By Jason Fry
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) released a new version of Form I-9 on January 31. The new Form I-9 has a revision date of October 21, 2019 and employers will be allowed to use the prior version dated July 17, 2017 for 90 days after publication in the Federal Register. There are no substantive changes to the form, other than the revision date and expiration date. Other changes include a new set of Form I-9 instructions and two new countries (Eswatini and North Macedonia) added to the Country of Issuance list. The countries will be added to the Issuing Authority dropdown menus in Sections 1, 2, and 3. You can find additional details about the new form in the USCIS Federal Register Announcement.
As a reminder employers must switch to the new form by the deadline. If employers use an expired form when a new version is available, the government could consider it a violation. If your organization is audited, the cost of not switching to the new version could add up quickly.
Equifax has been monitoring news for the release of the new Form I-9. We alerted employers to the pending expiration of the current version of Form I-9 in our August 2019 post, Form I-9 Expiration Date is Quickly Approaching. Equifax clients using the I-9 Management service don’t need to worry because the system will automatically update before the April 30, 2020 deadline. Beyond monitoring for expiration dates, here are more tips to help your organization stay on top of I-9 compliance. Download our free HR Checklist for I-9 Enforcement.