Legal documents for employment: UK new starter checklist

Updated 4 October 2026. The wider right to work checks are now in force, and the Home Office published its final guide for employers on 1 October.

Have you got someone starting soon, and a feeling there is a form you have missed?

If you have never been an employer before, that is normal, and the list is shorter than it looks. Most of it is a small job, done once and reused for every hire after. It goes wrong when the order slips: someone starts work before their right to work check, or the written statement turns up in week six. So everything below runs in date order.

Want it on one page? The checklist is free, and there is no form to fill in:

Download the one-page new starter checklist (PDF)

Where to start depends on where you are:

Hiring your first employee? Read on in order, and see what to set up before the first payday for the employer side: HMRC, payroll, the pension and insurance. Or hand it over: First Hire Ready gets the contract, seven team guides that start your handbook and a welcome plan written for your role, at a fixed fee.
Adding to a team you already have? The table below is your list for each new starter. To see whether the people you already employ have everything they should, the free HR health check takes about ten minutes and asks for no email.
Someone already in their first few months? Go to why probation matters more from January 2027, where there is a review form to download.

The new starter checklist, in date order

When	What needs to be done
Once, before your first hire	Employers' liability insurance in place (at least £5 million cover). Register as an employer with HMRC. Put up the health and safety law poster or give each worker the leaflet.
Before they start work	Right to work check, with a dated copy kept. Since 1 October 2026 this includes workers and individual subcontractors.
When you collect their details (usually at offer stage)	Privacy notice: what you do with their data and why.
On or before day one	Written statement of employment particulars (the main part, in one document).
First day	Health and safety induction: the risks in their job, fire procedures and first aid.
On or before the first payday	P45 or HMRC starter checklist. New starter reported to HMRC through payroll. Payslip.
Within six weeks of becoming eligible	Pension enrolment and a letter telling them about it.
Within two months	The rest of the written statement: pension, collective agreements, other training, disciplinary and grievance rules.
Within five months of your first employee starting	Declaration of compliance to The Pensions Regulator (first-time employers only).
Before they reach six months' service	A real probation review, written down. From 1 January 2027 six months is when unfair dismissal protection starts.

What If HR new starter checklist for UK employers: what a new employee must get from you and when, from before their first day to their probation review

The same checklist on one page. Download the PDF to print or to send to whoever does your payroll.

Spacing it out matters too. Asking someone to sign forty documents in a rush on day one creates neither engagement nor legal protection. You end up with a stack of PDFs nobody has read and a new starter who feels they have signed their life away.

What the law does not ask for

What is missing from that list is worth knowing too. None of these is a legal requirement for a new starter:

an offer letter. A good habit, but the written statement is the document the law asks for
references, unless the rules for your sector require them, as they do in care and in schools
a probationary period. Most employers want one. If you have one, its length and conditions go in the written statement
a staff handbook. More on that further down

So for one new starter the legal minimum is a short list. The rest is a choice, sized to how you run.

What changed in 2026, and what is coming

6 April 2026. Statutory Sick Pay from the first full day off sick, whatever the person earns. Paternity leave and unpaid parental leave from day one. Holiday and holiday pay records kept for six years (not keeping them is a criminal offence).
1 October 2026. Right to work checks now cover workers and individual subcontractors. Most tribunal claims can be brought up to six months after the event instead of three (for events from that date).
30 October 2026. A duty to take "all reasonable steps" to prevent sexual harassment. Employers can also be liable when customers or other third parties harass their staff, unless they took all reasonable steps to prevent it.
1 January 2027. Unfair dismissal protection after six months' service instead of two years, with no cap on the compensatory award. Also a written statement for workers of their right to join a trade union (you may have read October 2026 for that one: the government moved it on 25 September 2026), and tipping policies need staff consultation and a review at least every three years.

These dates come from the government's Employment Rights Act timeline, and future ones can still move. Our employment law changes page keeps track of every one, and you can have the dates by email when they change.

Have you got contracts and a handbook written before April 2026? Then some of this will not be in them yet. The free HR health check is a self-check: 47 yes or no questions, and it tells you what to look at first.

