On January 31, 2020, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) released a new version of Form I-9 for Employment Eligibility Verification. Federal law requires that employers must complete an I-9 to document verification of the identity and employment authorization of each new employee hired after November 6, 1986, to work in the U.S.
The updated I-9 contains minor changes to the form and its instructions and is effective immediately. Employers may continue using the prior version of the form (version date July 17, 2017) until April 30, 2020. Starting May 1, 2020, employers may only use the new form with the October 21, 2019 version date. The version date is located in the lower left corner of the I-9 form.
Employers do not need to complete a new I-9 for current employees who already have a properly completed Form I-9 on file, unless reverification applies.
USCIS made no changes to the paper version of the I-9. However, USCIS slightly updated the electronic fillable version of the I-9 form to reflect the name changes for the countries of Eswatini and North Macedonia by revising the country of issuance field in Section 1 and the foreign passport issuing authority field in Section 2.
USCIS also made slight changes to the instructions for the I-9 by clarifying who can act as an authorized representative on behalf of an employer; updating the USCIS website addresses; providing clarifications on acceptable documents for the I-9; updating the process for requesting a paper version of the I-9; and updating the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Privacy Notice.
USCIS also released a Spanish language version of the new I-9 which may only be used in Puerto Rico.
