ESM11006 - Check Employment Status For Tax: Who can use CEST?

Who can use CEST?

Whether you complete the tool as a worker or a hirer will not affect the outcome. The tool uses this information to ensure the questions and outcomes are worded appropriately to address the person using the tool, but all users get the same questions.  

CEST asks what job role you are using the tool for to give HMRC insight on the user journey from different sectors. This question is anonymous and will not affect your outcome.  

CEST can be used by anyone who needs to understand employment status for tax and NICs purposes.

This could include:

A worker providing a service
The worker may want to use CEST to find out their own employment status. This should be done for each engagement they have. Workers can also use CEST to check the determination reached by hiring organisations.

Some CEST questions are specific to the individual’s own working arrangements. Workers may therefore have additional information they can provide to the hirer to ensure a more accurate status determination.

The organisation hiring a worker
Anyone considering directly hiring workers can use CEST to determine the employment status of those workers for tax and NIC purposes.

If workers are engaged through intermediaries, the hiring organisation may be responsible for deciding the correct employment status of a worker’s contract. The hirer is often best placed to understand the contract and its terms, so will be able to form an accurate view of the employment status of that contract. See the glossary of terms at ESM11020 for the definitions of an intermediary.

If the hirer knows, or has already engaged, the worker, CEST will ask more questions. This is because the hirer may know more about the working arrangements and the worker’s own business. This is because the hirer will be able to get more information about the worker’s own business.

If the hirer does not know who the worker is then additional questions will not be asked. The hirer will still get a determination that HMRC will stand by. HMRC recommends that once the worker’s identity is known, the hirer uses CEST again to get a final determination that incorporates the worker’s specific factors.

A third party:
A third party may want to use the tool to check the accuracy of a determination they have been given.

Any other party checking a determination, including third parties and agencies, should continue by choosing who  they are checking for.

An agency placing a worker through an intermediary

See the glossary of terms at ESM11020 for the definitions of an intermediary.

The agency that places a worker with the hirer may have a direct contract with the hirer. Where that agency places a worker with a hirer in the public sector, or a medium or large-sized hirer outside of the public sector, the hirer should inform them whether off-payroll working rules apply to that contract, and therefore the worker. The person who contracts with the hirer can request confirmation of size from the hirer – see more here.

It is possible that the agency will know more about the individual circumstances of a worker than the hirer. The agency can use CEST to check the status determination reached by the hirer based upon its own understanding of the contract and the worker being supplied to the hirer.

What CEST should not be used for
CEST can only be used to determine employment status for tax and NICs purposes. It should not be used for employment rights. You can find further guidance on employment rights here.

There are some situations where CEST should not be used.  These include:
  • workers engaged through agencies who do not work through intermediaries, further guidance for these workers can be found here
  • workers engaged through managed service companies who are not providing services to public sector hirers, further guidance for these workers can be found here
  • establishing whether an individual working within a partnership or Limited Liability Partnership is a partner, employee or salaried member (except where the individual is working through an intermediary), further guidance for these workers can be found in HMRC’s Partnership Manual and salaried member guidance
  • apprentices (except where the apprentice is working through an intermediary)
  • crown servants (except where the crown servant is working through an intermediary), these are generally any person employed by the Crown including all executive officials and their staff, civil servants, police, judicial officials, and members of the armed forces
  • contracts of training, further guidance can be found here