A hotel manager in Manchester hired a Portuguese national last spring. The candidate showed her EU passport at interview. The manager photocopied it, filed it, and considered the right-to-work check complete.
Six months later, during a Home Office compliance visit, she discovered that an EU passport is no longer sufficient evidence of the right to work in the UK. The candidate had never applied for settled status. The hotel was issued a civil penalty notice. The manager's reasonable assumption — that an EU citizen with a valid passport could work in the UK — was legally wrong.
This scenario has been playing out across UK businesses since the end of the Brexit transition period. Despite the EU Settlement Scheme being open since 2019, employer confusion about how to verify EU citizens' right to work remains widespread. And with the grace period long expired, the consequences of getting it wrong are no longer theoretical.
What changed after Brexit
Before 31 December 2020, EU, EEA, and Swiss citizens had an automatic right to live and work in the UK under free movement. Employers could verify this by checking a valid national passport or national ID card.
After that date, the rules changed fundamentally. EU citizens who were resident in the UK before the end of 2020 needed to apply to the EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS) to secure their right to remain and work. Those who did not apply — or whose applications were not granted — lost their automatic right to work.
The EUSS grants two types of status:
Settled status (indefinite leave to remain) — for those who had been continuously resident in the UK for five years or more at the time of application. This is permanent and does not expire.
Pre-settled status (limited leave to remain) — for those who had been resident for less than five years. This is granted for five years and needs to be converted to settled status before it expires, or the individual must make a late application.
Crucially, neither status results in a physical document. There is no card, no sticker in the passport, no letter with a hologram. Status under the EUSS is entirely digital, held on the Home Office system and accessible only through the online checking service.
Why "they showed me their EU passport" no longer works
This is the single most common employer mistake in EUSS verification, and it is worth stating plainly: a valid EU, EEA, or Swiss passport or national ID card does not, by itself, prove the right to work in the UK.
An EU passport proves citizenship. It does not prove immigration status. Since the end of free movement, EU citizens require permission to work in the UK — either through the EUSS, a visa, or British citizenship. The passport alone does not demonstrate any of these.
The Home Office right-to-work checking guidance is explicit: for individuals who claim a right to work based on EUSS status, employers must use the online checking service. A manual document check using the passport alone does not establish a statutory excuse.
This means an employer who photocopied an EU passport and treated it as a complete right-to-work check has no legal defence if that individual is later found not to have the right to work. The civil penalty — up to £45,000 for a first offence and £60,000 for a repeat offence — applies in full.
How to verify EUSS status correctly
The correct process for verifying an EU citizen's right to work under the EUSS involves the Home Office online checking service. Here is how it works:
Step 1: The individual generates a share code
The employee or candidate logs in to the Home Office View and Prove service using their identity document and date of birth. They generate a share code — a nine-character alphanumeric code that is valid for 30 days.
They provide this share code and their date of birth to the employer.
Step 2: The employer checks the share code
The employer enters the share code and the individual's date of birth into the employer online checking service. The system returns:
- A photograph of the individual
- Their name and date of birth
- Their immigration status (settled status, pre-settled status, or other)
- Any work restrictions
- Whether there is an expiry date on their permission
Step 3: The employer verifies the person
The employer must confirm that the photograph on the online check matches the person presenting themselves. This is the identity verification step — ensuring the share code belongs to the individual standing in front of you.
Step 4: The employer retains evidence
The employer must save or print a copy of the online check result and store it as their right-to-work record. This record, combined with evidence that the check was conducted before employment began, establishes the statutory excuse.
This process is straightforward. The challenge is that many employers — particularly smaller businesses — do not know it exists, do not understand why an EU passport is insufficient, or find the online system inconvenient compared to simply photocopying a document.
Settled vs. pre-settled: the monitoring obligation
The distinction between settled status and pre-settled status matters for employers beyond the initial check.
Settled status is indefinite. An individual with settled status has permanent permission to live and work in the UK with no restrictions. No follow-up check is required — the initial verification is sufficient for the duration of employment.
