Right to rent checks are changing this October

Every landlord in England already knows they have to check a tenant's right to rent before handing over the keys. What is changing is not the duty itself but how some of those checks are carried out. The Home Office has published a new Code of Practice for the right to rent scheme, its seventh version, and it takes effect on 1st October 2026. If you or your agent use a digital identity provider to verify tenants, there is a genuine action to take before that date. If you check documents yourself or use the Home Office's own online service, the honest answer is that very little changes at all.

This sits alongside, rather than inside, the Renters' Rights Act. The Act has reshaped a great deal about tenancies since it came into force, but it leaves the right to rent scheme itself alone: the duty to check, the accepted methods and the penalties for getting it wrong are unchanged. This update comes from the Home Office, not from the housing reforms, and it is worth treating as its own compliance task rather than folding it into everything else on your list.

A quick recap: what right to rent actually requires

Before a tenancy starts, a landlord (or their agent, if the checks have been delegated to them in writing) must confirm that every adult who will live in the property, whether they are named on the tenancy agreement or not, has the legal right to rent residential property in the UK. There have always been three accepted ways to do this, and that stays true after October:

1. A manual document check: viewing original documents, such as a passport or biometric residence permit, in the presence of the holder, and keeping dated copies on file.
2. The Home Office online service: using a share code the tenant generates themselves, which covers anyone with a digital immigration status, such as EU settled status or an eVisa.
3. A digital identity check: using facial verification technology through a certified provider, an option available to British and Irish citizens who hold a valid passport as an alternative to a manual check.

A check carried out correctly, by any of these three routes, gives the landlord what is known as a statutory excuse. That matters because it protects you from a civil penalty even if it later turns out the tenant did not, in fact, have the right to rent. Skip the check, or do it incorrectly, and that protection disappears.

What actually changes on 1st October

The new Code is mainly about the third route: digital identity checks. Providers that carry out these checks are now formally called right to rent digital verification service providers, or RtR DVSPs, and digital identity checking has been put on a proper statutory footing under the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025. From 1st October, if a landlord or agent uses a digital provider to verify a tenant's identity, that provider must be registered with the Office for Digital Identities and Attributes, known as OfDIA, with a specific note on the register confirming it is certified to carry out right to rent checks. A generic identity verification tool, or one certified for other purposes but not this one, will not establish the statutory excuse.

If you or your letting agent use a digital identity service, the practical step is straightforward: ask the provider to confirm their OfDIA registration covers right to rent checks specifically, and get that in writing if you can. If you cannot get a clear answer, it is worth switching to the Home Office online service or a manual document check instead, both of which are unaffected by any of this.

Checks already carried out correctly, under the version of the Code in force at the time, remain valid. There is no need to go back and redo right to rent checks on tenants who moved in before 1st October, provided the check was done properly under the rules that applied then.

What stays exactly the same

It is worth being clear about what has not moved, because it is most of the scheme. The penalties for getting a check wrong are unchanged: a civil penalty of up to £10,000 per occupier for a first breach and up to £20,000 for a repeat one, reduced by 30 per cent if you pay within 21 days under the fast payment option. Knowingly letting to someone with no right to rent can still lead to a criminal conviction and, in the most serious cases, imprisonment. None of that has changed, and none of it is affected by whether you check tenants manually, online or digitally.

The three accepted methods themselves are unchanged too. Nobody is being forced onto digital checks, and there is no new requirement to use a particular provider or method. If a manual document check has always worked for your lettings, it will carry on working exactly as before.

What to do before 1st October

• Work out which method you actually use. If you check documents yourself, or rely on the Home Office share code service, you can stop reading here. Neither is affected.
• If you use a digital identity provider, ask them directly. Confirm they are registered with OfDIA specifically for right to rent checks, not just for identity verification in general.
• If a letting agent carries out checks on your behalf, ask them the same question. The legal responsibility usually sits with whoever the checks were delegated to in writing, but it is your tenancy, so it is worth knowing the answer rather than assuming.
• Keep your existing records where they are. There is no requirement to repeat checks on current tenants, so resist the urge to tidy up by redoing paperwork that was already done correctly.
• Build the check into your process for any new tenancy starting after 1st October. That is the point at which the new Code applies, so it is worth having the answer ready before your next let, not after.

One more thing to add to the compliance list

If this feels like one more item on a list that already includes gas safety certificates, deposit protection and, from later this year, registering on the new PRS database, that is a fair reaction. Right to rent is not new, and for most landlords this update changes very little in practice, but it is exactly the kind of quiet regulatory change that is easy to miss until a check gets challenged. For the wider picture of what has changed for landlords since the Renters' Rights Act took effect, our landlord guide to the Act is a useful place to see everything in one spot.

If you would rather not track every compliance update yourself, our tenant find service and our fully managed service both include right to rent checks as standard, carried out correctly and kept on file, so it is one less thing to keep an eye on yourself.