The 2026 Midterms and Form I-9: What Changes for Employers, and When
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Colorado House Bill 26-1283, signed June 3, 2026 and effective the same day under its safety clause, bars employers and their agents from demanding, confiscating, or keeping a worker's government-issued ID. The new statute, C.R.S. 8-2-124.5, still lets employers review and copy documents for Form I-9, but caps how long they can hold an original at ten hours. It also adds a written notice that every Colorado worker has to acknowledge when their employment eligibility is verified. Colorado hasn't published a model notice, and the statute sets no specific penalty for skipping it.
For most employers, the ten-hour cap changes nothing, because Form I-9 never required you to keep anyone's originals. The notice is the new work, and it applies at every verification. Federal guidance already tells employers to examine the documents and hand them back. What Colorado adds is a signed acknowledgment, in the employee's language, sitting in the personnel file.
The statute has three working parts for employers. The first is the ban itself in subsection (1). An employer or its agent can't demand, confiscate, retain, or require someone to surrender a government-issued ID card, and that covers employees, applicants, and anyone working or seeking work "in any capacity, including a migrant worker or seasonal employee."
Under the I-9 exception, an employer may request and temporarily hold the card to complete Form I-9, keep it "only for as long as is necessary to verify the individual's employment eligibility and make a copy of the card, and in no case for more than ten hours," and keep a copy in its records. Retention that state or federal law requires or permits, or that a signed judicial warrant orders, is also carved out.
The third part is the notice in subsection (2). "When an employer verifies an individual's employment eligibility," it has to tell the person about the ban in a notice that meets four conditions.
The employer then keeps a record of the notice and the acknowledgment in its employment records. The law doesn't say for how long.
The federal rule already points the same way as Colorado's. M-274 Section 4.1 says employers "may make copies (or electronic images) of the documentation you reviewed, but must return original documentation to the employee." Section 2 asks you to examine the documents, record them, and give them back, which takes minutes.
The ten-hour limit is aimed at the places where originals do get held, like a passport kept in a crew leader's truck until the paperwork is done, or a license left at the front desk overnight. A process that examines and returns documents at the table is already inside the limit with hours to spare.
Remote verification never gets close to the limit. Under DHS's alternative procedure, the employee sends copies, then holds the same documents up during a live video call. With remote Section 2 done by our compliance team, the original never leaves the employee's hands. The notice still applies, though, since the statute ties it to verifying eligibility and says nothing about how the documents are examined.
The statute's only timing language is "when an employer verifies an individual's employment eligibility." It doesn't define a window in minutes, so nobody can tell you yet whether the same hour counts. Our recommendation is to make the acknowledgment part of the Form I-9 step itself, signed before or during the document review for Section 2, so the date on the acknowledgment matches the date on the I-9.
Reverification in Supplement B is also a verification of employment eligibility, and the statute doesn't exempt it, so we'd give the notice again at reverification and at rehire. A one-page acknowledgment costs less than an argument about whether it was required.
Every notice has to be in English, and a second language is required when the employer knows the person's primary language isn't English, and the statute doesn't say how an employer comes to know that. A hiring manager who interviewed someone in Spanish knows. So does an onboarding team that sent Section 1 instructions in Vietnamese.
Colorado hasn't published a model notice or official translations. Employers with a multilingual Colorado workforce should translate the notice into the languages their new hires actually speak before the next hire needs one, rather than scrambling on the first day.
The notice is a state step that most I-9 workflows weren't built to carry. Book a free compliance call and our team will look at where your Colorado acknowledgment fits in your hiring process, from Section 1 through reverification.
The criminal exposure is tied to holding the card. An employer that knowingly violates subsection (1) commits criminal possession of an identification document under C.R.S. 18-5-903.5, a class 2 misdemeanor. The same act expands Colorado's bias-motivated crime statute, so holding someone's ID, or providing or threatening to provide it to federal immigration authorities when no law requires or permits it, is a class 1 misdemeanor when done to intimidate or harass because of a protected characteristic. A worker harmed by the possession offense can ask a court to order the document returned immediately and can sue for damages.
The statute doesn't attach a penalty to the notice. That doesn't make it optional. A missing acknowledgment is the first thing a plaintiff's lawyer would point to in a dispute over whether an employer kept someone's documents, and the employer would have no record showing it explained the rule.
No. Section 2 works the same way, with the same documents and the same three-business-day deadline. The law adds a separate state acknowledgment and limits how long you can hold an original, which a compliant process never does anyway.
Yes. The statute expressly lets employers keep a copy of the ID in their records. Federal rules still apply too, so copying stays optional for most employers unless E-Verify photo matching requires it, and you copy for every hire or for none.
The statute ties the notice to verifying eligibility and doesn't mention how documents are examined, so we'd give it for remote hires as well. The ten-hour limit doesn't come into play when the employee keeps the documents during a video review.
Colorado hasn't published one, and the statute doesn't require a specific format, so employers are drafting their own notice that covers the subsection (2) requirements.
June 3, 2026. The act included a safety clause, which in Colorado makes a law effective when the governor signs it, and it applies to conduct on or after that date.
Our compliance team has handled Form I-9 and E-Verify for 28 years, through every state rule layered on top. Reach us here: