Getting a right to rent check wrong is one of the few compliance failures in lettings that can put a civil penalty on a landlord or agent for every adult occupier in the property, and a criminal charge on the table in the worst cases. The check itself is quick. What catches agents out is everything around it: checking the wrong people, missing a follow-up date, filing a copy without recording when it was taken, or assuming one process covers the whole UK. This guide runs through it in the order you would actually do it on a live let in 2026.
Who needs a right to rent check, and where the rules apply
Right to rent applies in England only. There is no equivalent scheme in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, so if you run a mixed portfolio do not export your Manchester process to a Cardiff or Glasgow let.
The duty covers every adult aged 18 or over who will occupy the property as their only or main home, not just the people named on the agreement. In practice that means:
- Adult occupiers who are not tenants, including partners and adult children
- Lodgers taking a room in a property you manage
- Subtenants, where subletting is permitted
- Occupiers under licences and informal arrangements, not only assured shorthold tenancies
Common exemptions include social housing allocations, care homes, hostels and refuges, student accommodation arranged by an educational institution, holiday lets and accommodation tied to employment. Tenancies that began before 1 February 2016 sit outside the scheme, although granting a new tenancy brings the occupiers back in.
If you are the agent, the landlord can pass right to rent responsibility to you, but only in writing. A line buried in a terms of business email is not enough. Put it in the management agreement so it is clear who carries the liability and who does the work.
The three ways to run the check in 2026
Home Office online check with a share code
Most people who are not British or Irish citizens now hold digital immigration status rather than a card. Physical biometric residence permits are no longer valid proof, so if an applicant offers you one, ask for a share code instead. They generate it through the government's prove your right to rent service and give you the code plus their date of birth. You run it on the landlord-facing service, compare the profile photo to the person, and save the response page. The response page is your evidence, not the code.
Certified Identity Service Provider
For British and Irish citizens with a valid passport or Irish passport card, you can use a certified Identity Service Provider to run an identity document validation check. Most volume agencies have moved here because it works remotely and produces a tidy audit trail. Two cautions: the provider must be on the government's certified list, and you still have to satisfy yourself that the photo matches your applicant. Outsourcing the check does not outsource the liability.
Manual document check
Still valid, and still needed for anyone the other two routes do not cover. You need original documents from the prescribed lists, checked in the presence of the holder, either face to face or over a live video call while they hold the originals to camera.
Step-by-step: running a compliant right to rent check
- Identify every adult occupier before you draft the agreement. Ask directly who aged 18 or over will live there, and write the answer down.
- Pick the route for each person: share code, identity service provider, or manual documents.
- Complete the check before occupation starts, and no earlier than 28 days before the tenancy begins. A check done after handover gives you no statutory excuse.
- Verify the person against the evidence. Match the photo, match the date of birth, and document any name difference with a marriage certificate or deed poll.
- Take a clear copy: the passport page carrying the photo and personal details plus any endorsements, or the full online response page.
- Record the date you made the check on the copy itself. This is the field most often missing when a file is reviewed, and without it the copy is close to worthless.
- Diarise the follow-up now if the person has time-limited permission.
- Store the file securely for the tenancy plus at least a year afterwards, then dispose of it properly. This is personal data and UK GDPR applies.
Follow-up checks and the Landlord Checking Service
Evidence falls into two groups. List A documents show a continuous right to rent, such as a British or Irish passport or a certificate of naturalisation. Check once and you are done.
List B covers time-limited permission, and here a repeat right to rent check is required. The timing rule is: before the person's permission expires, or 12 months after your last check, whichever is later. Set it as a task with a named owner, not a note in someone's calendar.
When you cannot verify someone
Where an occupier has an outstanding application, appeal or administrative review, or the Home Office holds their documents, you use the Landlord Checking Service. You submit a request and receive a yes or no. A positive response gives a time-limited statutory excuse, and the response itself tells you when the next check falls due.
If a follow-up check shows someone no longer has the right to rent, reporting it to the Home Office is what preserves your statutory excuse. It is not a licence to change the locks. Any possession action follows the normal legal route, and that is a conversation to have with the landlord and a solicitor before anything is served.
Keeping the check clean of discrimination
The code of practice on avoiding discrimination is not optional reading. The rule is straightforward: check everyone, in the same way, at the same point in the process. Do not ask for extra documents because of an accent or a name. Do not screen on nationality in your advert or your enquiry handling. Do not reject an applicant because their permission is time-limited. A time-limited right to rent is still a right to rent, and your job is to diarise the follow-up rather than filter the person out.
Make it a system, not a memory
Agencies that never have a bad file are the ones where the right to rent check is a step in a workflow with an owner, a date and a document attached to it. That matters more as tenancies become periodic by default under the Renters' Rights Act, because there is no fixed-term end date nudging anyone to review the paperwork. Contractors deal with the mirror image of this on their own side, with insurance and certification renewals, which is why trade communities like Contractor Club spend so much time on document discipline.
The same logic applies to maintenance. Gas safety records, electrical condition reports, alarm checks and repair histories all have to be findable on the day someone asks for them. Platforms like PlanaJob let property managers compare quotes from vetted contractors and keep the quote, the job, the certificate and the invoice attached to the property rather than scattered across three inboxes. Treat it as your repairs desk CRM: every job has a status, an owner and a paper trail, the same way every right to rent check should. You can see how that fits a managed portfolio on our page for property managers, or sign up and put your next job through it. More compliance walkthroughs sit on the PlanaJob blog, and if you are rethinking the wider operating model rather than one process, Construction Arbitrage is a useful read on systemising a construction-adjacent business.
FAQ
Does a right to rent check apply in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland?
No. It is an England-only scheme. Landlords and agents elsewhere in the UK still have identity and anti-money laundering obligations, and letting agents carry their own regulatory duties, but there is no right to rent duty outside England.
How long is a share code valid?
Share codes have a limited life, 90 days at the time of writing, and a right to rent code is not interchangeable with a right to work code. If the code has expired by the time you come to run it, ask the applicant to generate a fresh one rather than working around it.
What happens if a tenant's visa expires during the tenancy?
You carry out a follow-up check before the expiry date, or 12 months after your previous check, whichever falls later. If the tenant has made an in-time application, the Landlord Checking Service will confirm their position. If they no longer have the right to rent, report it to the Home Office promptly, because that report is what protects you.