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Private hire operators scramble to meet updated right-to-work responsibilities as new Home Office rule targeting subcontractors arrives
From 1 October 2026, expanded Home Office rules will place new right-to-work responsibilities on some taxi and private hire operators, including businesses engaging self-employed drivers and subcontractors.
Taxi and private hire operators may need to carry out their own right-to-work checks even when a driver has already passed an immigration check conducted by a licensing authority.
The two processes have different purposes. A licensing authority checks whether a person is entitled to hold a taxi or private hire licence. The Home Office scheme concerns the responsibilities of a business that engages someone to provide work or services.
As a result, a current driver badge does not automatically prove that an operator has met its own obligations under the expanded scheme. Whether a check is required will depend on the way the operator works with drivers and other businesses.
The changes have raised concerns about the amount of preparation time available to the trade. The Licensed Private Hire Car Association (LPHCA), has criticised the Home Office’s communication with the sector. The LPHCA says it has written to the Government seeking better engagement and intends to ask for implementation or penalties to be paused. No postponement has been announced.
A LPHCA spokesperson said: “The Home Office has failed spectacularly to communicate new rules on ‘Right to Work Checks’ to the LPHCA, our Members and the wider industry. As a consequence I have written to the government to protest and demand proper engagement and a regulatory impact assessment of the consequences of their shortcomings.
“This repeats the farcical lack of dialogue on Digital Platform Reporting, which we stopped in its tracks nearly three years ago because of the same lack of communication.
“As a consequence, as we did with Digital Platform Reporting, I will seek a pause on the implementation of any new requirements or penalties for non-compliance for taxi and PHV Operators and Drivers”.
Licensing authorities have been required to check the immigration status of taxi and private hire licence applicants since 2016. They cannot grant a licence to someone disqualified because of their immigration status, and a licence cannot run beyond a driver’s time-limited permission to work.
There is also a separate HMRC tax check for certain taxi driver, private hire driver and private hire operator licence applications and renewals. That process concerns tax registration where required. It is not a right-to-work check and does not establish whether an operator has met its own responsibilities.
Self-employed drivers may fall within the expanded Home Office scheme. The rules cover individual subcontractors, people engaged under certain worker’s contracts and some online services matching service providers with customers.
In a recent TaxiPoint article, Home Office Minister, Jo White, said the changes would apply to organisations engaging people to provide work or services under their company name, including operators in the taxi and private hire vehicle sector beginning on 1 October 2026.
White said: “Historically, these labour market models have presented challenges for enforcement because accountability for compliance of the legal requirement to prevent illegal working has not been clearly defined and instance of illegal working have been identified.”
The Government’s position is that existing licensing checks have not, on their own, established sufficiently clear responsibility when illegal working is discovered. This has been identified as a particular concern where drivers provide services through an intermediary or platform-based business model.
White said: “While local authority licensing checks form an important part of the existing system, reliance on these checks alone has created ambiguity as to where accountability rests if illegal working is identified, particularly where services are provided through intermediary or platform-based models.”
She added: “The approach being taken provides clarity and consistency, ensuring that responsibility sits with the organisation engaging the individual to provide work or services.”
If illegal working is found and a business cannot establish the relevant statutory defence, the civil penalty can reach £45,000 per worker for a first breach and £60,000 per worker for a repeat breach. These are maximum penalties, not automatic fines for a missing document.
Knowingly employing an illegal worker, or having reasonable cause to believe that someone is working illegally, may also lead to prosecution. The maximum penalty is five years’ imprisonment and an unlimited fine. A civil penalty may also affect an operator’s taxi or private hire licence.
