Courier background checks in the UK: what you can legally check

A courier is not on the list of roles eligible for a Standard or Enhanced DBS check, so the only criminal record check an operator can run is the Basic one, at £20. Right to work and driving licence checks cost nothing and take minutes on gov.uk. Running the checks is the easy part. Operators get caught out by what each one proves, how long that stays true, and how long they are allowed to keep the evidence. Where each check falls in the hiring sequence is set out in our guide to recruiting delivery drivers.

Which DBS level a courier role can be checked at

The Disclosure and Barring Service runs three levels of check, and the level is set by the role, not by how careful you want to be.

Fees and eligibility are from gov.uk's DBS guidance for employers, which is explicit that roles not listed in the legislation are limited to a Basic check.

A parcel courier, a food delivery rider or a multi-drop van driver is not on the Exceptions Order. You cannot run a Standard check on them, and you are not entitled to ask about spent convictions at interview either. DBS will not process an ineligible application, and a Responsible Organisation that puts one through on your behalf is the one taking the risk.

When a driving role needs its own eligibility assessment

If the role includes transporting children or vulnerable adults as a service, or regular unsupervised work inside care settings, it is a different role with different eligibility, and it needs its own assessment against the regulated activity definitions. A driver dropping parcels at a care home reception is not doing regulated activity, however sensitive the address looks.

What a Basic DBS check costs and how long it takes

A Basic check costs £20, whoever applies and whoever pays. Processing takes around three days on average, according to gov.uk's Basic check page and the Basic checks guidance, and a paper certificate is then posted to the applicant. It can take longer, and the route matters: a driver applying directly at gov.uk is usually quicker than an employer applying through a Responsible Organisation, which adds its own admin fee and its own queue. The certificate goes to the applicant, not to you, so you see it only because they show it to you.

Either the driver applies online and shows you the certificate, or you apply on their behalf through a Responsible Organisation registered with DBS, which gov.uk's employer guide to Basic checks allows as long as you have the driver's consent. Once you are hiring in batches the second route earns its fee, because the RO handles identity verification and chases the applicant for you.

A Basic certificate cannot be kept current. The DBS Update Service, which lets an employer re-check a certificate online for £16 a year, covers Standard and Enhanced checks only. Nor does a Basic certificate show cautions that have already dropped off the record; gov.uk notes that some types of caution disappear after three months.

What a self-employed driver's own certificate proves

Most self-employed couriers arrive with a Basic certificate they paid for themselves, often because another platform asked for it. You can accept it if you know its limits.

It proves the unspent criminal record of the named person on the date of issue, and nothing beyond that. It carries a name and date of birth but no proof that the person in front of you is the person named, so check both against photo ID and against the driver. It does not stay current: with no Update Service for Basic checks, a certificate from ten months ago is ten months out of date, so set a written policy on the maximum age you accept (three months is a common choice) and apply it to everyone. And it says nothing about immigration status or driving, which is why right to work and the licence are separate checks.

Right to work: share codes and the £45,000 penalty

Every employer has to check the right to work of every employee before they start, and the check has to be done in the prescribed way to earn what the Home Office calls a statutory excuse: the defence that protects you from a civil penalty if the person turns out to be working illegally.

For anyone who is not a British or Irish citizen, the check is online. The driver generates a share code from their eVisa or immigration status and gives you the code and their date of birth; you enter both at gov.uk/view-right-to-work and see what work they are allowed to do and until when. Per the Home Office employer's guide, the code is valid for 90 calendar days, employment codes begin with W, and codes starting R or S belong to other services and will be rejected. British and Irish passport holders are checked manually against the original document or through a certified digital identity provider.

The same guide sets the timing and record rules that growing fleets most often get wrong. The check has to be done before day one, not in the first week, because a check done after the start date earns no statutory excuse for the period before it. The record is kept for the whole of the employment and two years after it ends, then destroyed securely. Anyone whose permission is time-limited needs a follow-up check on or before the expiry date, so diarise it when you do the first one.

The penalty for getting it wrong tripled on 13 February 2024: up to £45,000 per illegal worker for a first breach and up to £60,000 for a repeat, according to the code of practice on preventing illegal working. At those numbers, one missed check on a 40-driver fleet costs more than a year of checking everyone. From 1 October 2026 the duty also reaches self-employed couriers, sub-contractors' drivers and platform-matched work; our guide to right to work checks for couriers and sub-contractors covers who is in scope and what changes.

For a self-employed courier engaged before 1 October 2026 the statutory duty does not apply, because the change is not retrospective. Check every driver anyway. The check is free, and a courier working for you without the right to work is your operational and reputational problem whatever the contract says.

Driving licence: the DVLA check code

You do not need to photocopy a photocard. The driver goes to gov.uk/view-driving-licence, creates a check code and gives it to you. The code is valid for 21 days and shows the vehicle categories they hold, any penalty points and any disqualification.

Match the categories to the vehicle: a standard category B licence covers vans up to 3,500kg maximum authorised mass, which is nearly every delivery van, but not the 3.5 tonne to 7.5 tonne class some operators run. Compare the points with your insurer's limit, which is usually written into the policy. Look at the photocard expiry date as well, since photocards expire every ten years and more drivers than you would expect are carrying an expired one without knowing.

Points can be added at any time after you hire someone, and most fleet insurers expect a licence check at least annually, with higher-risk drivers checked more often. Record the date and the result of every check.

Insurance and vehicle documents for self-employed drivers

A self-employed courier using their own vehicle needs hire and reward insurance; the social, domestic and pleasure cover of a standard policy does not cover a delivery run. Ask for the certificate and the schedule and read the use class on them. The delivery driver insurance cost guide puts annual hire and reward cover for a car at £800 to £1,500, which is roughly the figure you should expect to see on the schedule.

MOT status and tax can be checked free on gov.uk from the registration number alone. Note the MOT expiry date alongside the insurance expiry date: either can lapse without anyone noticing and take a driver off the road overnight.

Keeping the paperwork: GDPR retention basics

UK GDPR treats criminal record information as criminal offence data, restricted as tightly as the special categories, and the rest of what a background check produces is ordinary personal data.

Do not keep the DBS certificate. DBS's own handling policy is that certificate information is not kept any longer than the recruitment decision needs, and the DBS code of practice caps that at six months. After that you may keep a record of the date of issue, the applicant's name, the level of check, the position it was for, the certificate reference number and the decision you took, which is enough for an audit.

Right to work evidence is kept for the duration of employment plus two years, as the Home Office says, and no longer.

Before you collect anything, tell candidates what you collect, why, and for how long. Set a retention period for unsuccessful applicants and apply it, because licence screenshots from drivers who never started are still personal data in your care, and a breach risk for as long as you keep them.

For renewals, the compliance guide for growing fleets sets out a 30, 14 and 3 day reminder cadence so an expired document is caught before a driver is stopped at the roadside.

Frequently asked questions

The four checks, their cost and when to repeat them

These four cover what a courier operator can legally verify:

• Basic DBS: £20, around three days, no Update Service, so set a maximum certificate age
• Right to work: free, share code valid 90 days, follow-up check on or before any time-limited permission expires
• DVLA licence: free, check code valid 21 days, repeated as often as your insurer requires, usually at least annually
• Insurance: certificate and schedule showing hire and reward use, with the expiry date noted next to the MOT's

Most of them have to be repeated or renewed at some point, on a different date for each driver. Service Club ® Compliance tracks the re-checks, the expiry dates and the retention deadlines per driver, with the reminders and destruction dates built in.