How to prove your right to work in the UK as an Australian

Start with the question your employer is actually asking

If you are Australian and a UK employer has offered you work, the question is narrow: can you produce evidence, in one of the prescribed ways, that you may be in the UK and do this particular job? Australian citizenship, an Australian passport and Australian residency do not answer that question on their own. The evidence has to come from your UK immigration status — or from British or Irish citizenship, if you hold it.

Under the Home Office Right to Work Checklist, an employer must carry out a prescribed check before the worker commences employment in order to establish a statutory excuse against liability for a civil penalty. That obligation applies to employees under a contract of employment, to workers engaged under a worker's contract, and to individual sub-contractors. The same checklist records that an employer must not require you to prove your right to work using a particular method, and must not discriminate against you because of the method you need to use; you should be given a reasonable opportunity to use a prescribed method available to you.

Practical reading: if a hiring manager says "we only accept passports" or "we don't do share codes", that is not consistent with the published rules. It is worth saying so plainly and early.

The three routes an employer can use

The checklist sets out three prescribed forms of check. Your employer picks among them, subject to your circumstances.

The checklist states that where an individual has an eVisa, employers must use the Home Office online right to work checking service. Use of a digital verification service provider is not mandated — it is an option an employer may choose for the digital identity verification element.

Which documents count

The checklist groups acceptable documents into List A and List B. List A establishes a continuous statutory excuse: the individual has a continuous right to work in the UK and no follow-up checks are required. List B establishes a time-limited excuse, and a follow-up check is needed for the employer to maintain it.

List A (continuous, no follow-up check) includes, in paraphrase:

• A passport, current or expired, showing the holder is a British citizen.
• A passport or passport card, current or expired, showing the holder is an Irish citizen.
• A document issued by the Bailiwick of Jersey, the Bailiwick of Guernsey or the Isle of Man, verified as valid by the Employer Checking Service, showing unlimited leave to enter or remain under the relevant Appendix EU rules.
• A current passport endorsed to show the holder is exempt from immigration control, is allowed to stay indefinitely in the UK, has the right of abode, or has no time limit on their stay. The checklist's definition includes those with a document showing entitlement to readmission to the UK (RUK endorsement) and ILR endorsements from a Crown Dependency.
• A current Immigration Status Document issued by the Home Office with an endorsement indicating the holder may stay indefinitely or has no time limit, together with an official document giving the holder's permanent National Insurance number and name, issued by a government agency or a previous employer.
• A UK long or short birth or adoption certificate, together with that same National Insurance number document.
• A birth or adoption certificate issued in the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man or Ireland, together with that National Insurance number document.
• A certificate of registration or naturalisation as a British citizen, together with that National Insurance number document.

Two details matter here. A clipped passport is a cancelled document and is not acceptable proof. And for a manual check, employers must not rely on screenshots, scanned copies or other electronic copies — with a narrow exception for digital evidence of a person's name and National Insurance number, which they may accept if satisfied it belongs to the individual and comes from a reliable source. Employers must not ask for your password to access information on a personal device.

List B Group 1 (time-limited until the expiry date of permission) includes a current passport endorsed to show the holder is allowed to stay in the UK and is currently allowed to do the type of work in question; certain Jersey, Guernsey or Isle of Man documents verified by the Home Office Employer Checking Service showing limited leave under the relevant Appendix EU rules; and a current Immigration Status Document containing a photograph, with a valid endorsement indicating the holder may stay and do the type of work in question, together with a National Insurance number document.

List B Group 2 (time-limited excuse of six months) covers specified EU Settlement Scheme application documents and Application Registration Cards, each together with a Positive Verification Notice from the Home Office Employer Checking Service, plus a standalone Positive Verification Notice indicating the named individual may stay and is permitted to do the work.

Interpretation, not a rule of law: if you are in the UK on time-limited permission rather than settled status, expect your Australian passport to be useful only as the document carrying your UK endorsement. The passport proves nationality; the endorsement is what proves the right to work.

If you also hold British or Irish citizenship

Many Australians do, and it changes the evidence you need. A British citizen passport is acceptable whether current or expired. An Irish passport or passport card is acceptable whether current or expired. If you were registered or naturalised rather than born a citizen, a certificate of registration or naturalisation works — but only when paired with an official document giving your permanent National Insurance number and name from a government agency or a previous employer. The same pairing applies to UK, Channel Islands, Isle of Man and Irish birth or adoption certificates.

