When it comes to hiring a new employee, employers must ensure that the individual has the right to work in the United Kingdom. This means verifying certain documents that prove their identity and eligibility to work in the country. In this article, we'll discuss what documents are required for a right to work check and how employers can verify them.The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS, formerly INS) provides a list of documents that are sufficient to demonstrate both identity and eligibility to work in the United States. These documents include a passport (current), permanent resident card or alien registration receipt card (Form I-55), a current foreign passport that contains a temporary I-551 stamp or a temporary printed I-551 annotation on a machine-readable immigrant visa.
Employers must accept documents that appear to be reasonably genuine and are related to the person submitting them. The employee must submit a document or combination of documents from List A (showing both identity and employment authorization) or a document from List B (showing identity) and a document from List C (showing employment authorization) or an acceptable receipt of those documents within three business days from the date paid work begins. Do not require an employee who submits a document from List A to submit documents from List B and List C. Do not require an employee who submits documents from List B and List C to submit a document from List A.The USCIS also considers a school report card, daycare or day care record, or hospital record (such as a birth certificate) acceptable as proof of identity for workers aged 16 and under.
Employees can submit the following receipts in lieu of certain documents for a temporary period: see Section 4.4 Acceptable Receipts for the validity dates of the receipts.It is essential that employers carry out right to work checks before doing any work. All right to work checks must be completed through Oleeo and using TrustID; however, in some exceptional cases, employers can perform a physical verification of documents to establish an employee's right to work. Only documents from these lists can be accepted as proof of the right to work.For more information on illegal discrimination, see Section 11.0, Unlawful Discrimination and Penalties for Prohibited Practices. For more information on immigrant documentation, see the Nolo Immigration Law section.
Employers should also note that if someone doesn't have a valid passport, they can accept expired documents as proof of their right to work in the UK. However, employers should double-check the employee's authorization to work when certain List A or List C documents expire.The Ministry of the Interior provides an employers' right to work checklist, which explains the types of documents that are acceptable to prove an employee's right to work and for how long the check is valid. This checklist was recently updated, as some acceptable documents were removed from the list and new information was added about identity service providers. To carry out the correct verification of right to work documents, employers will need to verify certain types of accepted documents.
All right to work checks must be signed and verified using the following statement: Oleeo and TrustID will handle much of the online document verification process.Finally, employers should note that presenting acceptable and valid documentation to potential employees before starting work confirms their right to work in the UK. If you use forged, falsified, or altered documents to prove your identity or authorization to work, you can be fined and even jailed.
