Five Croydon businesses are on the Home Office illegal working list with £260,000 in fines, from £80,000 at Surrey Street Market to £40,000 on the High Street.
Five businesses in the borough of Croydon appear on the Home Office’s latest list of employers fined for illegal working. Their penalties add up to £260,000.
The biggest is £80,000, against a trader at pitches 61, 62 and 63 of Surrey Street Market. The other four are limited companies running food businesses in the town centre, Broad Green, Thornton Heath and Coombe Wood.
The figures come from the Home Office’s illegal working civil penalties for UK employers, the register covering 1 January to 31 March 2026. It was published on 27 August.
The Croydon entries
| Liable party | Where workers were found | Penalty |
|---|---|---|
| A sole trader | Pitches 61/62/63, Surrey Street, CR0 1RG | £80,000 |
| Green Bistro Ltd | Coombe Wood, Conduit Lane, CR0 5RQ | £55,000 |
| Burger London Ltd | 46 Nova Road, CR0 2TL | £45,000 |
| Ayana Investments Ltd | Sam’s Chicken, 48 High Street, CR0 1YB | £40,000 |
| MS Darbar Hyderabadi Ltd | M.S Darbar Hyderabadi, 106 Bensham Lane, Thornton Heath, CR7 7ES | £40,000 |
We have not named the sole trader, who is listed under a personal name. Ayana Investments Ltd is the company the register links to the Sam’s Chicken shop at 48 High Street; the penalty is against that company, not the Sam’s Chicken brand as a whole.
Why these businesses are on the list
Not every fined employer is published. The Home Office names two groups:
- employers who have not paid, or are not making regular payments, 28 days after using up all their objection and appeal rights
- employers given a second or further penalty once their rights are exhausted, whether or not they have paid
So an entry means the case is closed and the employer either has not paid or has been fined before. The register does not say which applies to each business. It also does not say how many workers were involved.
The penalty shown is the final figure after any objection or appeal. The ceiling is £60,000 for each illegal worker, and an employer that made the correct right to work checks does not have to pay.
How Croydon compares
The national list for the quarter has 291 entries, with penalties totalling £16,975,000. Croydon’s five make up £260,000 of that.
A sixth entry carries a CR4 postcode: Beauty Shop CR4 Ltd, on South Lodge Avenue, Mitcham, fined £45,000. That address is in Pollards Hill, in the borough of Merton, about two miles north-west of central Croydon, so we have not counted it.
What it means for you
If you employ anyone, including casual, family or weekend staff on a market stall, the rules are the same. You must check a worker’s right to work before they start. The government’s guide to checking a job applicant’s right to work sets out how, including the online share code check.
If you think someone is being employed illegally, you can report it to the Home Office anonymously.
The register records civil penalties, not criminal convictions. Any business named here can contact us at hello@croydontoday.co.uk, and we will add its response.
For other business records in the borough, see our September food hygiene ratings round-up and the council’s planning applications guide.
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