What to ask your new starter for

The other half of the paperwork is what comes back from them. Ask for it with the offer, so it is in before day one:

proof of their right to work: an original passport or another document from the Home Office lists, or a share code and their date of birth for an online check (the next section has the detail)
their P45 from their last job. No P45? They fill in HMRC's starter checklist instead
their details for payroll: full name, address, date of birth, gender, National Insurance number and start date. HMRC lists what it needs
bank details, so you can pay them
an emergency contact
anything the role itself needs: a DBS check if the role is eligible for one, proof of a professional registration or a driving licence if they will drive for work

Keep it to what you will use. Every extra piece of personal data is something else to store safely, and your privacy notice has to cover all of it. As a rule, questions about health wait until after you have made the job offer, and then only what you need, such as any adjustments that would help them do the job.

Also, keep it in one folder per person, where only the people who need it can open it.

Want it as a form? Our one-page new starter form asks for exactly this, and you can print it or type into it:

Download the one-page new starter form (PDF)

What goes on a new starter form? explains what is on it, what we left off and how it differs from HMRC's starter checklist.

Right to work checks: before they start, every time

Check that every new starter has the right to work in the UK before they start work. Done properly, the check gives you a "statutory excuse", your defence if it later turns out they could not work here. Skip it, or do it on day three, and if they turn out not to have that right you face a civil penalty of up to £45,000 per illegal worker (£60,000 for a repeat breach within three years).

For the clients I work with, the thing most often missing from the staff folders is a right to work check, properly done. It is the gap that surprises me most, because it is such a huge risk.

There are three ways to check:

Manual check of original documents from the Home Office lists. The person must be there, in person or on a live video call, and you must hold the original document. Scans and photos do not count (the one exception is official proof of their National Insurance number, which can be digital). British and Irish passports can be current or expired.
Home Office online check with the share code the person gives you and their date of birth, on GOV.UK. Anyone with an eVisa can only prove their right to work this way. Biometric residence permits (BRPs) are no longer accepted. If you are still accepting BRPs, stop.
Digital check through a digital verification service on the government's register, for British and Irish passport holders. It also works for passports up to six months past their expiry date.

In force since 1 October 2026. The duty and the penalties now reach beyond employees:

workers: casual and zero-hours staff, and people labelled "self-employed" who in practice work for you personally
individual subcontractors: a self-employed person you bring in to do work your business has agreed to deliver to a customer
people who find work through an online matching service, where the platform counts as the employer for these checks

It applies to people who start on or after 1 October 2026, so there is no need to go back and check workers or subcontractors who started before then.

The Home Office looks at how the arrangement works in practice, not at the label on the contract. A genuinely independent business is outside it: the self-employed plumber you call to fix a tap, for example. For anyone in between, use the worked examples in the Home Office guide. It says its test should not be assumed to match the employment law one. (Employment status explained covers the employment law side.)

You can also be liable further down a chain: for workers a subcontractor supplies to do work you were contracted to deliver, or for a substitute sent in someone's place. That applies to contracts made from 1 October 2026, and your defence rests on the terms in those contracts and the checks behind them. So look at your supplier contracts.

The rules that catch people out:

Check everyone the same way, British citizens included. Choosing who to check by accent, surname or nationality is discrimination.
Keep the evidence: a clear copy of the document or online check result, with the date of the check, for their whole employment plus two years.
Diarise follow-ups. If their permission has an end date, check again before it expires. If someone has an application pending, the Home Office Employer Checking Service can confirm they can work. A positive answer covers you for six months.

The Home Office employer's guide has the full document lists and the worked examples. The final version for the 1 October 2026 changes was published that day.

The written statement of employment particulars: on or before day one

Every employee and every worker, including casual and zero-hours staff, gets a written statement on or before their first day. It has been a day-one right since 6 April 2020, so if you are still "sending it over in the next few weeks", you are already in breach.

