eVisas and employer online checks

Use the employer service

The Home Office employer service uses the person’s right-to-work share code and date of birth. It shows permitted work and any time limit. An eVisa screenshot, CoS or expired biometric card alone is not a substitute for the prescribed check.

• Open the official employer service rather than relying on a worker-facing status screenshot.
• Match the person to the displayed photograph using a permitted method.
• Read the work conditions; record and retain the employer check output.

Plan for a failed check

Recommended practice: distinguish technical failure, unavailable evidence and a result that restricts the proposed work.

• Log the issue and retain any reference that helps resolve it.
• Use the Employer Checking Service where its criteria apply.
• Do not treat a local reminder or completed onboarding form as proof of immigration permission.

Suggested online-check workflow

Begin from the official employer service and complete the check using the organisation's approved process. Record the internal case reference, the checker, the date and the retained result location. Read the whole result before drawing a conclusion about the proposed role. Where the displayed information and the recruitment record differ, capture the discrepancy for review instead of silently editing one record to make them agree.

Build the identity comparison and restriction review into the handover to the hiring team. The person scheduling work should know which questions require further review and who owns the answer.

• Check that the result relates to the person being engaged.
• Compare the intended duties and pattern with the recorded decision.
• Test whether an authorised reviewer can retrieve the employer result later.

Suggested technical-issue log

Separate a service error, an unusable code and an unresolved identity or permission question. Those problems may need different responses. Log the time, the general error description, the next action and the owner. Keep personal identifiers and any sensitive correspondence in the approved case system rather than a general task board.

A useful exception record shows what was attempted and what subsequently resolved the issue. Avoid treating a successful page load as proof that every check step was completed. Conversely, a technical failure should not become an unsupported conclusion about the person's entitlement to work.

Fictional practice scenario

A fictional recruiter receives a worker-facing status screenshot and marks onboarding complete. During a sample review, another colleague cannot locate the employer-service result or evidence of the identity comparison. The record is reopened for the appropriate review.

The process improvement adds a clear evidence reference and completion criteria to the onboarding record. The scenario concerns an incomplete evidence trail; it does not decide the person's actual permission or prescribe the outcome of the check.