The I-9 Form and Verifying Work Eligibility

Every U.S. employer — even a business with just one employee — must complete a Form I-9 for each new hire to confirm the person's identity and their legal authorization to work in the United States. This applies to full-time, part-time, and temporary workers alike. The I-9 has to be completed within a specific window around the hire date, kept on file for a set retention period, and stored separately from the employee's tax paperwork. It's a federal requirement under the Immigration and Nationality Act, and the current form and instructions live at USCIS's I-9 Central (uscis.gov/i-9) — treat that as the authoritative source any time you have a question about current procedure.

What Form I-9 verifies, and why it's separate from tax forms

Form I-9 has one job: confirming that the person you hired is who they say they are and is authorized to work in the U.S. It is not a tax form and should not be filed with the IRS or USCIS. Keep it in its own file — separate from the employee's Form W-4 and any personnel file a manager routinely accesses — because I-9s hold sensitive identity-document information, and if you're ever audited, inspectors will want to review only the I-9s, not your whole HR file.

The current form is organized around two main sections, with two supplements you use only when they apply:

• Section 1 is completed and signed by the employee, attesting to their citizenship or immigration status. The employee must complete this no later than their first day of work for pay. (If someone helps them prepare or translate it, that helper fills out Supplement A.)
• Section 2 is completed by the employer (or an authorized representative acting for you). You physically examine original identity and work-authorization documents the employee chooses to present, and you must complete this section within a short window after the start date — confirm the current deadline on I-9 Central rather than assuming, since it's a specific regulatory number worth double-checking.

If an employee's work authorization has an expiration date, reverify it before that date using Supplement B (the reverification-and-rehire supplement that replaced the old "Section 3" on the current form). U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents generally don't need reverification, and you never reverify based on an expiring List B identity document like a driver's license — but don't guess, because I-9 Central's reverification guidance covers exactly when it applies.

The retention rule — it doesn't end at termination

Keep each employee's Form I-9 for as long as they work for you, then for a further period after they leave. Under current USCIS guidance, retention runs three years after the date of hire, or one year after employment ends, whichever is later — so a long-tenured employee's I-9 may stay on file for years after they're gone. Forms can be kept on paper, microfilm, or electronically; I-9 Central's retention and storage guidance covers electronic-system rules. Never mail Form I-9 to USCIS or Immigration and Customs Enforcement — hold onto it yourself and produce it only if asked during an authorized inspection.

Don't over-ask for documents

This is one of the most common — and costly — mistakes new employers make, and it runs opposite to what people expect. The list of acceptable documents (List A, which alone establishes both identity and work authorization, or List B plus List C together) is federal, and the employee chooses which documents to present. You may not:

• Tell an employee which specific document to bring (for example, insisting on a passport when a driver's license plus Social Security card would satisfy the requirement).
• Ask for more documents than the law requires, or a specific combination beyond List A or List B+C.
• Refuse a document that reasonably appears genuine and to relate to the person presenting it, or demand extra proof from someone whose work authorization doesn't expire.
• Treat noncitizens or naturalized citizens differently from other new hires in what you ask them to produce.

This has a name — unfair documentary practices, often called document abuse — and it's a distinct legal violation from simply filling out the form incorrectly. It's easy to fall into with good intentions ("being extra careful"), but the law treats requesting unnecessary documents, or rejecting valid ones, as its own offense.

The citizenship-discrimination rule

Closely related, federal law also bars discriminating against an applicant or employee based on citizenship status or national origin in hiring, firing, recruitment, or the I-9 process itself. You generally can't refuse to hire, or treat differently, someone because they aren't a U.S. citizen, so long as they're authorized to work — and you can't single people out over an accent, a foreign-sounding name, or which document they present. These citizenship-status and unfair-documentary-practice rules under the Immigration and Nationality Act are enforced by the Justice Department's Immigrant and Employee Rights Section (justice.gov/ier). Larger employers may also have obligations under Title VII's national-origin protections, overseen by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (eeoc.gov). The safest practice is one uniform I-9 process applied identically to every new hire.

What E-Verify is — and whether you have to use it

E-Verify is a separate, free federal system letting an employer electronically compare an employee's I-9 information against Social Security and Homeland Security records, as an added check on work authorization. USCIS administers it with DHS.

