UK Restaurant Hiring Without Sponsorship: Right to Work Checks

Since July 2025, a UK restaurant can no longer sponsor a new chef from overseas on a Skilled Worker visa in most cases (see hiring a Japanese chef in the UK after 2025). That pushes Japanese restaurants toward people who already have the right to work: Youth Mobility Scheme holders, EU citizens with settled or pre-settled status, graduates, dependants, students and British and Irish citizens. Hiring them needs no sponsor licence, but it does need a correct right to work check every time. This guide covers how to do that check, what changes on 1 October 2026, and what happens if you get it wrong. It is based on GOV.UK pages and Home Office guidance checked in September 2026.

1. Why this matters now

Every employer in the UK has a legal duty to prevent illegal working. If you carry out the checks the Home Office prescribes before someone starts work, you have a statutory excuse: if the person later turns out not to have the right to do that work, you are not liable for the civil penalty. If you skip the check, do it wrongly or do it late, you have no excuse.

The pool you are now hiring from is also the one where status is most varied. A Youth Mobility holder, a student with 20 hours a week in term time and a graduate on a time-limited visa can all be working in the same kitchen, each with different end dates and limits.

2. The three ways to check right to work

Whatever the method, you must be satisfied that the photographs match the person in front of you, that dates of permission have not expired, and that the permission covers the type of work you are offering. Keep a copy that cannot be changed, and record the date of the check. Keep it for the length of the employment and for two years afterwards, then securely destroy it.

3. Share codes and eVisas in practice

The Home Office stopped issuing Biometric Residence Permits (BRPs) on 31 October 2024 and replaced physical documents with eVisas. Its guidance is explicit that an expired BRP is not acceptable proof of right to work in a manual check. For these workers, the online check is the only way to get a statutory excuse.

• The worker generates the code on GOV.UK by choosing to prove their right to work to an employer. A right to work share code is nine characters and starts with W.
• Codes starting with R or S are for other services (renting, for example) and cannot be used.
• A share code is valid for 90 days from issue and can be reused within that time for the same purpose.
• Enter the code and the worker's date of birth yourself on the employer service. Looking at the worker's own screen, or a printout of it, is not a valid check.
• Record your business name correctly on the check, and save the result page.

Where the online check shows a time-limited right to work, diarise a follow-up check before it ends. The statutory excuse only lasts until then.

4. Students and other limited permission

International students are a common source of part-time kitchen and floor staff, and the one where employers slip up most. From the Home Office guidance:

• Not every student may work. The eVisa (via the online check) or a passport endorsement shows whether they can and how many hours a week in term time, for example 10 or 20. If neither shows permission, they cannot work.
• A week runs Monday to Sunday for this purpose.
• Students with work rights may work full time before their course starts, during official vacations, and after the course ends while their permission lasts.
• You must obtain, copy and keep the student's term and vacation dates from their education provider.
• Students may not fill a permanent full-time vacancy, except in narrow cases such as a valid application to switch to the Skilled Worker or Graduate route.

Youth Mobility Scheme holders are simpler: they can work in most jobs for the length of their visa. See the Youth Mobility Scheme for UK restaurants.

5. What changes on 1 October 2026

On 11 September 2026 the Home Office republished a draft employer's guide which it says comes into force on 1 October 2026. Until then, the guide dated 26 June 2025 applies. The main change is scope. The Right to Work Scheme will cover not only employees but people engaged on a worker's contract, individual sub-contractors, and people found through online matching services.

Two of the Home Office's own examples come straight from hospitality:

• An employment business that supplies temporary workers to bars and restaurants is the employer for scheme purposes, and is responsible for the check.
• Where a business contracts out work and the worker is supplied by another employer, "extended liability" can apply. The guide sets out what the business must have in place (written terms, substitution controls and identity checks) to establish its own statutory excuse.

If you use agency cooks, kitchen porters from a staffing platform, or self-employed chefs for events, review those contracts before October.

6. Penalties, and why restaurants face more than a fine

• Civil penalty of up to £60,000 per illegal worker. The amount is set case by case under the code of practice.
• Criminal offence if you know or have reasonable cause to believe someone is working illegally: up to five years in prison and an unlimited fine.
• Closure notices and compliance orders for serious or repeated non-compliance, which can shut the premises.
• Director disqualification, seizure of earnings, and being unable to sponsor migrants in future.
• Licensing. A civil penalty or immigration breach is grounds for the licensing authority to review, suspend or revoke a licence in the alcohol and late-night refreshment sector. For a restaurant that sells alcohol or serves hot food late, this can be worse than the fine.
• The Home Office may also publish the names of penalised employers.

7. A checklist for every new hire

1. Run the check before the person starts work, including any paid trial shift.
2. Use the online check for anyone with an eVisa; never accept an expired BRP.
3. Check the photo, the dates and any conditions (hours, type of work).
4. For students, get term dates in writing and set rotas within the hours limit.
5. Save the result with the check date; keep it for the job plus two years.
6. Diarise follow-up checks for every time-limited worker.
7. Check everyone the same way, British citizens included, to avoid discrimination.
8. From 1 October 2026, extend checks and contract controls to agency, platform and sub-contracted workers.

Pay rules still apply: the National Living Wage is £12.71 an hour from April 2026. For London specifics, see hiring a sushi chef in London.

General information checked against GOV.UK and Home Office guidance in September 2026, not legal or immigration advice. The employer's guide is changing on 1 October 2026, and the online checking service's instructions are updated regularly. Use the Home Office's current guidance and the "Check if someone can work in the UK" tool for each hire.