Form I-9 penalties in 2026: the amounts, the tiers, and what moves a fine up or down

Form I-9 penalties are set per form and per worker, not per company. As of October 2026, a paperwork violation costs between $288 and $2,861 for each form, and knowingly hiring or continuing to employ an unauthorized worker costs between $716 and $28,619 per worker depending on whether it is a first, second or later offense. Those figures are the 2025 inflation-adjusted amounts, and they did not rise for 2026. The more useful question for an employer is how ICE gets from a stack of forms to a dollar figure, because that is the part you can influence.

The amounts, in one table

These are the ranges for violations that occurred after November 2, 2015, as set in DHS's January 2, 2025 inflation adjustment and DOJ's 2025 adjustment for the same immigration penalties heard before its administrative law judges.

The last row matters as much as the first. Over-documenting, such as asking a noncitizen for a green card when they offered an acceptable List A or List C document, is enforced by the Justice Department's Immigrant and Employee Rights Section and carries its own per-person penalty. Fixing I-9 risk by asking for more paper trades one exposure for another; see I-9 List A, B and C documents for what you may and may not request.

Criminal exposure is separate. Under 8 U.S.C. 1324a(f), a pattern or practice of knowingly hiring or continuing to employ unauthorized workers can bring a fine of up to $3,000 per unauthorized worker, up to six months' imprisonment for the entire pattern or practice, or both. ICE's fact sheet also notes that employers found to have knowingly hired or continued to employ unauthorized workers may face debarment from federal contracting.

Why the 2026 numbers did not change

Federal civil penalties are normally adjusted every January using the consumer price index for the prior October. The Bureau of Labor Statistics could not produce October 2025 data during the October to November 2025 lapse in appropriations, and the statute allows no substitute method. On April 17, 2026, OMB issued memorandum M-26-11 cancelling the 2026 adjustment and telling agencies to keep using their 2025 amounts. The Justice Department confirmed this for its immigration-related penalties in a July 15, 2026 Federal Register notice. I could not find a separate 2026 notice from DHS; the amounts codified in 8 CFR 274a.10 are still the 2025 figures. Expect the next change with the 2027 adjustment, and check the Federal Register before quoting a number in a policy or memo.

How ICE gets from an inspection to a fine

The process, as described in ICE's Form I-9 Inspection fact sheet, runs in a fixed order:

1. Notice of Inspection. The employer has at least three business days to produce the Forms I-9 requested.
2. Review. ICE reviews the forms and sorts what it finds into technical or procedural failures and substantive violations.
3. Interim notices. These can include a Notice of Technical or Procedural Failures (with at least ten business days to correct), a Notice of Suspect Documents, or a Notice of Discrepancies.
4. Outcome. A compliance letter, a warning notice, or a Notice of Intent to Fine.
5. Response. An employer that receives a Notice of Intent to Fine can negotiate or request a hearing before the Office of the Chief Administrative Hearing Officer. ICE must receive the hearing request within 30 calendar days of the employer's receipt of the notice.

The 10-business-day correction window comes from the statute itself: under 8 U.S.C. 1324a(b)(6), a technical or procedural failure counts as compliance if the employer made a good-faith attempt to comply and corrects it in time. It does not apply to substantive violations, and it does not apply to an employer that has engaged in a pattern or practice of violations.

The five factors

For paperwork violations, the statute requires ICE to weigh the size of the business, the employer's good faith, the seriousness of the violation, whether the individual was actually unauthorized, and the history of previous violations. ICE's fact sheet treats each factor as aggravating, mitigating or neutral, moving the base amount up or down by 5 percent per factor, for a maximum swing of 25 percent in either direction. For knowingly-hire violations, ICE calculates a separate violation rate based on the number of those violations relative to the forms that should have been produced.

What now counts as substantive

The line between technical and substantive decides whether you get a chance to fix an error before it is fined. ICE's current fact sheet, revised in 2026, lists these among the substantive violations:

• failing to prepare a Form I-9, or to present it when asked;
• completing Section 1 or Section 2 late;
• a missing legal name or date of birth in Section 1, or no single status box checked;
• a missing A-Number or USCIS number for a lawful permanent resident, or missing A-Number, I-94 or passport details for someone with temporary work authorization;
• a missing employee signature or date;
• in Section 2, failing to record the document title, issuing authority, number or expiration date, a missing first day of employment, or a missing employer signature or date;
• failing to check the alternative procedure box when documents were examined remotely;
• failing to reverify on time, or missing preparer or translator details on Supplement A;
• an electronic I-9 system that does not meet the regulatory standards.

The technical list is now short: largely an outdated form edition, missing "other last names used" or address in Section 1, and missing employee name or business details in places where the information exists elsewhere on the form. If your internal audit guide still treats a missing date of birth or a missing document number as a minor fix, it is working from an older playbook. See electronic I-9 storage requirements if your forms live in an HR system, since system deficiencies are on the substantive list.

A worked example

The numbers below are an illustration, not ICE's calculation for any real case. Say an employer with 200 current and former employees in the inspection period produces its forms, and the review finds:

• 12 forms where Section 2 was completed after the third business day;
• 18 forms with no document number or expiration date recorded in Section 2;
• 10 forms with an outdated edition and a missing address in Section 1.

The 10 technical failures go on a Notice of Technical or Procedural Failures, and if the employer corrects them properly within the window, they drop out. The 30 substantive violations remain. At the statutory floor and ceiling, those 30 forms are worth somewhere between $8,640 (30 × $288) and $85,830 (30 × $2,861). Where in that range the fine lands depends on the factors: a documented self-audit program and prompt cooperation argue for good faith, while finding that some of the 30 employees were not actually authorized to work is an aggravating factor on seriousness and on the unauthorized-worker factor.

What actually lowers exposure

• Audit before anyone else does. A recurring internal review, with corrections made the right way, is the clearest evidence of good faith. See the I-9 audit checklist and how to correct common I-9 mistakes; backdating or whiting out turns a paperwork problem into a credibility problem.
• Fix the process, not just the forms. Most late Section 2 violations come from start dates that HR did not hear about in time. Tie the I-9 deadline to the confirmed start date in your offer workflow, as described in Form I-9 timing in hiring.
• Purge forms on schedule. Every form you hold is a form that can be inspected. Apply the retention formula in I-9 retention rules and destroy forms that have passed it, consistently and with a record of what was destroyed.
• Track reverification dates. A missed expiration date is a substantive violation and can turn into a continuing-to-employ problem if the person's authorization actually lapsed.
• If you use E-Verify, close the loop. Continuing to employ someone after a final nonconfirmation without notifying DHS carries its own penalty, and the E-Verify memorandum of understanding says it creates a rebuttable presumption that the employer knowingly employed an unauthorized worker.

A short checklist

• Keep a current list of where your Forms I-9 are, by location and by system, so you can produce them in three business days.
• Compare your audit criteria against the current ICE fact sheet's substantive list, not an older internal one.
• Record the date and method of every correction, and initial and date each change.
• Train anyone who completes Section 2 not to ask for specific or extra documents.
• Check the Federal Register for the 2027 penalty adjustment before updating policy documents.