Right-to-Work Re-Checks After ILR: HR's 2026 Playbook

Yes. And a few other things too.

The moment ILR is granted, the employee's immigration status changes from sponsored to settled. Your old right-to-work file is tied to a visa that no longer exists. Your sponsor duties for that person effectively end. Payroll, benefits, HRIS, and Home Office reporting all need to catch up, and most HR teams miss at least one of these in the transition.

Here is exactly what to update, in what order, when your employee settles.

What changes the day ILR is granted

Indefinite Leave to Remain is permanent settlement. It removes time limits, ends visa conditions, and drops the requirement for ongoing sponsorship. For HR, that triggers four shifts on the same day.

• Right-to-work file: The old check is tied to an expired visa route. Redo it under List A.
• Sponsor licence: That employee no longer counts toward your sponsored headcount. Stop SMS reporting on them.
• Statutory excuse: Switches from time-limited to continuous; no more calendar reminders for follow-up checks.
• Documentation: The physical BRP is gone. The employee holds an eVisa linked to their UKVI account.

Get these four things done within two weeks of the ILR grant. If a compliance visit lands and you are still monitoring a settled worker as sponsored, that raises questions about the accuracy of your other records.

The right-to-work re-check: what is actually required

An ILR holder falls into List A: permanent right to work in the UK. A compliant List A check gives you a continuous statutory excuse for the whole employment. No follow-up checks after this one.

The practical version

1. Ask the employee to generate a fresh eVisa share code from their UKVI account, using the Home Office "View and prove your immigration status" service.
2. Enter the share code plus their date of birth at the Home Office online right-to-work checking service.
3. Confirm the profile page shows settled status or Indefinite Leave to Remain, with no expiry date and no work restrictions.
4. Save the profile page as a dated PDF. Record the check date on the file itself. A spreadsheet entry without a date will not hold up in an audit.
5. Archive the old Skilled Worker right-to-work check with a note: "Superseded by List A check on [date] following ILR grant."

Do not accept the old BRP, the old share code, or the ILR grant letter alone. The new share code check is the evidence the Home Office expects to see. For deeper background on List A rules and statutory excuse mechanics, see our UK right-to-work compliance guide.

Right-to-work status: before vs after ILR

eVisas and the share code: the digital-only reality

From 31 December 2026, physical BRPs are not valid for right-to-work checks. That applies to both sponsored workers and ILR holders. For ILR employees specifically:

• The ILR eVisa sits inside the same UKVI account they used as a Skilled Worker.
• A new share code must be generated after the ILR grant; old share codes tied to the previous visa are stale.
•  Share codes for right-to-work purposes start with "W"; codes starting "R" or "S" will not  work.
•  The share code is valid for 90 days; the check itself must be completed inside that window.

In practice, some ILR holders never set up their UKVI account because the BRP always worked at borders and for banking. Sort that out on day one, or the re-check stalls. Our breakdown of ILR vs Settled Status covers the digital status differences in more detail if you have both cohorts on your team.

Sponsor licence: what ends, what continues

Once ILR is granted, sponsorship for that specific employee ends. Concretely:

• No further SMS reporting on their role, salary, or work-location changes.
• No Immigration Skills Charge on future extensions; there is nothing to extend.
• The CoS record is no longer active, but retain it for the sponsorship period plus one year in line with Appendix D.
• Do not count the employee in your sponsored-worker headcount for compliance visits.
• Absence tracking against the 180-day ILR qualifying rule stops; but ILR itself lapses after two years abroad, so a different absence rule now applies.

Your licence continues untouched for everyone else. If you had ten sponsored workers and one settles, you now have nine. Update your Level 1 user's tracker to reflect that; see our SMS best-practices guide for how to keep the sponsored-worker roster clean.

The HR update checklist: beyond right-to-work

The right-to-work re-check is the loudest task, but not the only one. Within two weeks of ILR:

• Payroll and HRIS: update the visa status field. National Insurance category letter does not change for ILR, but audit it anyway.
• Benefits: some benefits are visa-conditional (relocation clawbacks, sponsored-worker health add-ons, tax-equalisation flags). Trigger the review.
• Employment contract: no legal obligation to reissue, but check clauses referencing "visa duration" or "sponsorship" that no longer apply.
• Manager notification: the line manager should know the employee is no longer visa-tied. It affects retention planning and international-assignment eligibility.
• Absence policy: communicate the two-year absence limit that keeps ILR valid. This trips people up on long overseas projects and secondments.
• File archive: retain old CoS, right-to-work check, and salary evidence under Appendix D rules. Our sponsor record-keeping guide details what to keep and for how long.

The mistakes that show up in audits

Three failures dominate compliance findings after an employee settles:

1. Never redoing the check. HR treats ILR as "no action needed" because the person can work freely. Wrong; you still need a compliant List A record to hold your statutory excuse.
2. Deleting the old sponsored-worker file too early. Retention rules still apply for years after settlement.
3. Continuing to report the employee in SMS. Reporting a settled worker as sponsored creates inconsistency the Home Office notices during audits.

Honestly, most teams underestimate the second one. Settlement feels like a clean break, so files get archived to personal drives or deleted altogether. Then a compliance visit six months later asks for the old CoS record and it is gone.

Avertissement : les règles en matière d'immigration changent assez fréquemment ; veuillez vous renseigner auprès de sources officielles ou nous contacter pour obtenir les dernières informations avant de prendre toute décision.