Right to Rent Share Code: Landlord Guide

A right to rent share code is a short, temporary code a tenant generates on GOV.UK to prove their right to rent in England online, without you needing to see a physical document. The tenant gives you the code and their date of birth, you check it on the landlord-facing GOV.UK service, and it returns a result confirming whether they have the right to rent and whether that right is time-limited.

This guide walks through what a share code actually is, the steps a tenant follows to generate one, how you verify it as a landlord, and the mistakes that most often trip people up on either side of the process.

What a share code is

Many people with permission to be in the UK, including those with settled or pre-settled status or a work visa, now hold their immigration status digitally rather than on a physical document. The Home Office has moved away from issuing physical Biometric Residence Permits (BRPs) for most cases, which means an online check is the standard route for confirming their right to rent, not a fallback for unusual cases.

A share code is how a person proves that digital status to someone else, such as a landlord, without giving them direct access to their Home Office account. It is generated for a specific purpose, is normally valid for 90 days, and can be viewed as many times as needed within that window using the code and the holder's date of birth. British and Irish citizens do not need a share code; their right to rent is confirmed through a manual document check instead, typically a passport. Our guide to right to rent checks for landlords covers the wider legal duty, including when a manual check applies instead of an online one.

Tenant steps

To generate a share code, a prospective tenant needs to:

1. Sign in to their UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) account on GOV.UK, using the same account they used to apply for their immigration status.
2. Go to the "prove your right to rent to a landlord" service, sometimes reached via the "view and prove your immigration status" pages.
3. Generate a share code specifically for renting. The service asks what the code is for, and choosing the right to rent option ensures the code shows the correct information to a landlord.
4. Give the code and their date of birth to you, the landlord (or your agent). The code itself is a short string of letters and numbers; it does not reveal any information on its own without also entering the date of birth on the landlord side.

If a tenant does not have online access to their status, for example because they hold an older physical document rather than digital status, they cannot generate a share code and a manual document check applies instead. If a tenant is unsure which route applies to them, directing them to the relevant GOV.UK guidance is usually quicker than trying to work it out on their behalf.

Landlord verification

Once you have the share code and date of birth, checking it takes only a few minutes:

1. Go to the landlord-facing "view a tenant's right to rent" service on GOV.UK.
2. Enter the share code exactly as given, along with the tenant's date of birth.
3. The service returns a result showing the tenant's photo, whether they have the right to rent, and whether that right is time-limited, along with an end date if so.
4. Save or print the result page, or take a clear screenshot, as your evidence of the check. Note the date you carried it out alongside it.

This record is what gives you a statutory defence later if it turns out, despite a properly conducted check, that the tenant did not in fact have the right to rent. Keep it for the duration of the tenancy and for at least a year afterwards.

If the right shown is time-limited, for example tied to a visa with an expiry date, your obligation does not end there. You need to carry out a follow-up check either shortly before that permission expires, or 12 months after the previous check, whichever comes first, and continue doing so for as long as the tenancy runs. Recording both the check date and the expiry date shown by the online service makes it much easier to schedule that follow-up correctly rather than guessing later.

Common errors

A handful of mistakes come up repeatedly with the share code process, on both sides:

• Entering the code incorrectly. Share codes are case-sensitive strings that are easy to mistype, particularly from a screenshot or a message. Ask the tenant to copy and paste or read the code out clearly rather than transcribing it from a photo where characters can be ambiguous.
• Using an expired code. Share codes are normally valid for 90 days from generation. If a tenant generated a code weeks before actually giving it to you, it may have lapsed by the time you check it, and they will need to generate a fresh one.
• Generating a code for the wrong purpose. The GOV.UK service asks what the code is for. A code generated for, say, an employer's check rather than a landlord's check may not display the right information, so make sure the tenant selects the right to rent option specifically.
• Mismatched date of birth. The date of birth entered on the landlord side must match the one linked to the tenant's Home Office account exactly, including format. A simple typo here is one of the most common reasons a genuine code fails to return a result.
• Not saving the result. A verbal confirmation that a check "came back fine" is not evidence of anything. Always save or screenshot the actual result page, since that record is what protects you if the check is ever questioned later.
• Treating the check as a one-off. If the result shows a time-limited right, forgetting to schedule the follow-up check is one of the most common ways landlords unintentionally fall out of compliance well after the tenancy has started.

Getting these details right matters because a correctly conducted check, evidenced properly, gives you a statutory defence even if the tenant's circumstances change later. A rushed or incomplete check does not offer the same protection, regardless of how confident you felt about the tenant at the time.

How Property HQ helps

Property HQ gives you a place to log right to rent check dates, the expiry of any time-limited status, and the supporting evidence, alongside the rest of your compliance record, so a follow-up check does not quietly lapse without you noticing months later. Once the tenancy is confirmed, our guide to deposit protection covers the next compliance step most landlords need to get right, and our landlord legal responsibilities guide covers the wider set of duties a new tenancy brings with it.

Disclaimer

This guide is general information for UK landlords, not legal or immigration advice. Right to rent rules and the online services referenced here change from time to time. Check GOV.UK's current guidance and checking services before carrying out or relying on a check.