E-Verify requirements in Pennsylvania: public works over $25,000, every subcontractor, every new hire

As of October 2026, Pennsylvania requires E-Verify in one setting: public works. Every contractor and every subcontractor, at every tier, working on a construction, reconstruction, demolition, alteration or repair project paid for at least partly with public money must use E-Verify for each new employee when the total project cost is over $25,000. The current law is the Public Works Employment Verification Act as rewritten by Act 141 of 2022, effective July 22, 2023, which replaced the 2012 version with steeper civil penalties and a published sanctions ladder. There is no Pennsylvania E-Verify mandate for private employers outside public works.

The Department of General Services enforces it, runs random audits, and posts its warning letters online by contractor name.

Is your project covered?

The project-level threshold is the part bidders misread most. A $9,000 electrical subcontract is covered if it sits inside a $400,000 municipal building renovation.

What contractors and subcontractors must do

1. Use E-Verify for each new employee. Under the statement of policy, a new employee hired during a public works contract must be verified within 5 business days of the start date, whether or not that person ever works on the public site. E-Verify's own program rules set a tighter clock, the third business day after the employee starts work for pay, and an enrolled employer has to meet that one too.
2. Submit the Public Works Employment Verification Form. The prime contractor submits it to the public body as a precondition of award. Each subcontractor submits its own form to the contracting public body before beginning on-site or off-site work. The form is posted by DGS, may not be altered, and must be signed by someone with authority to bind the company.
3. Pass the notice down. Every subcontract must notify the subcontractor that the act applies, explain the E-Verify requirement, and point to the DGS website for the form.
4. Keep proof. Contractors and subcontractors must keep documentation of continued compliance for every new hire throughout the contract, and in an audit DGS may ask for hire dates of all employees and evidence of E-Verify use. The public body keeps the submitted forms for the duration of the contract.
5. Cooperate with investigations and audits, which the policy makes an express obligation.

Enforcement: complaints, audits, and published warnings

DGS investigates complaints filed on its complaint form and treats a complaint as generally timely if it is filed before final payment on the public works contract. It also runs random audits. Its Public Works Employment Verification page lists warning letters issued to named contractors, including letters dated in 2025 and 2026, so a first violation is a public matter even though no fine attaches to it.

Sanctions for failing to verify

"Willful" covers intentional conduct and also reckless disregard for, or deliberate ignorance of, the act's requirements, so a company that never looked into whether its projects were covered is not safely outside it.

Civil penalties for form violations

Failing to provide the verification form, or making a false statement or misrepresentation on it, brings a civil penalty of $2,500 to $25,000 for each violation, set by DGS based on duration, severity and prior violations. Non-willful sanctions and penalties are appealable under Pennsylvania's administrative procedure law.

Definitions that settle common arguments

• Existing employees are not re-verified. The duty is for each new employee hired during the public works contract. A crew that has been on payroll for years is not run through E-Verify because the company won a public job; E-Verify generally does not allow that outside federal contracts with the FAR clause.
• "Employee" follows the W-2. The policy defines an employee as someone the contractor must issue a Form W-2 to. A genuine 1099 independent contractor is not an employee for this purpose, but calling a worker a contractor does not make it so; see worker misclassification for staffing agencies.
• Natural persons are not subcontractors. The subcontractor definition covers a person "other than a natural person," so an individual tradesperson working alone is outside it, while their business entity with employees is inside it.
• Maintenance versus repair. Maintenance means annual inspection or routine upkeep that does not change a facility's use or size. On that reading, replacing a failed roof section looks like repair and would be covered on a project over the threshold, while a scheduled filter change looks like maintenance. Ask DGS about borderline scopes before bidding.

Staffing agencies on Pennsylvania public works

The statement of policy defines "subcontractor" as a person other than a natural person, "including a staffing agency," that performs work for a public works contractor, at every tier. An agency supplying laborers, flaggers or tradespeople to a covered project therefore has the same obligations as any subcontractor: E-Verify for each new employee, and its own signed form to the public body before its workers start. Two consequences for agencies:

• The "each new employee" duty is not limited to people sent to the public job. If the agency's hiring site is enrolled, every new hire there is verified anyway under E-Verify's rules.
• Debarment applies to the agency itself. A second failure to verify would bar it from all Pennsylvania public works for 60 days, which for an agency built around construction clients can mean losing its main market.

For who runs the case between agency and client, see E-Verify for staffing agencies. Licensing is a separate question; see staffing agency license requirements in Pennsylvania.

A worked example

This is an invented example. A township awards two prime contracts for a new salt shed: $180,000 for general construction and $30,000 for electrical. The total project is $210,000, so both primes and all their subcontractors are covered. The general contractor submits its form with its bid paperwork as a precondition of award. Its $6,000 concrete-finishing subcontractor submits a form to the township before starting, and hires two new finishers in June, one of whom only ever works on a private job; both are run through E-Verify within the deadlines. A later random audit asks for the subcontractor's hire dates and E-Verify case records, which it produces from its files.

A Pennsylvania checklist

• Check the total project cost, not your contract value, against the $25,000 line.
• Enroll in E-Verify before bidding public works; the form is a condition of award.
• Submit the unaltered DGS form, signed by an authorized person, before any work starts.
• Put the act's notice into every subcontract you issue.
• Verify every new hire on time, after Form I-9 is complete; see I-9 timing in hiring.
• Keep hire dates and case records ready for an audit, and remember federal penalties apply separately; see I-9 penalties.
• Compare other states in E-Verify requirements by state.