U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has finally announced that the new, revised Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification, is available as of March 8, 2013. Employers are required to use Form I-9 to verify the identity and employment eligibility of newly hired employees. The current form expired on August 31, 2012, but employers were instructed to continue to use the old form until the new one was issued. That day has now arrived.

Changes to the Previous Form I-9

• New data fields have been added, including fields for the employee's foreign passport information, telephone number and e-mail address
• Expansion of the Form I-9 instructions to both employees and employers
• Revisions to the form's layout, expanding it from one to two pages

Effective Date

The new, revised Form I-9 will show a revision date of March 8, 2013. Employers should begin using this new form immediately, but they have a 60-day grace period in which to phase it in. Please ensure that you use the new Form I-9 when reverifying documents for employees (e.g., updating due to name change, confirming new I-94 or EAD expiration date, etc.). Failure to use the correct Form I-9 after the 60-day grace period expires may result in fines and penalties. The new Form I-9 can be found here.

Electronic I-9 Systems

If your organization uses an electronic I-9 system, you should receive information from your vendor regarding these updates. If you do not, we recommend that you contact your vendor to ensure they are incorporating the new Form I-9 into their system.