Pre-settled status is time-limited. It is typically granted for five years from the date of the decision. Before it expires, the individual must either:
- Apply for settled status (if they have accumulated five years of continuous residence), or
- Make a late application to the EUSS if they have not yet qualified for settled status
If an employee's pre-settled status expires and they have not secured settled status or another form of leave, their right to work in the UK ends. The employer must conduct a follow-up right-to-work check before the expiry date.
This monitoring obligation catches many employers out. The initial check is conducted correctly, the employee has pre-settled status, and the expiry date is noted somewhere — perhaps on a spreadsheet, perhaps in a mental note. Two years later, the expiry date arrives and nobody remembers to re-check. The employee continues working without valid permission. The employer loses their statutory excuse.
The timeline is particularly pressing now. The first wave of pre-settled status grants were made in 2019 and 2020, with five-year periods expiring in 2024 and 2025. A significant number of these grants are now at or past their expiry date, meaning employers who have not been tracking expiry dates may already be employing individuals whose pre-settled status has lapsed.
Common employer mistakes with EUSS checks
Based on enforcement data and employer guidance published by the Home Office, these are the most frequent errors:
1. Accepting an EU passport as sufficient
As detailed above, this is the most common mistake and the one with the most direct penalty consequences. The passport proves nationality, not immigration status.
2. Not using the online checking service
Some employers ask the employee to show them a "status letter" or email from the Home Office. While these communications may exist, they are not valid for right-to-work checking purposes. The only accepted method is the online checking service using a share code.
3. Treating all EUSS status as the same
An employer who checks the online service and sees "pre-settled status" but does not note the expiry date has completed half the process. The initial check establishes the statutory excuse at the point of hire. But the failure to schedule a follow-up check before expiry means the excuse lapses when the status does.
4. Not checking at all because "they've been here for years"
Long-standing employees who are EU citizens and were working before Brexit still need their right to work verified under the current rules. The fact that they were lawfully employed under free movement does not mean their current status has been checked under the EUSS. Many employers never conducted a retrospective check for existing staff, creating an ongoing compliance gap.
What to do right now
If your business employs EU, EEA, or Swiss nationals — and given that approximately 3.9 million people have been granted status under the EUSS, the probability is high — there are three actions to take.
1. Audit your existing records
For every EU national on your payroll, check: was their right to work verified using the online checking service, or was an EU passport accepted as sufficient? If the answer is the latter, you need to re-check using the correct method. The statutory excuse does not exist for checks conducted using only an EU passport after the relevant deadline.
2. Identify pre-settled status expiry dates
For any employee with pre-settled status, confirm the expiry date and schedule a follow-up check before that date. If the expiry date has already passed, conduct an immediate re-check to establish whether the individual has obtained settled status or another form of leave.
3. Update your process for new hires
Ensure that your hiring process includes a clear step for EU nationals: request a share code, verify it through the online service, check the photograph against the individual, and retain the result. Do not accept an EU passport alone. Train anyone involved in hiring — managers, HR staff, recruiters — on why the process has changed and what the consequences of getting it wrong are.
The common mistakes that SMEs make with right-to-work checks are amplified when it comes to EUSS verification, because the rules changed relatively recently and many businesses have not updated their processes.
The bigger picture
The EUSS represents the largest single change to right-to-work verification in the UK in decades. Nearly four million people had their employment verification method changed from a simple passport check to a digital-only process requiring an online service and a share code.
The Home Office was clear that the grace period — during which EU passports could be accepted — ended on 30 June 2021. Since that date, every employer who accepted an EU passport as a standalone right-to-work document has been operating without a statutory excuse.
Five years on, enforcement is catching up. The immigration enforcement statistics show a significant increase in civil penalties issued, and EUSS-related failures are a growing component of that total.
Certifyd's Right to Work Portal guides employers through the correct verification process for every immigration status type — including EUSS settled and pre-settled status — with automated share code checking, expiry date monitoring, and audit-ready record keeping.