For employers after an I-9 audit

I-9 Audit? Here Is What Auditors Look For.

A free, practical guide for employers: what an inspection reviews, which errors carry the most exposure under ICE's current approach, and what to fix before the next one.

Get the Guide

Free. No sales call required.

A Notice of Inspection gives you three business days to produce your I-9s. That is enough time to hand over what you have, not to fix it. The guide covers what to have in place before that clock starts again.

Written by an author of REAL ID

Janice Kephart

Founder, ZipID. 25 years in federal identity policy.

  • Border Counsel to the 9/11 Commission
  • An author of the REAL ID Act and architect of the biometric border entry and exit mandate
  • Drafted the federal identity theft criminal statute as Senate Judiciary Committee counsel
  • 19 congressional testimonies
Free guide Plain language, no legalese Current federal penalty schedule Written for employers, not lawyers

The Rules Changed. The Errors Did Not.

Most employers do not fail an I-9 audit because they hired someone they should not have. They fail on paperwork: a missing date, the wrong document list, a reverification nobody tracked.

For nearly two decades, an employer who made a technical error on an I-9 had ten days to correct it before a fine applied. Substantive errors were fineable on sight.

In March 2026, ICE updated its inspection fact sheet and moved roughly ten common errors from technical to substantive. There was no Federal Register notice and no public announcement. For those errors, the correction window is gone.

The price per error did not change in 2026. What changed is which errors get charged.

What the exposure looks like

$288 to $2,861

Per form, for I-9 paperwork violations, under the current federal penalty schedule.

$57,600 to $572,200

Morgan Lewis's estimate for an employer with 200 forms carrying errors that were previously treated as technical, and possibly never remediated after an earlier audit.

Penalty range per the DHS civil penalty adjustment published in the Federal Register January 2, 2025; no adjustment was issued for 2026. Reclassification per ICE's updated Form I-9 inspection fact sheet, March 2026.

What Auditors Look For

The errors that show up most, organized by where they land on the form. The guide walks through each one and what a clean version looks like.

Section 1

Completed by the employee

  • Attestation box left unchecked
  • Missing signature
  • Missing date

Section 2

Completed by the employer

  • Completed after the three business day deadline
  • Documents recorded from the wrong list
  • Missing document title or issuing authority
  • Missing employer certification

Supplement B

Formerly Section 3

  • Reverification missed
  • Expiring work authorization not tracked
Get the Guide

What the Guide Covers

Built for the employer who just went through an inspection and does not want to go through the next one the same way.

Understanding the audit

  • What a Notice of Inspection is, and what the three day clock really means
  • Substantive versus technical violations, and why that line moved
  • The current penalty schedule in plain numbers
  • The errors auditors find most often, section by section

Getting ready for the next one

  • Why corrections after a notice are a question for counsel, and the two rules that never change
  • How to run a self-audit that documents good faith
  • A retention policy that holds up on its own
  • A one-page readiness checklist to keep

A Complete I-9 Still Does Not Tell You Who Filled It Out

Everything above is about the form. The harder problem sits one step earlier.

Section 2 asks an employer to examine documents that reasonably appear to be genuine and to relate to the person presenting them. Most I-9 processes put all their effort into the first half of that sentence.

The second half is where the harder cases live. A completed I-9 proves a form was filled out. It does not prove the person who filled it out is the person you hired, and no amount of paperwork discipline closes that gap.

See how ZipID works

What ZipID does at the moment of hire

  • A live face match confirms the new hire matches the photo on the document they present.
  • Liveness and synthetic image screening on the capture, so a photo of a photo does not pass.
  • The finished I-9 in under 8 minutes, with the verification record timestamped alongside it.
  • An audit trail designed to meet the standard in 8 CFR 274a.2(g)(1)(iv).

Fix It Before the Next Notice Arrives

Start with the guide. If you want to talk through what to put in place for your next hires, Janice's calendar is open.

Get the Guide Talk It Through

ZipID, Inc. | Alexandria, Virginia

ZipID is a technology company, not a law firm. This page and the guide are general information, not legal advice. I-9 obligations turn on specific facts; consult qualified immigration or employment counsel about your situation.