The key information document, explained, with the free official templates

6 minute read · Updated 2026-09-09

Since 6 April 2020 an employment business must give every temporary work-seeker a key information document before they agree terms. Not with the contract, not with the first payslip: before. It is a short document with one job, which is to answer the question the worker actually has. That question is never "what is my gross rate". It is "what lands in my bank on Friday".

What it has to say

• Who is employing you and who is paying you, if those are different.
• The type of contract: contract of employment, contract for services, or something else.
• The minimum rate of pay you can expect.
• How you are paid, by whom, and how often.
• Every deduction, statutory and otherwise, and what each one is for.
• Any fee or charge from an intermediary, and what the worker gets for it.
• Holiday entitlement and how holiday pay works.
• An illustrative example showing a realistic gross figure worked down to a realistic net figure.

That last one is the point of the whole document. A worker who has seen the example cannot be surprised in week three, and a worker who is not surprised does not ring the regulator.

The free official templates

You do not need to buy one. GOV.UK publishes editable examples and full guidance:

• Providing a key information document for agency workers: guidance for employment businesses, with the example documents attached.

There is one shape for a worker paid PAYE by you, and another for a worker engaged through their own limited company. They are different documents and you need whichever fits.

Where agencies get it wrong

1. Giving it too late. After the worker has agreed terms it has failed its only purpose.
2. One document for everybody. A driver on PAYE and a driver through a limited company must get different ones.
3. Not reissuing it. When anything on it changes, it goes out again.
4. Optimistic examples. An illustration using a rate nobody gets is worse than none, because now it is in writing.
5. Hiding a deduction. If a fee comes out, it goes on the document. The regulator's usual route to an agency is a worker who did not understand a deduction.

Who does not need one

Permanent placements. If you introduce somebody who is then employed directly by the client, there is no key information document, because you never pay them. It is one of several reasons a new agency is easier to run permanent first.

Before you rely on this

This is a guide, not legal advice, and it is free because the law behind it is free. Every source we used is linked in the text so you can read it yourself rather than take our word for it. Where a decision turns on your own circumstances, and two of them below do, pay a solicitor once. It is cheaper than the alternative.

We are a UK job board and we are building a recruitment arm of our own, so we are working through this list ourselves. If you spot something out of date, tell us and we will fix it and say when.