How much does a Right to Work check cost an employer?

Compare the cost of manual, Home Office online and digital-provider Right to Work checks. Separate service fees, staff time and evidence costs without relying on invented prices.

A Right to Work check does not have one UK-wide price. An employer may use a prescribed manual document check, a Home Office online check or a check using a registered Right to Work digital verification service provider, depending on the worker's evidence and the applicable route. The final Home Office employer guide effective 1 October 2026 sets out those routes. A provider's fee, the employer's staff time and the cost of retaining evidence are separate questions. A low invoice is not a substitute for a correctly completed check.

The Home Office online checking service has no service charge according to the government's Right to Work extension impact assessment, which separately models the time an employer spends using it. That does not make the full employer process costless. Someone must still use the official employer service, review the result against the individual and the proposed work, and keep the required evidence. Digital verification providers can charge for their service, but there is no single government tariff for every provider or product. The government's digital verification register expressly does not publish providers' commercial pricing. Obtain a current written quote for the exact Right to Work service instead of treating an old market figure as today's price.

This guide helps an employer compare the cost of a valid process. It does not choose a person's checking route, decide their immigration permission or recommend a named provider. Use the final Home Office employer guide for the prescribed steps and digital-provider output requirements. Existing Complys route guides need a full update before they can be reliable companions to this page.

First choose a permitted route

Cost comparisons only make sense between routes a worker can actually use. The final employer guide describes three checking methods that can establish a statutory excuse when completed as prescribed before work begins. The manual route uses specified evidence from Annex A. The Home Office online route uses the official employer result where the worker can provide a Right to Work share code or other relevant online status. The registered digital-provider route is optional and has its own document and provider conditions. The Employer Checking Service supplies confirmation in specified cases where the normal route cannot establish the right.

An employer should not push everyone to the cheapest or most convenient method if it is not available to them. The final guide says prospective workers should have a reasonable opportunity to demonstrate their right and that an employer cannot mandate a single checking method. A candidate without a suitable document for a digital provider may be able to use a manual route. A worker with an online status may need the Home Office employer service. Route suitability is a legal and evidence question; price follows it.

The 1 October 2026 rules also extend the scheme to defined worker-contract, individual-subcontractor and online-matching arrangements, with separate extended-liability rules for certain contractual chains. They do not make every client or contractor automatically responsible for the same check. Check that scope in the final Home Office employer guide before budgeting for a supplier's workers. Do not multiply a provider's per-check price by every person on a supplier's payroll without establishing that your organisation is responsible for those checks.

Manual document check: budget for the work, not an invented government fee

The manual route begins with acceptable Annex A evidence and the employer's prescribed obtain, check, copy and retain steps. The employer must have physical possession of original documents when checking them in the holder's presence. The final guide allows the presence to be in person or by live video, but looking at an image of the original on the call is not the same thing. The guide has a narrow allowance for official evidence of name and permanent National Insurance number in digital format when paired with a specified acceptable document. Read the manual-check instructions and Annex A before designing a remote workflow.

The commercial cost of a manual check may include staff time to arrange the meeting, examine the evidence, resolve a name difference, make a dated copy and file it securely. It may also involve secure transmission or physical handling of the original document. Those are actual process costs. They are not a fixed Home Office charge for the manual route. A purchase decision should compare the realistic process at your business, especially if checks are performed across many locations or workers start at short notice.

Do not treat the fastest possible handling time as a compliance target. If a document appears inconsistent, a work condition is unclear or an acceptable combination is incomplete, the next step is to resolve that issue through the prescribed route. Counting only successful, straightforward checks makes a manual process look cheaper than it is. Equally, paying for a provider does not remove the employer's responsibility to review and retain the correct result.

Home Office online check: no service charge, with employer work remaining

For an eligible online check, the worker supplies the Right to Work share code and date of birth. The employer uses the official GOV.UK employer service, sees the result, checks the photograph against the person and considers any work restrictions. The employer retains the prescribed profile evidence. A share code written in an email, or a screenshot of the worker's own account, is not the employer's completed online check. The final Home Office guide's online section sets out those steps.

The government impact assessment describes the Home Office online check as free of charge and models employer time separately. It is an economic estimate, not a promise that your staff will finish every check in the modelled time. A real case can take longer when a share code is for the wrong purpose, a photograph is unclear, the job has a restriction that needs review or the worker cannot access the service. Budget for the trained person's time and secure record handling without adding an imaginary Home Office transaction fee.

Some candidates cannot use the online route. The lack of a share code does not by itself mean they have no Right to Work, and paying a digital identity provider may not solve the mismatch. Check the person's available evidence and the Home Office route guidance, including its online-check section and evidence rules.

Digital-provider check: ask for the exact current quote

An employer may choose a registered Right to Work digital verification service provider, or RtW DVSP, where the worker's evidence is within the permitted service. The final guide requires the provider to be on the Office for Digital Identities and Attributes register and able to provide Right to Work checks. It explains permitted British and Irish passport and passport-card checks, including a tightly conditioned route for some documents up to six months past expiry, and certain Annex A evidence available digitally from an issuing authority. Not every registered provider offers every permitted service. Check the official register and the provider's Right to Work scope before comparing prices.

