The legislation.gov.uk text is brief, but the compliance effect is material. Section 48 of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025 is the provision now being brought into force, turning a Bill-stage proposal into live law. (legislation.gov.uk) For policy readers, the point is simple: this is the provision that widens the illegal working regime beyond a standard contract of employment. Section 48 sits in Part 2 of the 2025 Act and amends the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006 rather than creating a standalone new regime. (legislation.gov.uk)
According to the Act itself, section 48 inserts new section 14A into the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006. That means references in sections 15 to 24 of the 2006 Act to employing someone are widened so they also cover engagement under a worker’s contract, engagement of an individual sub-contractor, and certain online matching services that supply service-provider details to clients for a fee or commission. (legislation.gov.uk) In practical terms, the statutory scheme is being adjusted to follow working arrangements that look less like a conventional payroll relationship and more like platform work, labour intermediation or contracting chains. The Home Office’s own impact assessment for the measure said this was intended to extend right to work checking duties to newer labour models that had sat outside the existing employee-only framework. (legislation.gov.uk)
The drafting also matters because it is not unlimited. The worker’s-contract limb covers cases where an individual undertakes to perform work personally and the engager is not simply that person’s client or customer in an independent business relationship. Section 14A also says a contract can be express or implied, whether oral or written. (legislation.gov.uk) That distinction will matter for organisations that rely on freelancers, consultants and other off-payroll labour. The statutory text suggests the Home Office is not treating every business-to-business service arrangement as identical, but it is narrowing the space in which firms can assume the illegal working rules stop at the edge of a formal employment contract. This is an inference from the drafting in section 14A. (legislation.gov.uk)
Section 48 also goes beyond widening the list of covered arrangements. It inserts new section 15A, which expands civil-penalty exposure by treating a person as employing an individual who personally provides work or services even where there is no direct contract with that worker, or where the person does not know the individual is carrying out part of the work. The provision can apply along a chain of contracts. (legislation.gov.uk) For compliance teams, that is the harder point in the reform. Liability is no longer framed only around the organisation nearest to the worker on paper; the Act allows responsibility to reach further through subcontracting and matching arrangements. (legislation.gov.uk)
Home Office impact material prepared during passage of the Bill set out the policy target in direct terms. It said the change would require right to work checks where organisations use worker’s contracts, individual sub-contractors and online matching services, with examples including agency work, gig-economy roles, casual contract arrangements, construction subcontracting, and the use of intermediaries in care and hospitality. (gov.uk) That material also framed the change as a response to the modern labour market rather than a drafting tidy-up. The department said the earlier employee-only scope left parts of the labour market outside the legal duty to conduct checks, even where work was being supplied through stable commercial arrangements. (gov.uk)
With commencement fixed for 1 October 2026, the main issue for employers and engagers is preparation time. Organisations that rely on contractor chains, casual work models or platform-based engagements will need to review engagement, verification and due-diligence processes against the wider statutory test. (legislation.gov.uk) The practical reading is that businesses should not assume existing right to work processes are sufficient merely because the individual supplying labour is not an employee. That follows from both the Act and the Home Office impact assessment, which describe the reform as extending legal checking duties and associated sanctions to these arrangements. (legislation.gov.uk)
The accompanying note sends readers to the wider Home Office enactment impact assessment rather than setting out a fresh analytical case in detail. GOV.UK shows that the enactment assessment was published on 22 June 2026, and the Home Office collection page records that the Act received Royal Assent on 2 December 2025. (gov.uk) The next operational question is guidance rather than primary legislation. The Bill-stage impact assessment said the Government intended formal consultation, updated guidance and, if needed, amended secondary legislation before enforcement, with a gap between guidance publication and enforcement so businesses could adapt. On that basis, firms now have the legal start date but still need to watch for the compliance detail that will shape day-to-day practice. This is an inference from the impact material and commencement structure. (gov.uk)