EEO-1 reporting requirements in 2026: who files, what is reported, what is changing

The EEO-1 is the annual workforce demographics report private employers with 100 or more employees file with the EEOC. It counts employees, not applicants, by job category, sex and race or ethnicity, for one pay period in the fourth quarter of the year. As of October 2026, the requirement is still in the EEOC's regulations, but the collection for 2025 data has not opened, and in July 2026 the EEOC proposed removing the EEO-1 entirely. Employers should keep collecting the underlying data and watch for the final rule rather than assume either outcome.

Below: who files, what goes in the report, what happened to the 2024 and 2025 collections, the 2026 proposal, and what recruiters and HR should keep doing in the meantime.

What changed in 2025 and 2026

The EEOC's press release describes the reports as raising constitutional concerns and estimates their annual cost to employers at almost $275 million. The proposal is not final. Until a final rule is published and takes effect, 29 CFR 1602.7 still requires covered employers to file when the EEOC opens a collection.

Who must file

The legal basis is Title VII's reporting section, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-8(c), and the EEOC's regulation at 29 CFR 1602.7. The 2024 instruction booklet describes three groups:

• Private employers with 100 or more employees during the pay period they select in the fourth quarter.
• Employers with fewer than 100 employees that are part of a single or integrated enterprise with 100 or more in total. The booklet's example is a 30-person parent company with two 35-person subsidiaries.
• Federal contractors with 50 or more employees that are prime contractors or first-tier subcontractors with a contract of $50,000 or more, or that are depositories of government funds or issuing and paying agents for savings bonds. This group came from 41 CFR 60-1.7, which is removed on October 26, 2026. The EEOC's page still lists federal contractors as of October 2026; confirm with the EEOC before a contractor with fewer than 100 employees decides not to file.

Since the 2023 cycle, an employer that meets the threshold at any point in the fourth quarter may not pick a pay period in which it dips below it to avoid filing.

Checking coverage: an example

An invented example. A services company has 70 employees and no federal contracts. It shares owners and senior management with a 40-person software company. Each is below 100 on its own. Three questions decide whether it files:

1. Who counts as an employee? Part-time staff on the payroll count. For seasonal, temporary, leased or agency-supplied workers, follow the instruction booklet in force for the collection year rather than assuming; staffing arrangements are where most coverage errors start.
2. Is there an enterprise of 100 or more? Two companies under common ownership and management may be a single or integrated enterprise, and 70 plus 40 is 110. If they are, both file, as in the booklet's own parent-and-subsidiaries example.
3. Did headcount reach the threshold at any point in October to December? If so, the employer cannot choose a quieter pay period to drop below the line.

What the report contains

Component 1 is a count of employees in a single pay period of the employer's choosing between October 1 and December 31 of the reporting year (the "workforce snapshot period"), broken down three ways:

Multi-establishment employers file a headquarters report and reports for each establishment. Component 2, the pay and hours data collected for 2017 and 2018, has not been collected since; the EEOC decided in 2020 not to continue it.

The federal government's 2024 revision of its race and ethnicity standards, which adds a Middle Eastern or North African category and a combined question, gives federal data collections until March 28, 2029 to conform. The 2024 EEO-1 did not adopt it, and the 2026 proposal does not mention it.

How the data is collected

The instruction booklet says voluntary self-identification by employees is the preferred method. If an employee declines to self-identify their race or ethnicity, employment records or observer identification may be used, and the information should be kept separately from the employee's personnel file.

That has three practical consequences for HR and recruiting:

1. Ask at onboarding, on a separate form. Make it clear the form is voluntary and that declining has no effect. Keep the responses out of the files hiring managers see.
2. Do not import candidate guesses. Observer identification is a narrow EEO-1 fallback for employees who decline. It has no place in screening notes, scorecards or submittals; see what not to write in interview notes.
3. Assign job categories when the job is created, not at filing time. Mapping titles to the ten categories once, at requisition, saves a scramble later and keeps the categories consistent year to year.

Consequences of not filing

• Court order. Under 29 CFR 1602.9 and § 2000e-8(c), the EEOC may apply to a federal district court for an order compelling an employer to file.
• False statements. Under 29 CFR 1602.8, willfully false statements on the report are punishable under 18 U.S.C. § 1001, and the certification on the form says so.
• Late filing. The 2024 instructions said late reports would not be accepted after the deadline and a missed year could not be filed in a later cycle.

What not to confuse with the EEO-1

What to do while the rule is pending

• Keep collecting voluntary self-identification at hire. If the EEO-1 survives, you need it; if it does not, many employers will still want the data for their own analysis, and VEVRAA-covered contractors still need veteran status.
• Keep the snapshot data. Save a fourth-quarter 2025 and 2026 pay period extract with job categories, so you can file quickly if a collection opens with a short window, as the 2024 one did.
• Do not delete prior filings. Past reports and their working files remain relevant to any charge or lawsuit, and the general retention rules still apply.
• Watch two pages: the EEOC's data collections page for the 2025 collection, and the Federal Register for a final rule on the July 2026 proposal.
• Remember state reporting. Some states run their own pay data reports with their own deadlines, and they are not affected by the federal proposal. California's pay data reporting, for example, is a separate state obligation; check it and any similar state rule directly.