Right to work by share code, step by step

What a share code actually is

A share code proves nothing by itself. It is a key. The worker asks GOV.UK for it, hands it to you, and you use it to look at what the Home Office already holds about their right to work. The code is nine characters, it begins with a W, and it lasts 90 days from the day the worker made it. A code somebody sent you in June is no use to you in October.

The worker gets one from prove your right to work to an employer. They sign in with the document their status is held against, give their date of birth, say the code is for proving right to work to an employer, and read it off the screen. They can send it to you in a message. It is not a secret the way a password is: it opens one record, for one employer, for 90 days, and the person it describes chose to give it to you.

Anyone holding an eVisa can only prove their right to work this way, and that is most non-UK nationals now. The online route has stopped being the unusual one.

Doing the check, on Monday morning

Your half is at view a job applicant’s right to work details. You need two things from the worker and nothing else: the share code and their date of birth.

• Do it before they start. The check has to be done before the first shift. One done in week two does not cover week one, and the draft employer’s guide is plain that your defence runs from the date of the check.
• Look at the photograph. The service shows a photograph of the person the record belongs to. Look at it, and look at the person. If you are doing this by phone, do it on a video call while they are holding the phone. This is the step people skip, and it is the step that makes the rest of it worth anything.
• Read what it says, not the headline. The result tells you whether they can do the work you are offering and whether there are conditions attached. A student visa carries an hours limit. A condition you did not read is a condition you did not meet.
• Keep the result. Save it or print it. Write the date you looked on it. That page and that date are the whole record.

It is free. There is no account to open, nothing to buy, and no third party in the middle.

What to keep, and for how long

A check you cannot show is a check you did not do. The record has to show who was checked, what the service returned, and the date you looked at it. Keep it for as long as the person works for you and for two years after they stop, then destroy it properly.

Keep it somewhere it cannot be quietly edited later. A saved PDF, a printed copy in a file, or a system that stamps the date on it all do the job. A photograph of a screen forwarded through a group chat does not, because in a year nobody can tell what day it was taken.

When you have to do it again

Some permissions have an end date. Where the result shows one, your check only covers you up to that date, and it has to be repeated before it passes. The service tells you the date. Putting it somewhere you will see it is your job, and it is the single most common way a firm that did everything right ends up with a gap.

Where the result shows no end date, you do not repeat the check while that person is with you. If they leave and come back on a new engagement, check again, because the duty attaches to the engagement rather than to the person.

What a check does not tell you

A right to work check answers one question: may this person do this work in the UK. It is silent on everything else you care about at the gate.

• It is not a skills or safety card. A CSCS card says nothing about immigration status, and a share code says nothing about training.
• It is not an identity check in the sense a bank means. You are comparing a photograph the Home Office holds against the person in front of you, and that is all it is.
• It does not settle whether someone is genuinely self-employed. That is a different question with different consequences, and it is the one a status enquiry turns on.
• It does not reach a firm you sublet a package to. That firm checks its own people. What it does reach, from 1 October 2026, is the individual you take on yourself.

The two routes this guide is not about

There are three ways to do a check and this guide covers one. If the man in front of you holds a British or Irish passport he will usually have no share code at all, and that is not a problem to be solved.

• A manual document check. You see the original document in person, satisfy yourself it is the person holding it, and keep a dated copy. A British or Irish passport, current or expired, is the everyday case.
• A certified identity service provider. A registered digital identity service does the passport check for you. It costs money, and it earns that money at volume rather than for a gang of ten.

Nobody has to use the online route who is entitled to use another one. Asking a British passport holder for a share code he cannot get is a good way to lose a morning and a bricklayer.

Where SHINDI fits, and where it does not

SHINDI does not do right to work checks. It does not contact the Home Office, it does not read a share code, and nothing it holds gives you a statutory excuse. What it records is that a named manager carried out a share code check on a date, and the share code route is the only one it records at all, because it is the only one where a manager either did the thing or did not. Before a time-limited check runs out, it tells the manager whose name is on it. A card a worker photographs in is stored as declared, not verified, and is never shown to you as a right to work check, because it is not one.

The other half of what you will be asked for is the dated attendance record: who was on which site, on which day. That falls out of the messages your crew already send, which is what timesheets from the WhatsApp your crew already use is about. For who has to check whom from October, and what it costs to get it wrong, read what the 1 October 2026 change means if you run a gang.

About this guide

This guide reads the draft employer’s guide to right to work checks published on 16 July 2026, which comes into force on 1 October 2026, together with the code of practice on preventing illegal working of 13 February 2024 and the two GOV.UK services named above. It is written for trade subcontractors and it is not legal advice. If your arrangements are unusual, take advice on your own contracts. The date at the top is when this page was last read against the guidance, and it will move when the final guide is published.