Ensuring your workers are eligible to work in the UK

Compliance checks and penalties for immigration offences

Police and immigration officers have certain powers to enter business premises where they believe an immigration offence is being committed.

For the more serious immigration offences, an employer may be fined and/or prosecuted.

Compliance checks of sponsor businesses

If you are applying to become a licensed sponsor under the points-based system, the UK Border Agency may carry out checks before a decision on your sponsorship application has been made. You may also be visited by one of their visiting officers as part of this process.

The UK Border Agency may also conduct checks and/or visits after you have been granted a sponsor licence.

Such checks/visits are carried out to make sure that the information you have given on the sponsorship application is accurate and that you are fulfilling all of the duties required of you as a licensed sponsor.

For more information, read guidance on sponsor applications on the UK Border Agency website - Opens in a new window.

Compliance checks for immigration offences

The police and immigration officers have the power to arrest and remove an individual who:

• has entered the UK unlawfully
• no longer has the right to be in the UK

The police and immigration officers also have the power to:

• enter premises, including business premises, to arrest such individuals
• search, and in some cases seize, personnel records

However, this only applies when this individual is working and the police and immigration officers reasonably believe that the individual and/or their employer has committed an immigration offence.

Find guidance on what powers immigration officers have when seeking to enter business premises on the UK Border Agency website - Opens in a new window.

You can also read about how to complain about the conduct of an immigration officer on the UK Border Agency website - Opens in a new window.

Penalties for immigration offences

If they are found to have committed an immigration offence, employers (and, in some cases, specifically sponsors) may face any or a combination of the sanctions below. They may:

• have their sponsor licence downgraded or revoked
• be served with a civil penalty
• face prosecution for facilitation/trafficking
• receive written warning for employing an illegal worker
• be downgraded on the points-based system sponsorship register
• be disbarred as a company director/officer as a result of prosecution 
• have their licence cancelled and removed from the points-based system sponsorship register
• be prosecuted for the procuring/use of fraudulent identity documents
• be prosecuted for knowingly employing an illegal migrant worker
• be prosecuted for employing an illegal migrant worker
• be fined for employing an unregistered A8 national
• be served with a fixed-penalty notice for employing an A2 national with no permission to work in the United Kingdom
• be prosecuted for employing an A2 national with no permission to work in the UK

For more information on A8 and A2 nationals, see the page in this guide on employing workers from EEA countries in Eastern Europe.

Subjects covered in this guide

• Introduction
• Checking a prospective worker's entitlement to work in the UK
• Those who don't need permission to work in the UK
• Employing those who need permission to work in the UK
• Employing workers from EEA countries in Eastern Europe
• Compliance checks and penalties for immigration offences
• Here's how migrant workers contribute to our workforce
• Here's how we check the entitlement of our staff to work in the UK
• Here's how we support our migrant workers

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