The Home Office publishes exactly what you must keep. Most employers have most of it.
The gap is rarely the documents themselves. It is the dates, the history behind a field that has been overwritten, and the handful of records that only exist if someone deliberately created them.
What the list covers.
Six areas. The last one is where inspections find gaps.
| Area | What is required |
|---|---|
| Right to work | Evidence of a check on everyone you employ or sponsor, made before work started. Time-limited permission is tracked on visa status and expiry. |
| Date of entry | Where you sponsored the entry clearance, evidence of when the person actually arrived. |
| Recruitment | How the role was advertised and how the successful candidate was chosen — with specific things the advert and the screenshot of it must show. Post the advert here and that capture happens by itself. |
| Salary | Payslips, evidence the money reached the named person’s account, and a contract containing a defined set of particulars. Hours and holiday are on time, holiday and shifts. |
| Skill level | A detailed job description, qualifications, and any professional registration the role requires. |
| Everything else | National Insurance number, a history of contact details and absences, DBS where required, parental consent for under-18s, ATAS where it applies, and evidence you told your workers about their rights at work. |
The three that are almost always incomplete.
A history of contact details
Not the current address — the history. An update that types over the old value leaves you with a field, not a record.
A record of absences
Nobody sets out to keep this badly. It simply accumulates in a rota, a WhatsApp group and somebody’s memory, none of which produce a record.
Evidence workers were told their rights
Practically every employer does this at induction. Practically none can produce a named person confirming they received it on a named date.
How long you keep it is not one rule.
The headline rule is straightforward enough: sponsor records are kept through the sponsorship and then until the earlier of one year after it ends, or the point a compliance officer has examined them.
Why that rule is not enough on its own
That rule is also, on its own, dangerous to implement. Right to work evidence has a longer clock tied to employment. Payroll records answer to tax rules. National minimum wage records run to six years. Your licence application documents have no clock at all while you hold the licence. A single record can sit under several of these at once.
Stamped HR keeps every clock that applies to an item and uses the longest. Nothing is deleted automatically, nothing is deleted while a dispute or investigation is open, and disposal produces a decision with its reasoning attached — because at an inspection the documented decision is the point, not the empty shelf.
Questions.
Is this the full list?
What if the guidance changes?
Do we have to keep everything for every worker?
We are not a sponsor. Is any of this relevant?
Review your Appendix D records.
Most employers can guess two of them. The third is usually a surprise.