Does the October 2026 Right to Work change apply to my business?
From 1 October 2026 the Right to Work Scheme covers more than employees. Answer two questions about one arrangement and see where it lands.
Runs entirely in your browser — nothing you enter is sent anywhere or stored. General information for UK employers, not legal advice.
Does the October 2026 extension apply to this arrangement?
Answer for one person or one type of arrangement at a time. Nothing you enter leaves your browser.
Start from an example, if one looks familiar
These fill in the answers below so you can adjust them. Your trade does not decide the answer — the arrangement does.
Why two questions, and not your industry
The government's own announcement talks about construction, food delivery, beauty salons, courier services and warehousing, so it would be tempting to build this as “pick your trade”. That would give wrong answers, because your sector is not the test. The phrase in the response is “in sectors like” — an illustration of where the problem was found, not a definition of who is caught.
Two salons can describe their stylists in identical words and fall on opposite sides of the line, depending on who takes the bookings, who sets the hours and whose clients they are. So this checker asks about the arrangement instead, using the two limbs of the statutory definition of a worker's contract in section 14A:
- Does the individual have to do the work personally? A genuine right to send a substitute or put their own staff on the job points away from a worker's contract.
- Are you genuinely just one of their clients? The statute puts it as “person A is neither a client nor customer of any profession or business undertaking carried on by individual A” — in other words, a worker's contract exists where you are not simply a customer of a business they run.
When both limbs point the same way, the answer is reasonably clear. When they pull apart, it is genuinely arguable, and the checker says so rather than picking one. The draft guidance is blunt about why that matters: “The label applied to an arrangement, including whether an individual is described as ‘self-employed’, will not be determinative.”
How each kind of arrangement is treated
| Arrangement | From 1 October 2026 |
|---|---|
| Employees on a contract of employment | Already in scope, unchangedAlready in scope, and unchanged. If you employ people you should already be checking. |
| Workers who are not employees — casual, zero-hours and much gig work | Newly in scopeThe statutory test turns on whether you are their client or customer, not on what the arrangement is called. |
| Individual sub-contractors you engage directly | Newly in scopeAimed at contractual chains — the draft guidance's construction example treats a developer as the employer of individuals working through the chain. |
| Platforms that match service providers to customers for a fee | Newly in scopeBroadly: you keep a register of service providers, customers enquire through your online service, and you take a fee or commission for the match. |
Worked examples
These are the five arrangements the checker offers as starting points, with the reasoning behind each. They are illustrations of how the two limbs interact — not rulings, and not a substitute for looking at your own contracts.
Food delivery and couriers
A courier who picks up delivery shifts through my app
In scope from October
They ride the shifts themselves and the work comes from you, not from a business of their own with its own customers. This is the arrangement the extension was written for.
Beauty and hair
A stylist renting a chair in my salon, with their own clients
Likely outside
They do the work personally, but they run their own book of clients and you are letting them space — you are their landlord and customer, not who they work for. Note how narrow this is: if you set their hours, take the bookings and pay them per head, the answer flips.
Construction
A self-employed plumber I sub-contract on a site I run
In scope from October
An individual sub-contractor doing the work personally on your project. The draft guidance's construction example goes further and treats the party responsible for the contractual chain as the employer of individuals working through it.
Warehousing and logistics
Warehouse staff I take on for a busy period, hour by hour
In scope from October
Casual and zero-hours arrangements are squarely in. The two-year retention rule is the practical trap here — seasonal evidence is the easiest kind to lose.
Professional services
An IT contractor invoicing through their own limited company
Likely outside
A business-to-business services arrangement, and the draft guidance's own worked example says no check is required by the client company. The label is not what does it, though — a personal service company whose sole worker is embedded in your team like an employee is a different case.
If an arrangement is in scope
Three things follow, and none of them is complicated on its own. A prescribed check has to be completed before the person starts the work. The evidence has to be kept for the engagement and two years after it ends. And none of it is retrospective — for the new categories, liability applies to engagements beginning on or after 1 October 2026, so you are not expected to revisit people already working for you.
The full guide to the October 2026 changes covers the three accepted check types, the penalty position, what is still draft, and how to prepare. If you want the underlying documents, the draft employer's guide and section 48 itself are the primary sources.
What MadyHR.ai can help with
MadyHR.ai does not carry out Right to Work checks and is not a Right to Work Digital Verification Service Provider. You carry out the check yourself — on the Home Office service, on original documents, or through a registered provider — and MadyHR.ai records the outcome, stores the evidence, and tells you before it expires.
Our compliance tooling is the record-keeping half: the check outcome and date against the person, the evidence file with it, and a reminder before a time-limited permission runs out.
Want Right to Work and holiday tracking handled for you?
MadyHR.ai turns these checklists into automatic 90/60/30-day reminders and real accrual-based balances — no spreadsheets required.