Home Office Drops Expanded Right to Work Wording from Sponsor Guidance
01 Jun 2026
If you are on a Skilled Worker or Health and Care Worker visa, your right to work in the UK depends on your employer holding a valid sponsor licence and following Home Office compliance rules. A guidance change earlier this year created confusion for sponsors about the scope of their right to work obligations. The Home Office has now reversed that change.
The Workers and Temporary Workers sponsor guidance (Part 2) was updated in March 2026 to include wording about workers "engaged" by sponsors. In April 2026 this was narrowed to workers "directly engaged" by sponsors. Both versions suggested sponsors might need to conduct right to work checks on workers they had not sponsored, going beyond their existing obligations. Businesses raised concerns about "how to practically implement the new obligations," and on 20 May 2026 the Home Office removed the expanded wording. The guidance now states that "wording introduced in March and April 2026 relating to unsponsored workers... should now be disregarded."
For sponsored workers this means the compliance framework your employer must follow has returned to the position before March 2026. Sponsors are not required to conduct the broader checks the earlier wording had suggested. The current guidance requires sponsors to ensure that any worker they intend to sponsor, and any other individual they employ, has the correct immigration permission to work before employment begins.
If you are concerned about whether your employer's sponsor licence or compliance record has been affected, ask your HR or legal team to review the current version of the Part 2 sponsor guidance on GOV.UK.
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