An Error in the I-9 Form: What to Do

Last November, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) released the new I-9 form, which, among other changes, is now easier to complete electronically - although the form must still be printed and manually signed.  (For more details on the changes, see our blog post from December.)

The latest news on the I-9 is that USCIS has identified a glitch in the Social Security number field of the electronic version of the form.  Specifically, a new hire may type their SSN correctly, but when the form is printed, the middle numbers may be transposed.

USCIS believes the glitch exists only on those forms that were downloaded in the first few days the form became available, so if you are certain that the I-9 PDF you are using was downloaded more recently, then you are OK.  However, if you think you may have downloaded it in November, and you’ve hired anyone since then who completed the new I-9 form electronically (that is, they typed their information directly onto the PDF file instead of filling it out by hand), here is what you need to do…

Go back to your files and compare the employee’s Social Security number on the printed I-9 form with your other employee records to ensure it is correct.  If the numbers were transposed when the form was printed, the employee can draw a line through the error, write the correct number, and initial it before returning it to the file.  We would also advise attaching an explanation to the I-9 in the event the form is ever audited.

And if you find you are using the form with the glitch, or are unsure about it, you should download it again from https://www.uscis.gov/i-9.