Form I-9 Compliance: Deadlines, Documents and Penalties

Every employee hired in the United States — citizen or not — needs a Form I-9. The employee completes and signs Section 1 no later than the first day of work for pay. You (or your authorized representative) complete Section 2 within three business days of the date of hire, examining the employee's original documents in their presence; per USCIS, an employee who begins work Monday must have Section 2 completed by Thursday. For jobs lasting fewer than three days, everything is due on day one.

The I-9 belongs in the same day-one packet as the W-4 and state forms — the new hire paperwork guide sequences all of it.

The employee — never the employer — chooses what to present: one List A document establishing both identity and work authorization (U.S. passport, permanent resident card, certain employment authorization documents), or a combination of List B (identity — driver's license and similar) and List C (authorization — Social Security card without restrictions, birth certificate). Requiring specific documents, or more documents than the lists demand, is document abuse — an immigration-related discrimination violation on its own. Accept documents that reasonably appear genuine and relate to the person; calendar reverification only where the work authorization itself expires.

Keep each I-9 for three years after the date of hire or one year after employment ends — whichever is later. Store I-9s separately from personnel files: in an audit you must produce I-9s (typically on three days' notice), and handing over personnel files exposes everything else in them. Electronic storage is fine with the required integrity controls. When the retention clock runs out, destroy the forms — stale I-9s are pure liability with zero upside.

ICE audits begin with a Notice of Inspection and per-form civil fines for paperwork violations — amounts adjust annually, and knowingly employing unauthorized workers escalates into a different league entirely. Run an internal audit yearly: correct errors by lining through, initialing and dating — never white-out, never backdating. For remote hires, only employers enrolled in good standing in E-Verify may use DHS's alternative procedure (live video document examination); everyone else needs physical examination, commonly through an authorized representative such as a notary. E-Verify itself is voluntary federally but mandatory for federal contractors and in several states — check your state's rules in the law library.