After Brexit, all EU citizens and their family member who want to live and work in the UK must have valid immigration status. If you were granted settled or pre-settled status you will have to prove your right to work in the UK every time you start a new job. There is no physical proof of your status. You will have to log into your digital profile and generate the share code that your employer will be able to use to check your right to work. 

In this article we will explain how to access your digital profile and generate the share code to prove your rights. We will also explain what to do if you are waiting for a decision on application you submitted. 

Remember that to successfully use your digital profile, you must make sure that the login details and ID document linked with your status are up-to-date. You can find more information on updating your profile in our article here.

First, you must access your digital profile on https://view-immigration-status.service.gov.uk/status. You can log in with three easy steps:

• Choose a document that you used in your application and provide the number of this document.
• Provide your date of birth.
• Type in a 6-digit security code that will be sent to your mobile or email address.

 

This is your digital profile.

It states that you can live, work and study in the UK, and how long you can stay in the UK.

Click the green button ‘Get a Share Code’ below your photo, and you will be transported to the page where you will be asked why do you need a share code. There are different types of share code that will work only for the particular purpose. You must generate ‘right to work’ share code if you want to send proof of your status to your new employer. For anything else, such as benefit application, studying, driving license etc you must use the third option (e.g. if you provide ‘right to work’ share code to your local council when applying for social housing, they will not be able to use it in their system to check your rights). If you live in Scotland, you can ignore the second option, as the ‘prove my right to rent’ share code works only in England. There is no obligation for landlords in Scotland to check the status of their tenants.

Once you choose the type of the share code you want to generate and click the green button ‘Continue’, you will see your share code.

You can write down your share code to use it later, but there are also options to download it in a PDF format, print it, or send it by email.

The share code is valid for 90 days and could be used multiple times.

 

 

Important note: If you have pre-settled status and prove your right to work, your employer will not be able to see the expiry date of your status in the confirmation they receive from the system. They do not need to do regular checks if you still have your right to work. In case of both settled and pre-settled status, the share code needs to be checked once, at the start of the employment and this is enough to employ you permanently.

If you submitted a valid application, but you still have not yet received a decision, your rights to reside or work in the UK are still protected. On 6th August 2021, the Home Office announced the additional temporary protection for those who submitted late applications, meaning that their rights are still protected once they submitted valid EUSS application. 

To prove your right to work, you can use the Certificate of Application (CoA) that you receive as soon as the Home Office caseworker will confirm the validity of your application. Since August 2023, when the Home Office changed the immigration rules, Certificate of Application is no longer issued automatically, right after submitting the application. Caseworkers have to first check if you meet the validity requirements (e.g. if you apply late, you must have a reasonable grounds to do so), before issuing you CoA.  If you do not meet those requirements, your application will be rejected as invalid and you will not receive CoA. You can find more information about the changes to the immigration rules in our article here. 

It is important to remember that the Certificate of Application is not a form of temporary status, but only a proof of submitting a valid application. It gives temporary protection of rights in the UK but only until the decision on the application is made. If your application has been refused, you have a right to appeal the decision, but after that time the temporary protection is not in place anymore. 

If you have received a digital Certificate of Application, this could be accessed just like a digital profile via https://www.gov.uk/view-prove-immigration-status. You will be able then to generate the Share Code to prove your right to work. 

If you are not able to generate the Share Code, your employer can contact the Home Office using Employer Checking Service.

Once your employer checks your right to work using Certificate of Application, they will receive confirmation they they can legally employ you. This confirmation is valid for 6 months and after that time, you must generate another share code proving that you are still waiting for a decision. If you application is concluded, you are obliged to inform your employer about the outcome of the application. If you were granted a status, you can generate the share code to prove you have a right to work without the time restriction. If you were refused, you lose your right to work (unless you file an appeal). 

Some EEA nationals are facing problems when proving their status and right to work, according to the report by the3million, a grassroots organisation of EU citizens living in the UK. Some employers conduct right to work checks improperly by not accepting Share Codes, requesting a proof in PDF format, or requesting more than one proof of right to work.  These practices are against the rules in the employer’s guide:

You cannot mandate how an individual proves their right to work. To ensure that you do not discriminate against anyone, you should provide every opportunity to enable an individual to prove their right to work. 

The employer’s guide refers also to codes of standards and warns employers that they should not discriminate when conducting right to work checks:

You should not make assumptions about a person’s right to work in the UK or their immigration status on the basis of their colour, nationality, ethnic or national origins, accent or the length of time they have been resident in the UK.

It also explains what you can do if you feel that you have been discriminated:

Anyone who believes that they have been discriminated against, either directly or indirectly, by an employer, a prospective employer or an employment agency, because of their race or a protected characteristic may bring a complaint before an Employment Tribunal, or an Industrial Tribunal in Northern Ireland. If the claim is upheld, the Tribunal will normally order the employer to pay compensation, for which there is no upper limit.

If you experience any technical problems with accessing your digital status, generating Share Code or any other problems with demonstrating your status, you can report it to the3million or make a complaint to the Independent Monitoring Authority for the Citizens’ Rights Agreements here.

 

For support with any problems with accessing and updating your status, or generating the share code, please contact us on info@citizensrightsproject.org.

 

 

 

This post was updated on 31st December 2024.