Student Visa Working Hours: Employer Duties

Tracking student visa working hours is not optional bookkeeping — it is the duty itself. If you employ someone on a student visa, a share code check on its own does not discharge that duty. The employer's guide requires you to obtain, copy and retain the student's academic term and vacation dates for the whole period you employ them — because the hours they are permitted to work change depending on whether term is running. Get that wrong and the student is working illegally, and you can be liable for a civil penalty even though their visa is perfectly valid.

Most guidance on student working hours is written for students. This one is written for the employer who has to hold the evidence.

This guide is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. For advice on your specific situation, consult a qualified immigration solicitor.

Student visa working hours: the rule in one paragraph

A student with permission to work has a weekly hours cap during term time — typically 10 or 20 hours, stated in the endorsement in their passport or shown in their eVisa online. Outside term time, they can generally work full-time: before the course starts, during vacations, and during the period they hold permission for after completing the course. A week runs Monday to Sunday. If permission to work is not stated, the student is not permitted to work, other than on work placements that are integral to and assessed as part of their course.

The employer's guide to right to work checks puts the hours condition plainly. A student will have an eVisa, which an employer can check through the online service, or "may have an endorsement in their passport which states whether they are permitted to work and the number of hours of work permitted during term time, for example, 10 hours or 20 hours a week". And: "A week is considered in this context to run from Monday to Sunday."

The duty employers keep missing

This is the sentence that most coverage does not carry, and it creates a record-keeping obligation that goes beyond a normal right to work check:

"For students who have limited permission to work during term-times, employers must also obtain, copy and retain details of their academic term and vacation times covering the duration of their period of study in the UK for which they will be employed."

Three things follow from it.

The dates come from the education provider. The guide says they "should be provided by the sponsoring education provider, either directly or indirectly if the student is providing a letter or email which they have received from their sponsoring education provider, setting out the required details." A student's word for when term ends is not the evidence; a letter or email from their institution is.

Judging sufficiency is your job, not theirs. The guide is explicit: "It is for the employer to determine if the information provided is sufficient, whether received from the sponsoring education provider directly or via the student" — and it gives the awkward case directly, where course dates on the provider's website differ from a letter you have been given, in which case you may wish to seek further clarification.

It covers the whole period of employment. Not this term. The academic term and vacation times for the duration of the period of study during which you will employ them. A student employed across two academic years needs two years of dates on file.

Term boundaries do not follow the calendar

The guide addresses a detail that catches out rota planners:

"Study term times may end on any day of the week, depending upon the education provider. Therefore, if the educational institution's term time ends on a Friday, full-time work would be permitted from the next day (in this scenario, a Saturday)."

So the switch from capped hours to full-time hours can happen mid-week, and it happens on a date specific to that institution — two students at two universities working the same shift pattern may have different term end dates. That is precisely why the dates have to be on file rather than assumed.

What students cannot do, regardless of hours

Four restrictions sit alongside the hours cap:

• No permanent full-time vacancies. A student cannot fill one, unless they are working as a Student Union Sabbatical Officer or applying to switch into the Skilled Worker or Graduate routes during their study. The Immigration Rules allow that up to three months before the course completion date for the Skilled Worker route, or once they have successfully completed the course for the Graduate route.
• No work as an entertainer or professional sportsperson.
• No self-employment, unless the student has made an in-time application for the Innovator Founder route, supported by an endorsement from an Innovator Founder endorsing body, and that application is still outstanding.
• No work where permission to work is not stated in the endorsement or the online check result, other than integral and assessed work placements.

Work placements are separate from employment

If a student is with you on a course-related placement rather than as an employee, different rules apply, and the placement time does not count against their term-time hours.

Placements must be integral and related to the course and assessed as part of it. They are restricted to no more than one third of the total course length undertaken in the UK, rising to 50 per cent where the student is at degree level or above with a Higher Education Provider that has a track record of compliance, or is a child student aged 16 or over — or where a statutory requirement for the course exceeds the limit.

The guide advises the placement provider to obtain and retain a letter from the student's sponsor confirming the placement is integral and assessed and does not breach those restrictions, including the terms and conditions of the placement and how the student will be assessed. Its reason for that advice is blunt: "the employer may be liable for a civil penalty if their student worker does not comply with their immigration conditions."

Where the penalty risk actually sits

Hours breaches are an unusual failure mode because the underlying right to work check can be immaculate. The student had permission, you ran the check correctly, you saved the result. Then a busy fortnight happened and they worked 28 hours in a week capped at 20.

Working in excess of a condition attached to permission is working illegally — the condition is part of the permission, not a guideline. That puts you back in the same civil penalty regime as any other illegal working case: a first breach starts at £45,000 per worker and a repeat breach within three years at £60,000. Our guide to how the civil penalty is calculated covers the reductions available.

Practically, the exposure is created by scheduling rather than by hiring. Which means the controls have to live in the rota, not in the HR file.

A workable process

1. Run the right to work check as normal — for most students that is the Home Office online check using a share code. Save the profile page. Our new starter checklist covers the mechanics.
2. Record the permitted hours figure, not just "has right to work". 10 or 20 makes a material difference to what you can roster.
3. Ask for term and vacation dates in writing from the institution at the same time as the check, covering the full period you expect to employ them. Copy and retain them with the check record.
4. Put the term boundaries into whatever tool builds your rota, so the cap applies automatically during term and lifts on the correct date afterwards.
5. Track weekly totals Monday to Sunday, including hours worked for you at a second site or under a different manager. The cap is per week across all work, not per job.
6. Diarise the follow-up check against the permission expiry as you would for any time-limited status — the follow-up check timeline calculator generates the dates, and the ongoing compliance guide covers what a compliant follow-up looks like.
7. Re-request dates for each new academic year the employment continues into.

Since 1 October 2026, this applies to more of your staff

Worth noting if you take on students casually. Since 1 October 2026 the Right to Work Scheme has extended beyond contracts of employment to worker's contracts, individual sub-contractors and online matching services. A student picking up shifts through a casual arrangement is exactly the kind of engagement that is now in scope — and the term-date evidence requirement follows the check. See what changed on 1 October 2026 and right to work checks for gig and casual workers.

The bottom line

Employing a student visa holder is a two-part obligation: the right to work check, and the term-date evidence that tells you which hours cap applies in any given week. The dates must come from the education provider, cover the whole period of employment, and be copied and retained. The cap runs Monday to Sunday and can lift mid-week when term ends. Build it into the rota, not the filing cabinet — that is where the breach actually happens.

Sources

• Employer's guide to right to work checks — Annex B, Students — GOV.UK (quotations are from the final version that came into force on 1 October 2026; earlier versions, including the 26 June 2025 guide, are in the UK Government Web Archive)
• Code of practice on preventing illegal working: Right to Work Scheme for employers — GOV.UK (the revised Code in force since 1 October 2026; penalty starting points £45,000 for a first breach and £60,000 for a repeat breach)
• Check a job applicant's right to work: use their share code — GOV.UK