Agency and app-booked cleaners: who does the right-to-work check?

The short answer

The business with the direct contract with the cleaner does the right-to-work check. If an agency supplies the cleaner, that's normally the agency. If an app or platform books them, it's often the platform.

From 1 October 2026, though, you can't just assume they've done it. The new rules can make businesses further up the chain liable too, unless certain protections are in place. For a cleaning contractor using agency or app-booked cleaners on client contracts, that includes you.

Where cleaners come from, and who checks

Where the cleaner comes from	Who does the check	What you should do
Your own employees	You	Check before they start, as now.
Self-employed cleaners you engage directly	You	Check before they start. See our guide to self-employed cleaners.
An employment agency or labour supplier	The agency, if it has the contract with the cleaner	Put the right terms in your contract with the agency, ask for evidence and keep it.
An app or online platform	The platform, if it counts as an online matching service	Ask the platform how it checks people, get it in writing and keep it.
Another cleaning company you subcontract to	That company, for its own cleaners	Same as agencies: contract terms, evidence and audits.

Why you can still be liable

Cleaning often runs through layers of contracts. A facilities manager hires a contractor, the contractor uses an agency, and the agency uses a sub-agency. The new code covers these contractual chains. If someone in the chain is found working illegally and the protections weren't in place, businesses higher up the chain can face a penalty, even without a contract with the cleaner.

Your protection is to have written terms in place with whoever supplies the labour before the work starts. Based on the draft code, those terms should require the supplier to:

1. carry out right-to-work checks on everyone they provide
2. not subcontract further without your written consent
3. pass the same terms down to any subcontractor you do approve
4. let you audit their checks, and let you enforce the terms if they don't comply
5. cooperate with the Home Office, including telling it who is in the chain

The final code of practice sets out the exact wording required. Ask your solicitor to check your agency and subcontractor agreements against it.

Apps and online platforms

A platform that keeps a register of cleaners, matches them with customers and takes a fee or commission is treated as an online matching service. From 1 October it has its own duty to check the people it lists.

If you book cleaners through an app to cover shifts on your contracts, ask the platform:

• whether it checks each cleaner's right to work before they can take bookings, and how
• whether it rechecks people whose permission runs out
• whether it will confirm this in writing, and share evidence if the Home Office asks

Keep the answers. If the platform can't answer clearly, treat the cleaner as if you engaged them yourself and check them.

Checking what agencies send you

A contract term only protects you if it's followed. Good practice for a cleaning contractor:

• keep a list of every agency and subcontractor you use, with the date the terms were signed
• ask for confirmation of the check, with its date, for each person before their first shift
• spot-check a few records every few months, and write down that you did
• have supervisors confirm that the person on site is the person the agency sent, especially where substitutes are allowed

Your own clients will ask you the same

A business that simply buys cleaning, and doesn't provide it onwards to anyone else, is generally outside the extended liability. Even so, facilities managers, managing agents, schools and large offices are being told to look at their labour supply chains. Expect contracts and tenders to ask you for:

• confirmation that everyone on their site has been checked
• the same contract terms described above
• evidence on request, sometimes at short notice

A contractor who can send that evidence quickly looks like the safe choice at renewal.

How RotaProof helps

RotaProof is right-to-work software made for cleaning contractors. You record each check once, including for self-employed and agency cleaners. It reminds you before anyone's permission runs out, stops unchecked people going on the rota, and gives you an inspection pack in one download. You can try it free for 30 days.

Try the demo, no sign-up needed Start free trial

Sources

• Home Office: illegal working penalties, codes of practice for employers
• Home Office: an employer's guide to right to work checks
• GOV.UK: check if someone can work in the UK
• Lewis Silkin: what changes from 1 October 2026
• Mishcon de Reya: what changes on 1 October 2026
• Howes Percival: what employers, contractors and labour users need to do now