What goes in the main document on day one

One document, covering:

your name and theirs, their start date and, for employees, when continuous employment began if earlier service counts
job title or a brief description of the work
pay: the rate or how it is calculated and how often it is paid
hours and days of work, and whether and how they can vary
holiday entitlement, including public holidays and holiday pay, clear enough to work out holiday pay owed when they leave
place of work, or that they work in different places, plus your address
for a temporary job, how long it should last or the end date of a fixed term
any probationary period, with its length and conditions
notice periods on both sides (you can refer to the statutory minimum)
any other benefits, such as a meal allowance or gym membership
training they must complete, and any required training they would pay for themselves
if they will work abroad for more than a month: how long, the currency, any extra pay or benefits and the terms for coming back

Sick pay and other paid leave, such as maternity and paternity leave, also need covering from day one, but the statement can point to another document they can easily get to, like your handbook.

What can follow within two months

pension and pension scheme terms
any collective agreements that affect their terms
other training you provide
your disciplinary rules and your disciplinary and grievance procedures, or where to find them

If anything in the statement changes later, confirm the change in writing within one month.

If you skip it. Say they later win a tribunal claim, for unpaid wages or unfair dismissal, and never had a complete statement. The tribunal must then add two weeks' pay to the award and can add four (a week's pay is capped for this).

Coming in January 2027. Workers will also need a written statement that they have the right to join a trade union, given with the written statement and at other times the regulations will set. The wording has not been published yet, so wait for it before changing your template.

If this is your first employee, First Hire Ready sets up the written statement, the contract and your right to work process at a fixed fee.

Do you need an employment contract as well?

Legally, what you must give is the written statement. A contract exists as soon as someone accepts your offer, even verbally. Most small businesses give one document that does both jobs, and that is what we would do.

A good contract adds what the statement does not have to cover:

confidentiality and who owns the work they create
restrictions after they leave, kept narrow, because wide ones are rarely enforceable
a clause allowing deductions from pay, because most deductions need written authority before they happen
how probation works: reviews, extensions and notice during probation

You cannot change it on your own later. You need their agreement. "We have decided to change this" is not a legal process.

Why probation matters more from January 2027

From 1 January 2027 employees can claim unfair dismissal after six months' service instead of two years, for dismissals from that date. Anyone who started with you on or before 1 July 2026 will already have six months when the change arrives, whatever their probation letter says.

What we would do:

hold a proper review at month four or five and write down what was said and agreed. Leaving it to the final week is risky, because the one-week statutory notice period can count towards the six months.
remember that probation never protected anyone from discrimination, whistleblowing or most other automatically unfair dismissal claims. None of those needs a qualifying period.

The six-month rule kit has the timeline from day one to month six, four checks to make before you end anyone's employment in probation and a review form to print and fill in together. Three pages, free:

Download the six-month rule kit (PDF)

How to run probation under the new rule, from the first week to the outcome meeting, is in What if a new starter isn't working out after January 2027?

If a probation is already going wrong, get advice before you act. That is what Employee Relations Support is for.

Payroll and tax: by the first payday

Register as an employer with HMRC before the first payday (first hire only). You cannot register more than two months before you start paying people. Our post on your first employee puts the employer's set-up in order, with the costs.
P45. Ask for the P45 from their last job: it gives you their tax code and pay to date. No P45? They fill in HMRC's starter checklist instead.
Tell HMRC. The new starter goes on your payroll submission (the Full Payment Submission) on or before their first payday.
Payslip. Every employee and worker gets one on or before payday, on paper or electronically. If their pay varies with the hours they work, it must show the hours.
Minimum wage. From 1 April 2026 the minimum rates are £12.71 an hour at 21 and over, £10.85 at 18 to 20 and £8.00 under 18. Apprentices get at least £8.00 if they are under 19 or in the first year of their apprenticeship. From 1 April 2027 these go up to £13.21, £11.27 and £8.31, with apprentices also at £8.31.
P60. Everyone still working for you at the end of the tax year gets a P60 by 31 May.

Sick pay changed on 6 April 2026. Statutory Sick Pay is paid from the first full day off sick (the three waiting days have gone) and there is no minimum earnings level. For 2026/27 it is £123.25 a week or 80% of their average weekly earnings, whichever is lower. If your payroll settings, sickness policy or contract template still mention waiting days or the lower earnings limit, they are out of date. Our free sick pay calculator works out who qualifies and how much.