• Federally, E-Verify is voluntary for most private employers. Completing Form I-9 is mandatory for everyone; enrolling in E-Verify on top of that is optional unless an exception below applies.
• It's mandatory for most federal contractors and subcontractors whose contracts include the federal E-Verify clause, and for employers seeking certain federal grants or programs that condition participation on it.
• Several states require E-Verify for some or all private employers — sometimes for every employer, sometimes only above an employee-count threshold, sometimes only for state contractors or license-holders. Which states and thresholds apply changes as legislatures act, so check current requirements directly through e-verify.gov or your state's labor agency rather than relying on a list you saw elsewhere.

E-Verify never replaces Form I-9 — you complete the I-9 first and use E-Verify alongside it, with its own timing rules for when a case must be created.

Penalties for getting it wrong

I-9 compliance is enforced primarily by ICE (part of Homeland Security), with two different tracks. Paperwork or technical violations — missing signatures, wrong dates, incomplete sections, and similar errors on a form for someone who was, in fact, eligible to work — can each draw a civil penalty per form. These amounts are set by federal regulation and adjusted for inflation regularly, and recent enforcement updates have tightened which errors count as "correctable" versus immediately fineable, so don't assume a small slip is automatically forgivable. Knowingly hiring or continuing to employ someone not authorized to work carries substantially steeper per-violation penalties that escalate for repeat offenses, plus potential criminal exposure in serious cases. Because both the dollar amounts and the error classifications are revised periodically, this article won't quote figures that could already be stale — check ICE's current I-9 inspection guidance or I-9 Central for the current schedule before relying on any number quoted elsewhere, including on commercial HR blogs.

What to do: a practical checklist

1. Get the current form. Download the current edition of Form I-9 directly from uscis.gov — don't reuse an old PDF from a shared drive; using an expired edition is itself a violation.
2. Have the employee complete Section 1 no later than their first day of work for pay.
3. Let the employee choose their documents from the List A, or List B + List C, options — don't specify which ones you want.
4. Physically examine the original documents and complete Section 2 within the required window after the start date (confirm the exact deadline on I-9 Central; for remote hires, check current rules on using an authorized representative or the alternate remote-verification procedure available to certain E-Verify employers).
5. File the I-9 separately from tax and personnel records, and calendar the retention period (three years from hire, or one year from termination, whichever is later).
6. Track reverification dates from expiring work-authorization documents and complete Supplement B before they lapse.
7. Decide about E-Verify only after checking whether a federal contractor or state mandate applies to you, via e-verify.gov and your state agency.
8. When in doubt, ask a professional. An employment attorney or your state's Small Business Development Center (find one through sba.gov) can review your process.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need an I-9 for a family member, or someone hired for just a few days?

Generally yes — Form I-9 applies to essentially every employee, regardless of family relationship or job length, with narrow exceptions (independent contractors aren't "employees" for I-9 purposes, but misclassifying a worker as a contractor to dodge the requirement is its own serious problem). Whether a worker is an employee or a contractor is a legal classification based on the real working relationship, not a label — so if you're unsure whether someone counts as your employee, get that classification right first.

What if an employee can't provide a document right away?

I-9 Central covers narrow circumstances where a receipt for a replacement document can be accepted temporarily. Outside those, you generally shouldn't let someone begin working until they can properly complete Section 1 and present acceptable documents within the Section 2 window.

Can I ask to see a green card or specific immigration document just to be safe?

No — that's exactly the document-abuse problem described above. You can't demand a specific document, or more documents than the law requires, even out of caution. Apply the same document rules to every new hire.

Is E-Verify the same thing as Form I-9?

No. Form I-9 is the underlying, universally required document. E-Verify is an optional (for most employers) electronic cross-check that uses I-9 information; it doesn't replace the I-9, and running E-Verify without a properly completed I-9 doesn't satisfy your legal obligation.

What if I discover I lost or never completed some employees' I-9s?

Missing forms are a serious paperwork violation. If you find gaps, complete new forms going forward immediately and consider consulting an employment attorney about the gap — fixing it promptly and honestly beats leaving it and hoping it's never checked. I-9 Central's self-audit guidance describes how to correct records properly.

This article provides general information, not legal, tax, or financial advice, and does not create an attorney-client relationship. For guidance specific to your business, consult an employment attorney or your state's Small Business Development Center.