When is your Right to Rent follow-up check due?

Most people work this out backwards. The date is the later of one year from your last check or the end of your tenant's permission to stay — not the earlier of the two.

Rules checked against GOV.UK on 2 September 2026 · England only · No signup, no email required

When did you last check this tenant?

The date you carried out the check, not the tenancy start date.

What is their right to rent?

The short version. No follow-up check is needed at all where the right to rent is unlimited. Where it is time-limited, the check is due on the latest of three dates — one year from your last check, the expiry of their permission, and the expiry of the document that evidenced it. A visa expiring sooner than the year does not bring the check forward.

The rule, in the Home Office's own words

Follow-up checks. You must do a follow-up check to make sure your tenant can still rent property in the UK if there's a time limit on their permission to stay.

Do the follow-up check just before the date that's the later of:

the end of your tenant's permission to stay in the UK

12 months after your previous check

You do not have to do a follow-up check if there's no time limit on your tenant's permission to stay in the UK.

Source: GOV.UK — Check if someone can rent your property: further checks

Why this calculator uses three dates, not two

The public GOV.UK page gives two. The Home Office's landlord guide is more precise: it defines an eligibility period as the longest of one year from the last check, the expiry of the person's immigration permission, or the expiry of the document evidencing their right to be in the UK. That third date can outlast the second, and when it does it sets the deadline. Leave it blank if you do not have it — the answer is still right, it just cannot be longer than the other two.

Source: Landlord's guide to Right to Rent checks, 26 June 2025 (PDF)

If the follow-up check fails

You must report it to the Home Office, before your existing statutory excuse expires. GOV.UK is blunt about the consequence of not doing so: “You could be fined or sent to prison for up to 5 years if your tenant fails a follow-up check and you do not report it to the Home Office.”

Where a Home Office application is still outstanding, you cannot check the documents yourself. Use the Landlord's Checking Service — it gives a statutory excuse lasting 12 months.

What a missed check can cost

Who is renting	First breach in 3 years	Repeat breach
Lodger	up to £5,000	up to £10,000
Occupier	up to £10,000	up to £20,000

These are maximum amounts, in force since 13 February 2024. The Home Office applies a sliding scale, so an actual penalty may be lower. Source: Right to Rent landlords' code of practice.

A few things worth knowing

Where it applies	England only.
Who to check	Every adult occupier aged 18 or over, “regardless of whether they are named in the tenancy agreement”.
Check everyone	“It's against the law to only check people you think are not British citizens.”
Timing of the first check	For a time-limited right to rent, no earlier than 28 calendar days before the tenancy starts.
Share codes	Right to rent codes are 9 characters and begin with R. Codes starting W (right to work) or S (status sharing) cannot be used. Valid for 90 days.
Keeping records	Securely, in a format that cannot be manually altered, with the date of the check — “for at least one year after the tenancy agreement comes to an end”.

Questions people ask

When is a Right to Rent follow-up check due?

Do the follow-up check just before the date that is the later of: the end of your tenant's permission to stay in the UK, or 12 months after your previous check. The Home Office landlord's guide uses a three-part rule — the eligibility period is the longest of one year from the last check, the expiry of the person's immigration permission, or the expiry of the document evidencing their right to be in the UK.

My tenant's visa expires in six months. Is the follow-up check due then?

No. The rule is the later of the two dates, not the earlier. If you checked on 1 January and their permission expires on 1 June, the follow-up is still due on 1 January the following year — one year from the check. This is the single most common mistake.

Do I need a follow-up check for a British or Irish citizen?

No. There is no follow-up check where the right to rent is unlimited. That covers British citizens, Irish citizens and people with settled status.

What happens if a tenant fails a Right to Rent follow-up check?

You must report it to the Home Office. According to gov.uk you could be fined or sent to prison for up to 5 years if your tenant fails a follow-up check and you do not report it.

How long must Right to Rent records be kept?

The Home Office landlord's guide says copies must be retained securely for at least one year after the tenancy agreement comes to an end, in a format that cannot manually be altered, together with the date the check was made.

Working it out once is easy. Forty times is a spreadsheet nobody opens.

ProPixa keeps the Right to Rent date against the tenancy, alongside the gas certificate and the EICR, and warns you before it passes. Built for UK letting agents and landlords.

Open the app →

Related guides

Sources

Check if someone can rent your property: further checks — GOV.UK
Landlord's guide to Right to Rent checks, 26 June 2025 — Home Office
Code of practice on Right to Rent, in force from 13 February 2024 — GOV.UK
Code of practice for landlords and their agents, in force from 1 October 2026 — GOV.UK
View a tenant's right to rent in England — GOV.UK

This page is general information for landlords and letting agents in England, not legal advice. It does not perform the Right to Rent check itself and is not connected to the Home Office — the official check is at gov.uk/view-right-to-rent. A new landlords' code of practice takes effect on 1 October 2026 and we will re-check this page then. Something here wrong or out of date? Email help@propixa.co.uk and we will fix it.