Pension auto-enrolment: within six weeks

With your first employee, your pension duties start on their first day, even if nobody needs enrolling. The Pensions Regulator calls this your duties start date.

Who must be enrolled: staff aged 22 to State Pension age earning over £10,000 a year. Eligibility is checked every pay period, so in 2026/27 that includes anyone paid more than £833 in a month or £192 in a week, casual and variable-hours staff too.
What you do: enrol them within six weeks of the date they become eligible, backdate contributions to that date and write to them about it. The minimum is 8% of qualifying earnings, at least 3% of it from you.
Postponement: you can delay by up to three months if you tell them in writing.
Declaration of compliance: within five months of your duties start date, tell The Pensions Regulator what you have done. Missing it can lead to a fine.
Lower earners can ask to join. If they earn more than £6,240 a year, you contribute too.
Opting out is their choice. You must not encourage it, or suggest at interview that opting out would help someone get the job.

Privacy notice: when you collect their details

Tell new starters what you do with their personal data at the point you collect it. For most, that is the offer stage, when you ask for bank details and emergency contacts. Not in week three, and not on page 40 of a handbook nobody opens.

Keep it short and in plain English. Cover:

who you are and how to contact you
what you collect and why, with your lawful basis for each purpose
who you share it with, such as your payroll provider, pension scheme and HMRC
how long you keep it
their rights and how to complain: to you first (organisations have had to handle data protection complaints since 19 June 2026) and to the ICO

Consent is rarely the right lawful basis for employee data, because it is hard for consent to be freely given to your employer. Most processing sits under contract (you need it to employ and pay them) or legal obligation (HMRC reporting, right to work records).

Health and safety: on the first day

Every employer must display the health and safety law poster where staff can see it, or give each worker the matching leaflet. On their first day, new starters also need to know:

the risks in their job and how you control them
fire and emergency procedures
first aid arrangements and who to go to

With five or more employees, your health and safety policy must be written down, and so must the main risks from your risk assessment and what you do about them. If someone is hurt in their first week and there is no record they were told any of this, it is a hard position to defend.

Employers' liability insurance: from the first hire

Almost every employer needs employers' liability insurance from the day the first person starts: at least £5 million of cover from an authorised insurer. The fine for not having it is up to £2,500 for every day you are uninsured. Display the certificate where staff can read it (an electronic copy on a shared drive or intranet counts). The exemptions are narrow. The family business one, for example, only applies if everyone you employ is a close relative, and never to a limited company.

The handbook: what is law and what is optional

A handbook is not a legal requirement. But two things that usually live in it are, because they belong to the written statement: your disciplinary and grievance procedures (within two months) and your sick pay and leave terms (from day one, by reference).

Follow the Acas Code of Practice on discipline and grievances. If a claim reaches a tribunal and you unreasonably ignored it, the award can go up by as much as 25%.

Have a harassment policy. The duty went up on 30 October 2026, under commencement regulations made on 1 October 2026. You need to be able to show you took all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment, and you can be liable when a customer or supplier harasses your staff. No law says "you must have a policy". But the Equality and Human Rights Commission puts one at step one of its guidance for employers, and it is hard to show all reasonable steps without one. Make it cover third parties, and train people on it. A policy nobody has read will not get you far. What if a customer harasses one of your staff? has the minimum that works for a small team.

Other policies worth having, sized to your business: holiday (including how you record it), sickness absence (updated for the April 2026 sick pay changes), flexible working (a day-one right to ask since April 2024), family leave and data protection. A culture book or playbook can hold them, as long as people can find them. Wondering whether you need one employee handbook or two? That post covers it.

Sector extras

Depending on the role, you may also need:

a standard or enhanced DBS check, if the role is eligible for one (care work or work with children, for example)
proof of any professional registration or licence the role requires
a written tipping policy, if staff get tips more than occasionally (the law since 1 October 2024, with staff consultation and three-yearly reviews added from 1 January 2027)

Care providers and recruitment agencies have more on their list than this. We work with both: HR support for care providers and for recruitment agencies. And wherever you are, we work with owners across Surrey and London.

