Is the Right to Rent check free, and how do I do it?
Yes, the Right to Rent check is free. For most occupants you use the gov.uk share-code service, which costs nothing, and Certaby does not charge for Right to Rent either. There is no Home Office API for it, so the check itself is always done on the free gov.uk pages; what a tool can add is recording the outcome correctly and working out your follow-up and retention dates. Right to Rent is an England-only duty (there is no equivalent in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland), and in England you must check every adult occupier regardless of nationality, including British and Irish citizens.
How to do the free check with a share code:
1. Ask the occupant for a share code. They generate one for free at gov.uk/prove-right-to-rent. The code starts with a letter and looks like S-XXXX-XXXX.
2. Open 'View a tenant's right to rent' on gov.uk, enter the share code and the occupant's date of birth, then check the photo matches the person in front of you.
3. Note whether the result is List A (a continuous right, no follow-up) or List B (a time-limited right, which needs a follow-up check), and keep the reference shown.
British and Irish citizens cannot use the online share-code service, because their status is not held digitally. For them you inspect original documents (for example a passport) with the person present, against the gov.uk acceptable-documents list, and take dated copies. That manual route is also free.
Doing the check, and doing the record-keeping, are two different jobs. The free gov.uk check gives you the result; holding the 'statutory excuse' that protects you from a penalty means recording who you checked, how, on what date, the List A/B outcome, and then doing any List B follow-up before the earlier of the occupant's leave expiry or 12 months, and retaining the evidence for the tenancy plus 12 months. That is the part agents most often get wrong. Certaby's Right to Rent recorder guides the free gov.uk check, then captures a statutory-excuse-grade record and works out the follow-up and retention dates for you, in the same inspection-ready file as the tenant's sanctions and PEP screening. The check stays free; what you are paying for, if you choose to, is the audit trail, not the check.
Source: gov.uk — Prove your right to rent
Last updated 2026-06-19.