, yes. Since 1 October 2026, section 48 of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025 brings workers and individual subcontractors into the scheme, including courier work arranged like labour rather than like a business-to-business service. Calling someone self-employed does not decide it. The guide puts a genuinely independent business that contracts directly with its own customers outside the scheme, such as a plumber hired by a householder. Using a personal service company is not a blanket exclusion: a driver who works through a delivery platform is in scope, and if you have contracted to deliver work for a network or client, you can be treated as employing the driver who does it, even if they work through their own company. A civil penalty for these new categories applies only where the engagement started on or after 1 October 2026.

What is the penalty?

Where the scheme applies and there is no statutory excuse, the Home Office code of practice in force from 1 October 2026 starts at £45,000 per illegal worker for a first breach and £60,000 for a repeat breach within three years, before reductions. The excuse comes from a prescribed check, not from a PDF saved in a folder.

Which check creates a statutory excuse?

A manual check where it is still allowed, a Home Office online check with a share code beginning with W, a check by a registered right to work digital verification service provider, or a Positive Verification Notice from the Employer Checking Service when that route is required. The guide sets out which route fits which document.

What does Zerity do with the check?

Zerity stores the right to work record, the date it was checked and the expiry; the operator remains responsible for the check. It stores the evidence, the date and the checker against the driver, next to the rest of onboarding.

Sources

• Home Office right to work checks: employer's guide, pp.14-16 and p.76.
• Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006 s.15A, legislation.gov.uk.