E-Verify requirements in Puerto Rico: no local mandate, the Spanish Form I-9, and the 2010 birth certificate rule

As of October 2026, Puerto Rico has no local law requiring employers to use E-Verify, and none restricting it. E-Verify itself is available on the island, as it is in the states, the District of Columbia, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the Northern Mariana Islands. For most Puerto Rico employers it is optional. For federal contractors and their subcontractors, it is often required, because the federal contract clause treats Puerto Rico as part of the United States.

Puerto Rico also has two Form I-9 rules found nowhere else: it is the only place where employers may complete the Spanish-language form, and it has its own cutoff date for acceptable birth certificates. Both come up far more often in day-to-day hiring than any E-Verify question.

Puerto Rico by employer type

The Act 4-2017 claim

Some compliance websites state that Puerto Rico requires E-Verify for all new hires under "Act No. 4-2017." That is not what the law says. Act 4 of January 26, 2017 (House Bill 453) is the Labor Transformation and Flexibility Act, the island's major labor reform of that year. It set rules for employment contracts, probationary periods, working hours, vacation and sick leave, the Christmas bonus and other matters. We read the official English translation, about 20,000 words, and it contains no reference to E-Verify; the word "verify" appears only in passages about auditing an employer's claim that it cannot afford the Christmas bonus. Puerto Rico employers that rely on such a summary may enroll thinking they must, which is not harmful in itself, but they may then miss the program's real obligations, such as verifying every new hire at the site.

Federal contracts: where E-Verify is actually required

For geography, the clause borrows the Immigration and Nationality Act's meaning of "United States," and that meaning takes in Puerto Rico. Under FAR 22.1803 it is inserted in federal awards worth more than $150,000 that last at least 120 days and involve work on U.S. soil, except awards solely for off-the-shelf commercial items; any services or construction subcontract worth more than $3,500 must repeat it. The contractor signs up with E-Verify no later than 30 calendar days after award. From then on, a private company typically checks every person it hires, at any of its sites, until the contract ends, as well as current staff who are assigned to the contract.

Two features matter on the island. First, where the money came from settles nothing. Reconstruction is often paid for with federal grants to Commonwealth and municipal bodies, and E-Verify's published answer for grantees is that the obligation exists when the clause is written into the grant's terms and conditions. A builder hired by a municipio with grant funds should look at its own contract. Second, the clause allows state and local governments to limit checks to the people working on a covered contract; ask the contracting officer whether a given Commonwealth agency or public corporation can use that narrower option.

Form I-9 in Spanish

USCIS publishes Form I-9 and its instructions in Spanish, and says that only employers located in Puerto Rico may complete the Spanish-language version; any employer elsewhere may use it as a translation tool only. A Puerto Rico employer may choose either language. Practical points:

• Use the current edition in whichever language you choose, and keep the completed form in that language.
• An employer with sites in Puerto Rico and on the mainland may use the Spanish form only for hires at its Puerto Rico sites; a new hire at a mainland site completes the English form, even if HR is based in San Juan.
• If enrolled in E-Verify, the Further Action Notice for a mismatch can be printed in Spanish as well as English; the employee signs the English version and gets copies. The steps and deadlines are in E-Verify tentative nonconfirmation.

Puerto Rico birth certificates

On July 1, 2010, Puerto Rico's Vital Statistics Office began issuing new, more secure certified copies of birth certificates, and older copies became invalid after October 30, 2010. The current Handbook for Employers is direct: an employer "may only accept a Puerto Rico birth certificate issued on or after July 1, 2010" as a List C document. USCIS's 2010 guidance, now archived, added that employers must not reverify existing employees whose Forms I-9 were completed before October 31, 2010 with an older certificate, and that the change affected only the documents, not anyone's citizenship.

Three mistakes to avoid. Do not ask a new hire for a birth certificate at all; the employee chooses any acceptable List A document or List B and List C combination. Do not reject a post-2010 Puerto Rico certificate because it looks different from an older one. And do not treat people born in Puerto Rico differently from other U.S. citizens in the I-9 process, on the island or on the mainland. See I-9 List A, B and C documents.

Staffing agencies and mainland employers

Agencies in San Juan, Bayamón and Ponce often place workers with manufacturers that hold federal supply or service contracts, and some mainland employers hire people who work remotely from the island. A few rules of thumb:

• An agency furnishing staff to a client's covered federal contract is normally a subcontractor for services. Once its subcontract passes $3,500 it carries the clause, and the agency, not the client, runs E-Verify for the people it hires. See E-Verify for staffing agencies.
• A mainland company hiring a remote employee who works from Puerto Rico follows Puerto Rico's position, which adds no E-Verify duty, unless the company's own federal contract already requires company-wide verification.
• Island companies that post workers to Florida should know that Florida requires E-Verify of private employers with 25 or more employees, so those Florida-based workers come under that rule.

A worked example

The following scenario is made up. A pharmaceutical contract manufacturer in Juncos completes Form I-9 in Spanish and does not use E-Verify. It wins a federal supply contract worth $3 million that is not limited to off-the-shelf items, and the award carries the E-Verify clause. Enrollment follows inside the 30-day window and, once the 90-day start-up period ends, the company creates an E-Verify case for every new hire at all of its sites within three business days. When a new technician presents a Puerto Rico birth certificate issued in 2015 with a driver's license, the HR coordinator accepts the pair as List C and List B documents; when another presents a 2004 certificate, the coordinator explains that it cannot be accepted and that the employee may present any other acceptable document instead.

A Puerto Rico checklist

1. No local E-Verify mandate: Form I-9, in Spanish or English, for every hire.
2. Federal contracts and subcontracts: look for FAR 52.222-54.
3. Grant-funded work: read the grant agreement and your own contract for the clause.
4. Accept only Puerto Rico birth certificates issued on or after July 1, 2010, and never require one.
5. Ignore summaries that say Act 4-2017 requires E-Verify.
6. Whether a placement firm needs a Puerto Rico license is a different question, answered in staffing agency license requirements in Puerto Rico.