Right to work checks for chefs and trainees: what changed on 1 October 2026

The Home Office’s employer’s guide to right to work checks opens its examples with a hotel receptionist on set shifts. Its second example is a temp registered with an employment business that supplies workers to bars and restaurants. The first person was covered long before October. The second is the kind of arrangement the change brought in on 1 October 2026.

This guide is for chefs and culinary learners starting kitchen work, and for the kitchens that take them on. The right to work content below comes from GOV.UK and legislation.gov.uk, reviewed on 14 October 2026: the Act, the commencement regulations and the three Home Office documents. GOV.UK’s change history for each document shows no update since 1 October.

Quick answer. Section 48 of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025 came into force on 1 October 2026 under S.I. 2026/683. It extends the illegal working rules from employees to people engaged under a “worker’s contract”, individual sub-contractors, and people matched to clients through an online matching service. A chef hired as an employee or apprentice is checked before starting, as before. The Home Office’s questions and answers (Annex C of the guide) say: “The expansion of the Right to Work Scheme does not change when right to work checks must be carried out.” What is new is that additional working arrangements now fall inside the scheme, so responsibility in agency, casual, freelance and subcontracted work depends on the actual contractual arrangements. The guide says there is “no general grace period”.

This is a plain-English reading of public guidance, not legal advice.

What section 48 changed

The Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006 provides civil penalties for employing someone who is not allowed to do the work, and a criminal offence where the employer knows, or has reasonable cause to believe, that the worker is disqualified by immigration status. Section 48 adds a new section 14A to that Act. Under it, a reference to a person employing another person now includes a person engaging an individual under a “worker’s contract”, a person “engaging an individual sub-contractor”, and “an online matching service” providing the details of someone who is a service provider to potential clients or customers.

A worker’s contract is defined as a contract “other than a contract of service or apprenticeship” under which the individual undertakes to do the work or services personally, for the person engaging them or another person, and the person engaging them is “neither a client nor customer of any profession or business undertaking carried on by individual A”. A further subsection limits that category where the individual does the work for someone other than the person engaging them, and that other person is a client or customer of the individual’s own business. The Act adds that a contract can be “express or implied” and, if express, “whether oral or in writing”. A written agreement is not needed for the definition to apply.

Section 48 also adds section 15A, which can make a business responsible for individuals further down a chain of contracts. That may matter where kitchen work is delivered through a chain of contracts, and it has its own section below.

Employed chefs and apprentices

The guide’s definition of an employer starts with a person who employs someone “under a contract of employment (a contract of service or apprenticeship)”. An apprentice chef is therefore in the direct employment category, not the new “worker’s contract” one, and the statutory definition of a worker’s contract excludes apprenticeships.

For these staff the initial check still comes before the start date. To establish a statutory excuse, the employer must do one of three checks “before the worker commences employment”: a manual document-based check, a Home Office online check, or a check through a digital identity provider registered for right to work checks. The guide says employers “cannot mandate the method for how an individual does this”. The discrimination code adds that employers “are not permitted to mandate online or digital checks, except for those workers who have been provided with an eVisa”, and someone who does not want a digital identity provider check may choose to use a physical document instead “where this is permitted”.

The employer then keeps a record. For a manual check the guide asks for a dated record of when the check was made, with the wording “The date on which this right to work check was made: [insert date]”, and says copies are kept “for the duration of the worker’s employment and for two years afterwards”. Simply writing a date on a copy “will not be sufficient”.

Agency, casual and freelance chefs

This is where the change bites. The guide’s Example 2 describes an individual “registered with an employment business which supplies temporary workers to bars and restaurants during busy periods”, engaged “on a contract for services” and accepting “short-term hospitality assignments when offered”. It concludes the employment business is the employer for right to work purposes and “may be liable for payment of a civil penalty”.

What does the restaurant that takes the temp need to do? The Home Office’s answers say it is the “longstanding position” that the employment business, as the employer with the direct contractual relationship, is responsible for the check, and that in a standard agency supply arrangement “the changes are not intended to require routine duplication of these checks by the hirer”. The guide’s Example 12 reaches the same position for a factory using agency workers inside its own operations. Neither example specifies a kitchen role, so read it as the Home Office’s stated approach to agency supply, not a rule written for catering.

The guide gives no chef example. Its Examples 5 and 6 are a self-employed plumber and a designer working through a personal service company, both outside the scheme. It also says that it “does not apply to individuals who are operating an independent business either in their own name or through their own company and who contract directly with clients or customers”, and it also says there is “no blanket exclusion simply because a worker is described as a contractor, freelancer or consultant”. The label does not decide it: “The contractual description or label adopted by the parties involved will not, by itself, determine what responsibilities may arise under the Scheme.”

