From 1 October 2026, some taxi and private hire operators have to check a driver’s right to work themselves. A current badge is not that check.
The council’s check and the Home Office check do different jobs. Since December 2016, licensing authorities have had to check immigration status before they grant a taxi or private hire licence. That duty is set out in the Home Office guide for licensing authorities. The new scheme is about the business that takes the work. A right-to-work check done for a licence application does not, by itself, give that business a defence if illegal working is later found. The employer’s guide says so.
Who has to do it
The 2026 regulations extend the scheme beyond a normal employment contract. They cover a worker’s contract, an individual subcontractor, and an online service that matches a service provider to a customer. Home Office minister Jo White has said that includes organisations engaging people to provide work or services under the company name, and she named taxi and private hire operators.
The employer’s guide does not apply to a driver who runs an independent business in their own name, or through their own company, and contracts directly with the customer. Whether a particular operator is caught depends on how it actually works with drivers, not on the word “self-employed” in a contract. In the government’s consultation response, private hire firms said they had treated follow-up checks as the council’s job.
For these newer arrangements, a civil penalty can be imposed only where the engagement began on or after 1 October 2026. The check has to be done before the work starts. The permitted routes are a manual document check, the Home Office online check using a share code, or a registered digital verification provider. The operator remains responsible even if someone else helps with the paperwork.
What it can cost
If illegal working is found and the business has no statutory defence, the code of practice sets the starting point at £45,000 per worker for a first breach. If the business has been found to be employing illegal workers in the previous three years, the starting point is £60,000 per worker. These are not automatic fines for a missing document.
Knowingly employing an illegal worker, or having reasonable cause to believe that someone is working illegally, can still be prosecuted. The maximum sentence is five years in prison and an unlimited fine. The same code says a penalty can also lead to a review, and possible revocation, of a taxi or private hire licence.
This is separate from the HMRC tax-check code. That code is about tax registration. It says nothing about whether an operator has met the Home Office rule.
The objection from the trade
The Licensed Private Hire Car Association says the Home Office did not tell the trade properly. A spokesperson said the association has written to the Government to protest, and will ask for any new requirements or penalties for operators and drivers to be paused. No pause has been announced. That statement is reported in the trade reporting article.