Acceptable I 9 Documentation

Form I 9 Compliance – Acceptable I 9 Documents

Accepting the correct documents from employees for purposes of the Form I-9 can be a confusing task. Time after time, we find employers have not fulfilled their responsibility to the Employment Eligibility Verification I- 9 process because they have not accepted appropriate documents from their new employee.

In part, the confusion happens because many hiring managers don’t fully understand the reason for the I-9 form. The purpose of the Form I-9 is to insure that every person hired by an employer is eligible to work in the United States. The Employment Eligibility Verification or Form I-9 requires that the employer verify both the identity and work eligibility of the people they hire.

The I-9 form comes with a list of Acceptable Documents. There are 3 lists:

List A – Documents on List A are documents that prove both a person’s identity and their work authorization. If an employee presents any document that is on List A, that is all that is required. The employer should not ask to see any more documents.
List B – Documents on List B are identity documents. All of the documents on List B only prove someone’s identity. If a new hire presents any item from List B the employer has only fulfilled half of their responsibility – they have verified the new hire’s identity but they still have the burden to verify work eligibility and will need to see a document from List C.
List C – Documents on List C are work authorization documents. All of the documents on List C prove a person’s eligibility to work in the United States. In addition to a List C document the employer must also accept a List B identity document in order to fulfill the requirements of the Form I-9.

THE RULE – Accept either:

1 Document from List A

1 Document from List B and 1 Document from List C

Be sure the documents you accept are actually on the List of Acceptable I 9 documents. Recently, we have seen issues with employers accepting documents that are not part of the lists. Firearms Carry Permits, Union Cards, Library Cards, are not on the List of Acceptable Documents and cannot be used as proof of work authorization for purposes of the I-9 form.

Employers must pay attention to the details of the Form I-9 in order to protect themselves from errors and omissions that will end up costing them when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) investigates. Fines and penalties for I-9 document errors can cost an employer up to $1,100 per occurrence. Other areas of concern are document fraud and discrimination penalties, some of which may land hiring managers and company executives in jail!

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