The guide lists questions to ask instead, among them whether the individual is personally carrying out the work, who engages or arranges them, who can replace them, and whether substitution is permitted or controlled. It adds: “No single factor is determinative.”

Students and placements

A culinary student on a Student visa has an eVisa, and the guide says an employer can use the online service to see whether work is permitted and what restrictions apply. A week runs from Monday to Sunday for hours limits. Students who have the right to work may work full-time before their course starts, during vacations and for the period their permission lasts after the course, but they may not fill a permanent full-time vacancy except in limited cases, and may not be self-employed unless they meet a narrow exception.

Employers of students with limited term-time permission “must also obtain, copy and retain details of their academic term and vacation times covering the duration of their period of study in the UK for which they will be employed”. The code of practice on penalties lists a missing copy of those dates among the circumstances in which an employer will not have a statutory excuse.

Course-required placements are treated separately. The guide says students may do work placements “where they are integral to the course and are assessed as part of the course”, that such placements are generally capped at one third of the course unless an exception applies, and that employers are “strongly advised” to keep the sponsor’s letter confirming the placement. Time spent on a required placement “does not count towards the period of term time employment permitted by their immigration conditions”.

Subcontracted kitchens and contract catering

Extended liability under section 15A applies, in the guide’s words, where “a person is under a contract to provide work or services to a third party and enters into a contract with another employer who employs worker(s) to carry out all or part of the work or services”, where an online matching service matches a provider with a client and the provider enters into a contract with that client, or where a contract allows an individual to substitute someone else to do the work.

It does not reach every business that buys work from another. The guide says it does not apply “to a client, customer or end-user who is purchasing work or services for their own internal operations”. Its Example 11 is a retailer buying cleaning services for its own supermarkets: the retailer is outside extended liability and the cleaning company stays responsible as employer. Example 10 is a logistics company contracted to deliver a service that outsources it to another firm: the logistics company is within scope, and the retailer is not.

The guide has no catering example. If your kitchen contract is more like Example 10 than Example 11, because you are paid to deliver a catering service and another business supplies the people, section 3 of the guide is the part to read. It lists three prescribed requirements, to be met before the work commences: a written statement of contract terms, substitution controls (where a contract permits substitution), and identity verification. The requirements apply where the contractual arrangements were “entered into on or after 1 October 2026”.

What to have ready on day one

A British or Irish citizen can use a passport “(current or expired)” showing that status, or an Irish passport card. Registered digital identity providers can check British or Irish passports that are valid or up to six months past expiry, and may choose not to offer checks on expired ones.

A person who is not a British or Irish citizen can prove their right to work with a share code or with eligible immigration documents. GOV.UK’s guidance for workers says “You can choose which option you use”. The employer’s guide says a share code is nine characters, “will begin with the letter ‘W’”, is valid for 90 calendar days, and is used together with the holder’s date of birth. Codes beginning with ‘R’ or ‘S’ are for other services and an employer cannot use them.

Two traps are worth knowing. People issued with an eVisa “will only be able to evidence their right to work using the Home Office online service”, and where that check cannot be completed, for example through a technical issue with the eVisa, the penalty code says employers can use the Employer Checking Service where applicable. And a “manual check of an original, expired BRP is not acceptable proof of right to work”.

Dates and transitional rules

The guide gives different start tests for different categories. For employees, an employer is liable for a civil penalty only where the employment began on or after 29 February 2008. For worker’s contracts, individual sub-contractors and online matching services, “a civil penalty may only be imposed where the employment commenced on or after 1 October 2026”. For extended liability, the prescribed requirements apply where “the relevant contractual arrangements were entered into on or after 1 October 2026”.

The Annex C answers say the measures “are not intended to be retrospective” and that the relevant date is “when the contractual arrangement is entered into, not when the work starts or continues”. The guide states the date test in two ways, employment commencing and an arrangement being entered into. We did not find a passage reconciling them for a contract signed before 1 October by someone who starts work afterwards. Check that case before the first shift, not after it.

For people who work intermittently, the Annex C answers say that where a worker “continues to be engaged by the same employer”, a fresh check is not required before each assignment “provided the employer holds a valid statutory excuse and, where relevant, carries out any required follow-up check before the worker’s immigration permission expires”.

