What is the right to rent?
As a landlord, you are legally required to check the immigration status of all tenants, lodgers and any other adults who will be living in your property to make sure they have a right to rent residential property in England.
The right to rent check should take place before the commencement of the tenancy. Under the Renters’ Rights Act 2025, most tenancies will be periodic from the outset, so checks much be completed before occupation begins rather than tied to a “fixed-term” start date.
You must ensure that you carry out these checks without breaking equality laws and must not make assumptions about who has a right to rent.
The regulations are updated and amended regularly so it’s important as a landlord to make sure that you’re applying the most up to date checks.
Who has a right to rent?
A tenant may have an unlimited right to rent, a time-limited right to rent or no right to rent.
Tenants who are British or Irish Citizens, who have indefinite leave to remain, have refugee status or humanitarian protection, have settled or pre-settled status under the EU settlement scheme, have permission to be in the UK on a work or student visa or where the Home Office has granted permission, have a right to rent in the UK. Most immigration statuses are now evidenced digitally via the Home Office online checking service rather than physical documents.
If the tenant is only allowed to stay in the UK for a limited time, you need to do a follow up check either before their permission expires or at a time specified by the Home Office.
You do not need to check tenants’ right to rent in social housing, a care home, hospice or hospital, a hostel or refuge, a mobile home, student accommodation, accommodation that is provided by a local authority or tied accommodation. You do not need to carry out checks on tenants in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland.
What steps do I need to take?
Most checks are now conducted online via the Home Office service, particularly for non-British/Irish nationals.
You can carry out a manual right to rent check. You should ask any adults to provide you with documents to show that they have the right to live in the UK, either permanently or temporarily. Manual checks are increasingly limited to specific categories of documents and the GOV.UK website has a full list of acceptable documents. Make sure you check any documents for authenticity, keep copies of the documents for at least one year after the tenancy ends and record the date you made the check.
If, on consideration of the documents, you need verification from the Home Office because the person has an application or appeal outstanding with the Home Office, or the Home Office is currently holding the person’s documents, you can carry out an online right to rent check.
For British and Irish citizens with valid passports, you can carry out a right to rent check using Identity Document Validation Technology (IDVT) which is carried out by Identity Service Providers digitally.
What happens if I don’t comply?
The Immigration Act 2016 introduced criminal offences for failing to carry out these checks. A landlord can be fined up to £10,000 per occupier for a first breach and higher for repeat breaches, and even face imprisonment for up to five years. The Renters Rights’ Act is expected to strengthen enforcement across the private rented sector more broadly, meaning compliance failures (including right to rent breaches) are more likely to be identified.
How does the Renters Rights Act affect right to rent?
While the right to rent scheme itself continues, the Renters Rights’ Act 2025 introduces wider reforms that landlords must consider alongside these checks:
- All tenancies become periodic, changing when checks are operationally tied to occupation
- Abolition of Section 21 increased reliance on compliant tenant onboarding
- Stronger enforcement and penalties across landlord obligations
- Greater scrutiny on discriminatory practises during tenant selection
Landlords should ensure right to rent checks are integrated into a consistent, non-discriminatory referencing process.
Need advice? Contact us today
We have a specialist tenancy law team who can advise residential landlords about right to rent checks, landlord obligations, tenancy agreements, dealing with deposits, disrepair, dispute resolution and recovering possession.
To make an enquiry to see how we can assist you as a landlord, contact us on enquiries@cartridgeslaw.co.uk or give us a call on 01392 256854.