Overview
E-Verify is a web based system operated by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, part of the Department of Homeland Security. It takes the information an employee provides on Form I-9 and compares it against records available to the Social Security Administration and DHS, then reports whether the employee is confirmed as authorized to work in the United States.
It is free to use and available across all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
E-Verify belongs in a different category from the rest of a background check, and understanding that early prevents most of the confusion around it. It runs after someone is hired rather than while they are a candidate. It queries government records rather than commercial ones. And it is governed by immigration law rather than by the federal consumer reporting rules that cover every other search on a screening report.
What It Checks
E-Verify compares the information already recorded on Form I-9 against government records. It does not collect anything new, and it does not replace the I-9. Every employer in the United States must complete and retain a Form I-9 for each employee whether or not it participates in E-Verify.
The system confirms one thing: whether the identity and work authorization information on the I-9 matches records held by SSA and DHS. Where the documents include certain photo identification, such as a permanent resident card, an employment authorization document, or a U.S. passport, a photo matching step compares the image on the document against the government’s own image.
E-Verify queries government records at the moment a case is created. It is not a standing database of workers, and it does not build a public registry.
Why It Cannot Be Run Before Hire
Prescreening is prohibited. An E-Verify case may be created only after a person has been hired and Form I-9 has been completed. Running E-Verify on an applicant, or using a result to decide whether to extend an offer, violates the program rules and may violate the anti-discrimination provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
The reasoning behind the rule is the reason it is enforced strictly. A verification run before an offer produces a result that can quietly eliminate a candidate, with no notice, no explanation, and no opportunity to correct a government record that is simply out of date. Requiring proof of work authorization before someone accepts an offer is itself treated as prescreening, whether or not E-Verify is involved.
Two related restrictions follow from the same principle:
- Selective use is not permitted. Where a worksite participates in E-Verify, every new hire at that location must be run through it. An employer may not choose which employees to verify.
- Existing employees are out of scope. E-Verify may not be used on people hired before the employer enrolled, with a narrow exception for certain federal contractors, and it may not be used to reverify employees whose work authorization is temporary.
Employers also may not tell an employee which I-9 documents to present, beyond specifying that a document establishing identity alone must carry a photograph.
When the Case Is Created
The sequence is fixed and short.
| Offer accepted, work begins | The employee completes their section of Form I-9 no later than the first day of work. |
| Within 3 business days | The employer completes its section of Form I-9 after examining the employee’s documents. |
| Within 3 business days of the first day of work | The employer creates the E-Verify case. |
Most cases return a result within seconds. Where the system cannot confirm the information immediately, it refers the case for manual review of government records, and DHS responds to most of those within a day.
Case Results
| Employment Authorized | The information matched. This is the outcome for the large majority of cases. |
| Case in Continuance | The employee has contacted the relevant agency and that agency needs more time. Employment continues normally. |
| Tentative Nonconfirmation (Mismatch) | The information did not match records available to SSA, DHS, or both. Not a final result. |
| Close Case and Resubmit | The case must be closed and re-created, usually because a document number or other detail was entered incorrectly. |
| Final Nonconfirmation | E-Verify could not confirm employment eligibility after the mismatch process ran its course. |
Every case must be closed in the system, whatever the outcome, including cases for people who have since left.
What a Mismatch Means
A Tentative Nonconfirmation, referred to as a mismatch, means the information entered did not match the records the agencies hold. It does not mean the person is unauthorized to work, and the distinction carries real consequences.
Mismatches commonly arise from a legal name change never reported to the Social Security Administration, a data entry error made when the case was created, a government record that has not been updated, or a change in citizenship or immigration status. A case can also receive a dual mismatch, meaning both agencies returned one at the same time.
The resolution process is built around the employee’s right to respond:
- The employer must notify the employee and complete the referral process within 10 federal government working days of the mismatch being issued.
- The employee receives a Further Action Notice, reviewed with them in private, identifying which agency the mismatch came from and what the next step is.
- The employee decides whether to take action. If they do, the employer refers the case, and the employee then has 8 federal government working days to contact DHS or visit a Social Security Administration field office.
- If the employee does not give a decision by the end of the 10th working day, the employer closes the case.
No adverse action is permitted while a mismatch is being resolved. An employer may not terminate, suspend, withhold or reduce pay, delay training, or take any other adverse step against an employee because of a mismatch that has not become final.
How a Screening Company Fits In
E-Verify recognizes several ways of accessing the system, and one of them allows a third party to create and manage cases for employer clients. An organization enrolled that way is an E-Verify Employer Agent, and background screening companies are among the businesses that enroll in that capacity.
This is why E-Verify sometimes appears alongside a background check even though it is not part of one. An employer that already works with a screening company may ask it to handle E-Verify as well, and the screening company creates cases as the employer’s agent under its own enrollment.
The arrangement does not change any of the rules. The employer remains responsible for completing Form I-9, for the timing, for displaying the required participation and right to work notices, and for handling a mismatch properly. Enrolling as an employer agent also carries its own obligations, including identifying the employer on whose behalf each case is created, since the system monitors user activity to detect misuse and discrimination.
What E-Verify Does Not Do
- It does not check criminal history, credit, social media, or any unrelated database. It compares I-9 information against SSA and DHS records and nothing else.
- It does not replace Form I-9. The I-9 obligation applies to every employer regardless of participation.
- It does not verify identity in the general sense. It confirms that submitted information matches government records.
- It does not report immigration status. The result addresses work authorization, not status.
- It cannot be required of an applicant through the employee facing tools. The self check services exist for individuals to review their own records voluntarily, and an employer may not require anyone to use them.
Who Has to Use It
Participation is voluntary under federal law for most employers. Two categories of exception exist. Federal contractors whose contracts carry the E-Verify clause must enroll as a condition of the contract. And a number of states require E-Verify for some or all employers, with the scope varying by employer size, industry, and whether the employer holds public contracts.
State requirements in this area change frequently, and several have been added or expanded recently. Employers should confirm the current position for the states where they hire against the official E-Verify and USCIS materials rather than relying on a list published elsewhere.
Any employer that participates, voluntarily or not, signs a memorandum of understanding with DHS and must display the Notice of E-Verify Participation and the Right to Work notice, in English and Spanish, where prospective and current employees can see them.
How It Differs From a Background Check
Every other search described on this site is a consumer report or part of one, which means the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act governs how it is requested, what it may contain, and what must happen before an employer acts on it. Our FCRA Overview covers that framework.
E-Verify sits outside it. The information comes from government records queried directly, not from a consumer reporting agency compiling a file, and the process is governed by immigration law and the employer’s agreement with DHS.
Protections still exist, and they are substantial. They simply come from a different place. Where a background check requires a pre-adverse action notice, a copy of the report, and a waiting period, E-Verify requires the Further Action Notice, the referral process, the response window, and a prohibition on adverse action until the matter is final. Both systems are built on the same underlying idea, which is that a person should learn about a problem and get a chance to fix it before losing the job. Our page on The Adverse Action Process covers the background check version.
The two processes are separate and neither substitutes for the other. An employer running both follows both.