Penalties and enforcement

The code of practice sets a civil penalty starting point of £45,000 per worker for a first breach and £60,000 per worker for a repeat breach within three years. The guide describes the maximum as “up to £60,000 per illegal worker”. Employing someone you know, or have reasonable cause to believe, is an illegal worker is a criminal offence under section 21, carrying “up to five years’ imprisonment and/or an unlimited fine”. The guide also lists review of an alcohol or late-night refreshment licence among the possible consequences.

The Home Office’s illegal working release for January to June 2026 (the page was updated on 8 October 2026) reports 2,195 visits to restaurants, takeaways and cafes in that period against 1,675 in the same months of 2025. Those visits led to 1,589 arrests against 1,210. Both are rises of 31%. The release groups visits by visit category, not job role, and does not mention kitchens or chefs. It says the government has “passed new laws to extend right to work checks and employer sanctions” to companies using flexible worker models, but it does not separate out arrests linked to the arrangements section 48 added.

Treating candidates fairly

The discrimination code says employers “should not” only check the status of “those who appear to the employer likely to be migrants”, and should not make assumptions about someone’s right to work “on the basis of their colour, nationality, ethnic or national origins, accent, surname or the length of time they have been resident in the UK”. The guide says: “All prospective workers should be asked to demonstrate their right to work”.

Candidates with time-limited permission “must not be treated less favourably solely because they produce acceptable documents or their eVisa”. Once their initial and ongoing entitlement to work is established, the code says they should not be treated less favourably over terms, training or promotion.

What the guidance does not say

The words kitchen, chef and catering do not appear in the guide, the penalty code or the discrimination code. The guide’s food and hospitality examples are a hotel receptionist, an agency temp for bars and restaurants, food delivery platforms, a sandwich producer and a fast-food takeaway, and none is a chef hire. It does not mention trial shifts or work experience, although it covers assessed course placements separately. Its volunteering section, which describes volunteers as people who give their time for free to charitable or public sector organisations, says a genuine volunteer generally has “no intention to create legal relations”, no contract, no obligation to work, and is unpaid except for limited expenses, and it ends: “If in doubt about whether a specific opportunity constitutes work (paid or unpaid), a Voluntary Worker, voluntary fieldwork or volunteering, employers should seek independent legal advice.” The guide does not classify trial shifts, so it gives no ruling on them. It does say a worker who is outside the listed organisations “will need permission to work (paid or unpaid)”, so look at what the arrangement actually is before the person starts.

The guide also says businesses can obtain “their own independent legal or HR advice where necessary”. For the training side of a hire, see our guides to what training hospitality staff legally need and compliance certificates for hospitality workers. Employers who want staff to understand the equal-treatment side of hiring can look at the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion course.

Frequently asked questions

Does an apprentice chef need a right to work check?

Yes. The guide’s definition of an employer includes a person who employs someone under “a contract of employment (a contract of service or apprenticeship)”, so the employer makes one of the three prescribed checks before the apprentice starts work.

If an agency placed me, will the restaurant check me again?

Not routinely in a standard agency arrangement. The Home Office says the employment business is responsible for the check and that the changes “are not intended to require routine duplication of these checks by the hirer”. The Home Office says organisations may choose to do additional checks as part of their own compliance processes, and the discrimination code requires that checks are applied fairly.

Is a self-employed chef covered by the new rules?

It depends on the arrangement, not the label. The guide excludes people who run an independent business and contract directly with clients, and also says contractors and freelancers are not excluded as a group. Read “Assessing working arrangements” in section 1 of the guide, together with Annex C, and take advice if the position is unclear.

Do I need a new check for each shift?

Not where the worker continues to be engaged by the same employer, which already holds a valid statutory excuse. The Home Office says the expansion “does not change when right to work checks must be carried out” and that a fresh check is not needed before each assignment, provided any follow-up check due before permission expires is done.

Can an employer insist on a digital check?

Not in general. The guide says employers “cannot mandate the method”, and the discrimination code says employers “are not permitted to mandate online or digital checks, except for those workers who have been provided with an eVisa”. An eVisa holder normally has to use the Home Office online service, with the Employer Checking Service available where applicable if that fails.

Sources

All sources are on GOV.UK or legislation.gov.uk: section 48 of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025; S.I. 2026/683, the Commencement No. 4 Regulations; the employer’s guide to right to work checks (1 October 2026); the code of practice on preventing illegal working (1 October 2026); the code of practice on avoiding discrimination (October 2026); Prove your right to work to an employer; and the illegal working and enforcement activity statistics to June 2026.