A provider might quote per completed check, per attempted check, by monthly subscription, by volume band or as part of a wider screening package. These are questions for a current quote, not claims that any named provider uses those models. Ask whether the quoted price includes VAT, failed or abandoned attempts, a second attempt after an unreadable chip, identity comparison, employer output, secure retrieval and support. Ask how long a price is fixed and whether a minimum volume applies. A headline “from” price is not the same as the cost of a completed, usable Right to Work check for your mix of workers.

The government used modelled provider-fee assumptions in its impact assessment. Those are inputs to an impact model, not a live price list or a quotation. This guide does not reproduce them as a market rate. The OfDIA register tells you about registration and certificates, and specifically says it does not show commercial prices. For a purchasing decision, keep the dated quote and named service next to the register check.

The employer still has work after paying the provider. The final guide requires the employer to obtain the provider output, ensure the prescribed steps are complete and retain the relevant result. The identity-comparison step may be carried out in person, by video call or through facial recognition supplied by a registered Right to Work digital verification service provider. Where that provider completes the prescribed facial comparison, the employer may rely on its result and need not repeat the same identity check. The employer must retain the provider's comparison alongside the required output. A successful transaction charge does not itself grant a statutory excuse. Use the final Home Office guide for the route and evidence details.

Employer Checking Service cases need a separate time allowance

The Home Office Employer Checking Service, or ECS, applies to defined situations where the employer needs verification and cannot rely on an ordinary manual or online result. The final guide explains when to use it and what a Positive Verification Notice means. A submitted request is not the positive notice. Where a notice establishes a six-month statutory excuse, a follow-up is required before that period ends if the excuse is to be retained. See the Home Office ECS instructions and the final employer guide for the precise circumstances.

For an ECS case, budget for the staff time, document collection and later follow-up the case may need. Check current official service terms before adding any transaction fee to a forecast. Do not assume an optional digital provider can replace the ECS where the Home Office requires that service. An unresolved case should not be marked complete to keep a recruitment timetable on track.

A cost worksheet that avoids false precision

For each route, write down the components you can actually observe:

Then use the same calculation across the routes: total expected process cost = external charges under the chosen option + employer time cost + evidence-handling cost + expected exception-handling cost. Apply only to workers for whom that route is permitted. Employer time cost can be estimated from your actual pay and overhead figures multiplied by measured time. The exception component should come from your own experience or a clearly labelled scenario, not an invented market average. Keep the assumptions beside the result so a future buyer can update them.

Consider two hiring patterns. A low-volume employer with a predictable office start may find that arranging a manual check is straightforward. A distributed employer with frequent starts may value a provider's remote process even if there is a fee. Those are examples of how to frame a comparison, not claims that one route is always cheaper or safer. The correct route, worker experience and quality of the retained evidence remain the first constraints.

Questions to send to a digital provider

Ask for a written answer that names the service registered for Right to Work, the provider's current register entry and certificate, and the documents or digital evidence it can handle. Ask whether the service supports the limited expired-passport route and how a damaged chip or cancelled document is handled. These questions matter because the final employer guide permits some options conditionally while providers' actual services differ.

Request a sample employer output with personal data removed. Compare its fields with the final guide's provider-output tables. Find out whether the employer can download and securely retain the full output and, where the provider performs the prescribed facial comparison, the comparison record. Ask whether a failed attempt is charged, whether a second attempt is included, and how a worker who declines digital verification can take an alternative permitted route. Confirm which identity steps the registered provider completes and which steps your staff must still perform before work starts; do not budget for an unnecessary duplicate imposter check.

Finally, ask for a price schedule that states currency, VAT treatment, minimum commitment, volume thresholds, retry rules, support and data export terms. The provider may offer other identity or screening services, but a bundle price is useful only if the Right to Work component and its evidence are clear. Do not pay for a generic identity score while assuming it has the status of a prescribed RtW DVSP result.

Keep the statutory-excuse question separate from cost

The Home Office guide concerns the steps that can establish a statutory excuse against a civil penalty. The employer must complete the applicable route before employment begins and retain the prescribed record. The guide requires secure retention for the duration of employment and two years afterwards, followed by secure destruction. These duties influence the cost of a process, but they cannot be priced away. If a provider offers storage, check exactly what the employer can obtain and retain rather than assuming the vendor's account will always be accessible when evidence is requested.

The cost of a civil penalty is a separate risk question, not a price for a check. Do not divide a headline penalty figure by hiring volume and call it a government checking fee. The Home Office code of practice on preventing illegal working addresses liability and penalties. This page stays with the cost of carrying out an available checking method correctly.

For organisations comparing evidence-management processes, request a demonstration against a real, anonymised checking and follow-up scenario. Confirm the released features, data handling and current terms before relying on a system. Complys does not perform the official check, decide immigration status or guarantee a statutory excuse merely because an employer stores evidence in it.

Primary sources

• Final Home Office employer guide, 1 October 2026
• Government impact assessment, cost per check to business
• Office for Digital Identities and Attributes register guide

Sources checked 1 October 2026.