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Section 15: Right not to have to make payments to employer.

Employment Rights Act 1996 · 1996 c. 18View on legislation.gov.uk

Part II: Protection of wages

An employer shall not receive a payment from a worker employed by him unless—

the payment is required or authorised to be made by virtue of a statutory provision or a relevant provision of the worker's contract, or
the worker has previously signified in writing his agreement or consent to the making of the payment.

In this section "relevant provision", in relation to a worker's contract, means a provision of the contract comprised—

in one or more written terms of the contract of which the employer has given the worker a copy on an occasion prior to the employer receiving the payment in question, or
in one or more terms of the contract (whether express or implied and, if express, whether oral or in writing) the existence and effect, or combined effect, of which in relation to the worker the employer has notified to the worker in writing on such an occasion.

For the purposes of this section a relevant provision of a worker's contract having effect by virtue of a variation of the contract does not operate to authorise the receipt of a payment on account of any conduct of the worker, or any other event occurring, before the variation took effect.

For the purposes of this section an agreement or consent signified by a worker does not operate to authorise the receipt of a payment on account of any conduct of the worker, or any other event occurring, before the agreement or consent was signified.

Any reference in this Part to an employer receiving a payment from a worker employed by him is a reference to his receiving such a payment in his capacity as the worker's employer.

About this text

This legislation text comes from legislation.gov.uk. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. These source and reuse terms cover the legislation text, not Remedy's commentary.

Reuse reviewed 21 August 2026 under Open Government Licence v3.0.