ESM4001 - Particular occupations: agricultural workers - harvest workers

This guidance should be used in conjunction with the guidance within section ESM0500 of this manual and HMRC’s Check Employment Status for Tax tool (CEST)- see ESM11000.

An engager should not simply accept a worker’s claim that he or she is treated as self-employed by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC). Harvest workers are rarely self-employed. On the other hand, there are exceptions such as

• an agricultural engineer who undertakes threshing, ploughing, haulage etc using his own equipment, or
• a gangmaster who is not himself an employee of the farmer. (In practice payments to the leader of an itinerant group of workers will be treated similarly.)

You should, however, tell the farmer to record details of the name and address of the person to whom the payments were made, the amounts paid, and the relevant dates.