How long to keep new starter records

Record	How long to keep it
Right to work check copies	Their whole employment, plus two years
Payroll (PAYE) records	Three years from the end of the tax year they relate to
Minimum wage records	Six years
Holiday and holiday pay records	Six years (a legal duty since 6 April 2026)
Working time records, such as the 48-hour limit	Two years
Everything else in the personnel file	As long as you need it, and as your privacy notice says

Since 1 October 2026 most tribunal claims can be brought up to six months after the event, and Acas early conciliation can stretch that, so do not clear out a leaver's file too quickly. "I think we have it somewhere" is not a useful answer. More in our posts on holiday pay record keeping and data retention.

Frequently asked questions

What documents do I need from a new employee?

Proof of their right to work (an original document from the Home Office lists, or a share code for an online check), their P45 or a completed HMRC starter checklist, their details for payroll and their bank details. An emergency contact is sensible too. Ask only for what you will use.

What do I need to give a new employee on their first day?

The written statement of employment particulars. Their sick pay and other paid leave terms can be in it or in another document they can easily get to. They also need a health and safety induction and, if they have not had it yet, your privacy notice. Pension paperwork and the disciplinary and grievance rules can follow.

Do I need an employment contract, or is a written statement enough?

The written statement is what the law requires. A contract exists as soon as they accept your offer, written down or not. Most small businesses give one document that does both jobs, and that is what we would do.

Can a new employee start before the right to work check is done?

The check has to be done before they start work. A check done afterwards does not give you the statutory excuse, which is your defence against the civil penalty.

What if my new starter has no P45?

Ask them to fill in HMRC's starter checklist. It gives you what you need to put them on the payroll with the right tax code.

Do casual and zero-hours workers need a written statement?

Yes. Workers have had the same day-one right as employees since April 2020. Since 1 October 2026 they also need a right to work check before they start.

Is an offer letter enough?

Only if it contains every day-one particular, in one document. Most offer letters do not, so treat the offer letter and the written statement as separate jobs.

Do I need an employee handbook for one employee?

No. You do need your disciplinary and grievance rules in writing within two months and your sick pay terms from day one, but a short document can cover both.

Do I have to check the right to work of British citizens?

Yes, everyone, the same way. Checking only the people you think might not be British is discrimination, and it leaves you with no statutory excuse for anyone you skipped.

How long do I keep a new starter's documents?

Right to work copies for their whole employment plus two years. Payroll records for three years from the end of the tax year, and holiday and minimum wage records for six. Keep the rest for as long as you need it and as your privacy notice says.

What changes for new starters in January 2027?

Unfair dismissal protection starts after six months' service instead of two years, for dismissals from 1 January 2027. The written statement of the right to join a trade union is also due that month.

Can you set this up for me?

Yes. First Hire Ready covers the contract and written statement, seven team guides that start your handbook, a welcome plan, right to work checks and a handover call, for £795 + VAT. If you need a single document, an employment contract is £350 + VAT on our HR Documents page.

Doing it yourself? Print the checklist, write their start date at the top and work down it.

What if the paperwork was done before day one? That is what First Hire Ready is for: £795 + VAT, written for your role and ready before they start. For a team that already exists, HR Foundations Build does the same job across everyone. And if you need one document, contracts, handbooks and single policies are on the HR Documents page at fixed prices.

Send us your what-ifs.

General information for employers in England, Scotland and Wales, not legal advice and not an exhaustive legal guide. Northern Ireland has its own employment law. Checked against GOV.UK, legislation.gov.uk, the Home Office, HSE, the ICO and The Pensions Regulator on 25 September 2026. The rates, the right to work rules and the Employment Rights Act dates were checked again on 4 October 2026. For a specific situation, email hello@whatifhr.co.uk or speak to an employment solicitor.

Paper-cut illustration: a white envelope with a contract inside, sealed with a yellow circle.

What legal documents are required for new employees in the UK?