Charged for a DBS check before your first shift: is that allowed?

Your agency says no DBS, no shifts, and the fee comes out of your first pay packet. Before you hand anything over, hear where the law stands. Charging you for finding you work has been a criminal offence since 1973. A criminal records check is one of the few things an agency can normally charge you for, but only as an optional service you choose, priced in writing first, and never as the gate to a rota. Most of the charges flying around care work fail at least one of those tests.

What the law says about agency fees

Two rules do most of the work here, and both are old.

The first is section 6 of the Employment Agencies Act 1973. Nobody may request or receive a fee, directly or indirectly, from you for finding you employment or supplying you to a hirer. That covers the agency that signs you up and the employment business that sends you to the care home. For care, cleaning, security, warehouse and retail work the ban is total. Breach is a criminal offence, punishable by a fine. The only legal work-finding fees left are in Schedule 3 of the Conduct Regulations (reg 26): entertainment and modelling, where an agency can take commission out of your earnings, and only if the hirer is not paying too.

The second is regulation 5 of the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003. An agency may sell you other services, such as CV writing, training, transport or a DBS check. But it may not make finding you work conditional on you buying them. “Pay £41 for your DBS through us or get no care shifts” is a straightforward breach of reg 5(1). If you do buy one of these extras, reg 5(2) lets you cancel at any time without penalty, on five business days’ notice, ten for living accommodation. And reg 6 bars the agency from threatening or punishing you for ending the contract or taking work elsewhere.

Three more conditions sit around any charge. The exact price, the service and your cancellation rights must be in written terms given to you in a separate document before the service is provided, as GOV.UK’s guidance on non-work-finding services sets out. Any deduction from your wages must be authorised by a written contract term or your prior written consent (Employment Rights Act 1996, s 13). And reg 30 makes a breach actionable so far as it causes damage, so a county court claim for the loss may be open to you.

One loophole deserves naming, because agencies use it. Under reg 26(7) the section 6 ban does not apply where the work-seeker is a company, outside the Schedule 3 occupations. Reg 26(3) switches that off if the agency also charges the hirer, which a temp agency normally does. If you were steered into a limited company, the paperwork is worth checking before you argue the point. Norway draws the line differently: charging a job-seeker for placement, and charging a worker for hiring-out services, are both banned in its labour market law.

What a DBS check actually costs

The government’s own fee dropped on 5 October 2026. If your agency is still quoting the old £49.50 for an enhanced check, its price list is already out of date.

Most agencies submit checks through a Registered Body, and Registered Bodies may add their own admin fee on top of the government price. That extra is unregulated, which is where inflated quotes come from. It is not harmless, though. Under HMRC’s minimum wage manual the DBS fee itself is treated as your liability, so passing it on does not reduce your minimum wage pay. Any admin fee or mark-up the agency adds does reduce it. On a 30-hour week at the £12.71 adult rate, a £25 processing fee is enough to take you below the legal floor.

One way to dodge repeat fees: if you already hold a certificate of the right level and workforce type subscribed to the Update Service, a new hirer can run a free status check online with your consent. £15 a year beats £41 every time you change agencies. If an agency refuses to accept a valid, portable certificate and demands you buy its own check as a condition of shifts, that is the reg 5 problem again.

Getting your money back

1. Put it in writing first. Reply that you are not buying the check as a condition of work, name regulation 5, and keep the message. If you already paid, write cancelling the service. You can withdraw from any fee-charging extra on five business days’ notice, penalty-free, and the fee should come back.
2. Check the payslip maths. Compare the charge with the real cost: £41 enhanced, £20 basic or standard. Anything above the real cost is a mark-up that eats into minimum wage pay. Any deduction also needs a written contract term or your written consent behind it, or it is an unlawful deduction under s 13.
3. Report the agency to the Fair Work Agency. Since 7 April 2026 one enforcer, the Fair Work Agency, handles illegal agency fees and minimum wage breaches, with powers to inspect and refer cases for prosecution. Complaining costs nothing. How to report an employer to the Fair Work Agency.
4. Claim at tribunal if the money does not come back. Unlawful deduction claims go to an employment tribunal, with Acas early conciliation first. For problems arising on or after 1 October 2026 the time limit is six months; for anything older the three-month limit may still apply, so do not sit on it. A reg 30 damages claim in the county court may also be open, but it is the harder route.
5. Use the free routes while you wait. Acas’s helpline, Citizens Advice and a union can all press an agency that ignores emails. Care and support workers usually sit in UNISON, GMB or Unite, and their legal teams know these fees well. Find the union for your job.

Scotland and Northern Ireland

The fee ban is the same across Britain, but the checking systems differ. In Scotland, regulated care roles need membership of the Protecting Vulnerable Groups scheme run by Disclosure Scotland. Joining costs £59, a standalone Level 2 disclosure is £25, and a scheme record update for an existing member is £18. From 1 August 2026 to 31 July 2027, Disclosure Scotland also waives PVG fees for eligible new starters in commissioned social care, so check before paying anything. In Northern Ireland, checks go through AccessNI: £16 for a basic or standard check and £32 for an enhanced one, with free standard and enhanced checks for volunteers. Northern Ireland runs its own, parallel agency law with the same no-fee-for-work principle, enforced through the Department for the Economy rather than the Fair Work Agency.