Home Office regulations made on 24 June 2026 and laid before Parliament on 30 June 2026 will take effect on 1 October 2026, updating the UK rules on right to work and right to rent checks. The instrument extends to England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and amends the legal routes employers, landlords, agents and some labour supply arrangements rely on to avoid civil penalties when a worker or occupier does not have the required immigration status.\n\nSigned by Home Office Minister of State Alex Norris, the Regulations do three main things. They widen the route for digital verification, rewrite the conditions attached to facial recognition and document checking, and bring revised codes of practice into force on civil penalties and unlawful discrimination.
According to the Regulations, the main structural change is the move away from the older identity document validation technology terminology and towards digital verification services under the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025. Across the employment, compliance-order and residential accommodation regimes, references to IDVT providers are removed and replaced with registered providers in the DVS register.\n\nFor employers this means right to work checks carried out through a provider will now need to sit within the 2025 Act model, including supplementary codes published under section 29 and registration under sections 32, 33 and 36. For landlords and agents, the same approach now applies to right to rent checks through an RtR DVSP. The practical effect is that organisations using outsourced digital identity checks will need to confirm not only the check result, but also the provider's registration status and the service type recorded on the register.
On the employment side, the Immigration (Restrictions on Employment) Order 2007 is amended so that a 'document' can include a digital version of an official National Insurance document issued by a government agency, provided it shows the person's permanent National Insurance number and name. The Regulations also define 'relevant DVS documents' for digital checking, including certain government-issued digital versions of listed documents and British or Irish passports that are current or expired by no more than six months.\n\nThe civil penalty excuse remains available, but only if the prescribed steps are followed. Where a right to work check relies on digital verification or the Home Office online service, any facial recognition stage must be provided by a registered RtW DVSP. Employers must obtain fixed-format copies of the images used, secure confirmation from the provider that the images relate to the rightful document holder, and retain those records for at least two years after the employment ends.
The same shift appears in the Illegal Working Compliance Orders Regulations 2016. Courts and immigration officers operating within the compliance-order regime will now work to the DVS framework rather than the earlier IDVT model, and the amended regulations mirror the new requirements on provider confirmation, supplementary code compliance and image retention.\n\nThe Regulations also tighten the rules around the Home Office online right to work service. If an employer uses digital facial recognition to meet the identity-matching requirement, it must be supplied by an RtW DVSP. In practice, that means a general-purpose facial recognition product would not satisfy the requirement unless it is provided through a registered right to work verification service.
The most consequential operational change is new article 5B in the 2007 Order. It deals with contractor chains, online matching services and contracts that allow worker substitution. In plain terms, the Home Office has set out how a person higher up the chain may obtain protection from a civil penalty where work is delivered through another supplier or where the named worker can be replaced.\n\nBefore work starts, the person at the top of the relevant arrangement must require contractual terms obliging the intermediary to complete the right to work requirements, restricting further subcontracting without written consent and compliance, permitting audits, and providing enforcement clauses where illegal working is identified. The intermediary must also be required to co-operate with Home Office investigations by disclosing the contract chain and related business details. For the duration of the arrangement, systems and processes must be kept in place to make sure the individual doing the work is the same individual who was checked.\n\nWhere an employment contract allows a substitute, the employer must check the substitute as well as the original worker, stop the substitute from starting until that is done, and include enforcement terms if the substitute is suspected of illegal working or refuses to co-operate. This extends compliance work for labour platforms, outsourced service models and businesses using substitution clauses.
For landlords and agents, the Immigration (Residential Accommodation) (Prescribed Requirements and Codes of Practice) Order 2014 is amended on closely similar lines. The legal route for digital right to rent checks is moved into the DVS framework, with new definitions for RtR DVSPs, DVS identity checks and relevant DVS documents.\n\nIf facial recognition is used to confirm an occupier's identity, it must be carried out by a registered RtR DVSP. Landlords or agents must keep clear copies of the images and provider confirmation in a form that cannot later be altered, and they must retain those records for at least one year after the tenancy ends. The amended provisions also apply the same logic to checks carried out through the online right to rent service.
The instrument also replaces the current codes of practice with revised versions issued by the Secretary of State on 24 June 2026 and laid in draft before Parliament on 30 June 2026. From 1 October 2026, the employment regime will run alongside the revised 'Code of practice on preventing illegal working: Right to Work Scheme for employers' and the revised 'Code of practice for employers: Avoiding unlawful discrimination while preventing illegal working'.\n\nThe right to rent regime will, from the same date, use the revised 'Code of practice on right to rent: Right to Rent Scheme for landlords and their agents' and the revised 'Code of practice for landlords: Avoiding unlawful discrimination when conducting right to rent checks in the private rented residential sector'. The instrument records that the Secretary of State completed the consultation steps required by the 2006 and 2014 Acts before laying the revised discrimination codes. That is an important reminder that compliance is not only about checking status; it is also about applying the rules without unlawful discrimination.
For employers, landlords, agents and digital identity suppliers, the October deadline is chiefly an implementation deadline. Provider contracts, check workflows, retention schedules, audit rights, substitution clauses and platform terms will all need review against the amended legal tests. Businesses already relying on digital identity products should not assume that existing arrangements satisfy the new requirement to use a provider registered for the relevant right to work or right to rent service.\n\nThe Explanatory Note states that an impact assessment linked to the 2025 extension of right to work duties to wider working arrangements has been published alongside the instrument, together with an economic note on registered digital verification services. The direction of travel is clear: tighter documentary assurance in employment and renting, combined with clearer responsibility where labour is supplied through intermediaries.