E-Verify requirements in Texas: state agencies and their contractors, not private employers generally

As of September 2026, Texas has no general statute requiring a private employer to use E-Verify. If your business has no state government contract, Texas state law does not require E-Verify for your hiring, full stop. What Texas does require is narrower and specific to government: state agencies must use E-Verify to check their own new employees, and contractors and subcontractors on certain state contracts, including all TxDOT highway work, must use it too. A recruiter who assumes Texas works like Florida or North Carolina, with a private-sector headcount threshold, is looking for a rule that does not exist here.

Who is actually covered in Texas

This is a "contractor and government-agency only" state on this list: unlike Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee, there is no version of Texas's rule that reaches an ordinary private employer once it crosses a headcount line. The trigger in Texas is always the presence of a state contract or state employment, not company size.

What a covered entity in Texas must do, and by when

1. A state agency registers with E-Verify and verifies each new state employee's work eligibility as part of standard hiring, per Government Code Chapter 673.
2. A TxDOT highway contractor or subcontractor registers with E-Verify before the contract is awarded, generally by obtaining the Memorandum of Understanding for Employers that E-Verify enrollment generates and submitting it as proof, and continues participating for the full term of the contract.
3. A contractor of an agency under the governor's authority, outside the TxDOT-specific statute, follows that agency's own procurement requirements implementing RP-80, which vary by agency but generally mirror the same registration and continued-participation structure.
4. A private employer with no state contract has no Texas-specific E-Verify step to take, but still owes a correctly completed Form I-9 for every hire under federal law, and may register for E-Verify voluntarily.

Records to keep

A covered state agency or contractor keeps the E-Verify Memorandum of Understanding and case results as proof of enrollment and use, since a state agency or the Comptroller's office can request that documentation during the term of a contract. A TxDOT contractor specifically should keep the affirmation documentation TxDOT's own letting process requires, since a missing document can make an otherwise low bid non-responsive. Outside these government-contract contexts, ordinary federal Form I-9 retention, the later of three years after hire or one year after employment ends, is what a Texas employer with no state contract needs to track.

Penalties

• State agencies: Government Code Chapter 673 directs the Texas Workforce Commission to adopt rules and forms implementing the requirement; the accountability runs through the state's own administrative and budget process rather than a fine against the agency.
• State contractors generally: if a state agency determines a contractor was ineligible for award, stopped participating in E-Verify during the contract term, or knowingly used a non-participating subcontractor, the agency refers the matter to the Comptroller of Public Accounts, which can bar the contractor from future state contracts. An affirmative defense exists for a contractor that did not know a subcontractor had stopped participating.
• TxDOT contractors specifically: missing E-Verify documentation at the time of letting can make the lowest bid non-responsive, forfeiting the bid guaranty as liquidated damages, and can exclude the bidder from future lettings for the same scope of work until the issue is resolved.
• Private employers with no state contract: no Texas-specific E-Verify penalty applies, because no Texas-specific E-Verify duty applies to them in the first place.

How this sits on top of Form I-9, and the FAR clause that can still reach a Texas business

Where E-Verify does apply in Texas, it runs off the data already entered on Form I-9 and cannot be used before the I-9 is complete, the same sequencing every other state on this list follows. Separately, a Texas business with no state contract can still be pulled into a mandatory E-Verify requirement through a federal contract that includes FAR clause 52.222-54, which is a federal rule independent of anything Texas state law does or does not require. A Texas government contractor and a federal contractor headquartered in Texas are answering to two different legal regimes that happen to both be called "E-Verify," and a business can be subject to one, both, or neither depending on who it actually contracts with.

A worked example: the same staffing firm, two Texas clients

This is an invented example to show how the contract, not the client's industry or size, decides coverage, not a real company. A San Antonio staffing firm places administrative workers with two clients in the same month: a private law firm renovating its own office, and the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles, filling a temporary records-processing role directly for the agency.

For the law firm placement, there is no Texas state contract anywhere in the relationship. The staffing firm has no Texas-specific E-Verify duty for that worker; it completes Form I-9 as usual and may use E-Verify voluntarily. For the DMV placement, the worker is effectively supporting a state agency's own operations, so the staffing firm needs to confirm with the DMV's contracting office whether its engagement is structured in a way that pulls in Chapter 673's state-agency registration requirement or a separate procurement-level E-Verify term, and needs an answer before the worker starts rather than after. The two placements look similar from the staffing firm's own operational standpoint, same role, same pay rate, same onboarding paperwork, but only one of them sits inside Texas's E-Verify rules at all.

What a staffing agency placing workers into Texas must do

For an ordinary commercial placement in Texas, with no state agency or state contract involved, a staffing or recruiting agency has no Texas-specific E-Verify duty to satisfy, the same as any other private employer in the state. The agency still owes a correctly completed Form I-9 for the worker under federal law, and may use E-Verify voluntarily. The calculus changes the moment the placement supports a state agency directly, or a contractor performing state work: at that point the agency is functioning as a subcontractor in the chain described above, and needs to confirm what the specific agency's or the TxDOT contract's own E-Verify terms require before assigning a worker to that engagement. Because Texas's rule is entirely contract-triggered rather than headcount-triggered, an agency cannot rely on its own size, or the client's size, to determine coverage; it has to ask whether the specific placement touches a state contract at all.

A compliance checklist for employers and agencies working in Texas

1. Confirm whether the position or contract touches a Texas state agency, a TxDOT contract, or neither, since that answer, not headcount, decides whether E-Verify applies.
2. If placing into a state agency's own workforce, confirm that agency's Chapter 673 registration status.
3. If bidding on or subcontracting a TxDOT highway contract, gather E-Verify enrollment proof before the letting, not after.
4. If contracting with any other state agency under the governor's authority, check that specific agency's procurement terms for its own RP-80 implementation.
5. If there is no state contract anywhere in the chain, complete Form I-9 correctly and treat E-Verify as optional.
6. Separately check whether a federal contract in the mix carries FAR clause 52.222-54, which is unrelated to Texas state law and can apply regardless of what Texas requires.
7. If using a staffing agency for Texas roles connected to government work, confirm the agency's own enrollment before workers start on that specific engagement.

For the paperwork sequence around a new hire more broadly, see the contractor onboarding checklist. For how Texas compares with the states that do mandate E-Verify for private employers, see E-Verify requirements by state.