This is the point at which it is worth checking what you actually hold before you apply for jobs, because a certificate route needs a second document you may have to request.

The share code route, step by step

Where an employer uses the Home Office online service, the published steps are:

1. Access the service at www.gov.uk/view-right-to-work and enter your share code and date of birth. The employer should also enter the employer or business name correctly and in full.
2. Check the output. The employer must ensure the photograph is of you — in person, by video call, or digitally using facial recognition technology — and that the check confirms you have the right to work and are permitted to do the work offered, complying with any conditions or restrictions shown. They should only employ you, or continue to employ you on a follow-up check, if it does.
3. Retain a copy. A PDF or HTML copy of the profile page, including the photograph and the date of the check, kept for the duration of employment and two years afterwards, then securely destroyed.

Questions worth asking your employer: how long a share code you should generate, whether they need it before your start date or on it, and whether they will accept a video call for the photograph comparison if you are not on site.

What a manual check involves

A manual document-based check runs in four stages under the checklist: obtain, check, copy, record and retain.

At the check stage, the employer must confirm photographs are consistent across documents and with you; dates of birth are correct and consistent; expiry dates for time-limited permission are in the future; work restrictions have been checked against the job offered; all reasonable steps have been taken to confirm documents are genuine, untampered and belong to the holder; reasons for any different names across documents have been checked; and the check was conducted with you present, either in person or by live video link — and if by video link, that the original documents were in the employer's physical possession.

One provision catches students specifically: where someone has limited permission to work during term time, employers must obtain, copy and retain details of their academic term and vacation times covering the period of study for which they will be employed.

For copying, the employer must make a clear copy in a format that cannot be manually altered. For a passport, that means any page with the expiry date, nationality, date of birth, signature, immigration permission, biometric details, photograph, and any page showing entitlement to enter or remain and undertake the work. The front cover does not need copying. For retention, the employer must keep a secure record of the date the check was made — writing a bare date on the copy is not sufficient — and keep copies for the duration of employment plus two years.

Australian visas and residency do not transfer

The Australian Department of Home Affairs publishes lists of Australian permanent work visas (including subclass 186, 189, 190, 191, 887, 187, 888 and the National Innovation visa, subclass 858) and temporary work visas (including subclass 482, 485, 476, 489, 188, 491 and 494). It also states that if you hold an Australian permanent visa, you are an Australian permanent resident.

Those are Australian immigration statuses. Nothing in that material grants or evidences a UK right to work, and a UK right-to-work check is a separate exercise governed by UK rules. Treat Australian residency as useful for your own records and for returning to Australia — not as proof in a UK onboarding process.

What to verify before your start date

• Which method you will use, and whether your employer accepts it.
• Whether your permission is time-limited, and what the expiry date is — a follow-up check will follow.
• Whether your permission carries work restrictions, and whether the offered role fits them.
• Whether you have the second document (permanent National Insurance number and name) if you are relying on a certificate or Immigration Status Document.
• Whether your share code will still be valid on the day the employer runs the check.
• Whether the person running the check can do the photograph comparison in person, by video call, or through facial recognition.

Questions about your status

Immigration status questions — what your permission allows, whether it is still valid, how to get a share code, what to do if a document is lost or a condition has changed — belong with the official UK authority. Use gov.uk, and the Home Office Employer Checking Service where a Positive Verification Notice is involved. An employer can tell you what evidence they need; they cannot determine your status.

Next step

Pull the documents you intend to rely on into one place, check whether your evidence sits in List A or List B, and confirm with the employer which of the three prescribed methods they will use before your first day. If anything about your permission is unclear, resolve it with the official UK authority first — the employer's check can only reflect what your status record already says.

General information only

This article is general information about published right-to-work checking rules, not legal, migration or employment advice, and not a determination of any individual's status. Rules, document lists and retention periods can change; the authoritative sources are the Home Office Right to Work Checklist and related employer guidance on gov.uk, and the Australian Department of Home Affairs for Australian visa matters. Australian.org.uk is an independent information publisher. It is not a lender, broker, government body, regulator or comparison service, and it does not endorse or rank any provider or product. No outcome, approval or financial result is promised or implied.