Can I still do a right to rent check by video call? What the Home Office guide of 1 October 2026 allows

Yes, but only with the right thing in your hands. The Home Office's landlord's guide, updated on 1 October 2026, lets you see the tenant by live video call in all three kinds of right to rent check. For a manual check you must hold the original documents yourself before the call starts, and a passport held up to a camera does not count.

Three ways to check, and where video fits

GOV.UK adds two limits. British and Irish citizens cannot get a share code, so the online route is closed to them. And where a tenant can prove the right to rent with an accepted original document, "you cannot insist they use the online service instead".

The manual check: what the guide rules out

The guide sets its rules in two columns. Under "You must":

• check the documents in the presence of the holder, "either in person or by live video call"
• be "in physical possession of the original documents before conducting the check"

Under "You must not":

• "Rely only on viewing the document during a live video call."
• "Rely on a faxed, scanned or copied version of the document."

The guide's own example is a person who chooses "to send their original documents by post" so that the check can be done on a video call. So the test is where the passport is. On your desk with the tenant on screen, the check can go ahead. Held up to a phone by the tenant, it is not a check.

A share code check on a call

1. Ask the tenant for a right to rent share code and their date of birth. The code has 9 characters and begins with R. Codes beginning with W or S are for other services.
2. Open the Home Office online service yourself and enter both. The guide says it is not enough to rely on what the tenant's own screen shows, or on a printout.
3. On the call, compare the photograph on the profile page with the person in front of you.
4. Save the profile page as a PDF or HTML file.
5. If the page shows a time-limited right to rent, note the follow-up date it gives.

The person can still be abroad. For students the guide says the online check "may be carried out by live video call while the student is overseas".

Do I have to use a digital verification provider?

No. The guide says it is "not mandatory" to check digitally. The change on 1 October 2026 is that if you do, the provider must be on the Office for Digital Identities and Attributes register and able to carry out right to rent checks. Three more points from the guide:

• You, not the provider, stay responsible for the check.
• If you buy the service through a referencing firm, that firm must name the registered provider it uses.
• A person who does not want a digital check must be offered a manual one, and must not be treated less favourably.

Timing, worked through

For a tenant with no time limit on their stay, the check can be done at any time before the tenancy begins. For a tenant with a time limit, it must be done no earlier than 28 days before the agreement is entered into. For an agreement to be signed on Monday 2 November 2026, the first day that counts is 5 October 2026.

A follow-up check is then due, GOV.UK says, just before the later of the end of the tenant's permission to stay and 12 months after the previous check.

If a tenant fails a follow-up check, GOV.UK says you must tell the Home Office.

What to keep, and for how long

The guide asks for a copy "in a format which cannot be manually altered", a record of the date of the check, and secure storage "for at least one year after the tenancy agreement comes to an end". After that the copies must be securely destroyed.

For a tenancy that ends on 19 December 2026, the file stays until at least 19 December 2027. That end date can be worked out the day a tenant gives notice; our guide to the tenant's notice period shows how.

Who pays if it goes wrong

GOV.UK's civil penalties:

Paying within 21 days saves 30%, which makes a £10,000 penalty £7,000.

The penalty lands on the landlord unless the agent has taken the job on. The guide says an agent's acceptance should be recorded in a written agreement, and that the agreement should say whether the agent handles the first checks, the follow-up checks or both. Then: "Where responsibility has been transferred in writing, liability for any civil penalty rests with the agent."

Where this sits in a new let

Check every adult who will live in the property, named on the agreement or not. GOV.UK says it is against the law to check only people you think are not British citizens.

The check is one step in our new tenancy checklist and one item on the 2026 compliance checklist. A failed check that you could not have known about is one of the four reasons to keep a holding deposit; the holding deposit rules set out the notice that goes with it.

This is general information for England, not legal or immigration advice.