Indiana's FAIRNESS Act takes effect July 1, 2026, and it applies to every employer operating in the state. Senate Enrolled Act 76 — signed into law by Governor Mike Braun on March 5, 2026 — makes it unlawful for any Indiana employer to knowingly or intentionally recruit, hire, or continue to employ a worker who is not authorized to work in the United States. Violations can result in fines up to $10,000 and, in the most serious cases, temporary or permanent revocation of a business's authority to operate in Indiana.
The law includes an explicit safe harbor for employers who use E-Verify. A worker who comes back as work-authorized through E-Verify creates a rebuttable presumption that the employer did not knowingly hire an unauthorized worker. For Indiana employers who have been running I-9s on paper, inside a generalist HCM module, or without E-Verify enrollment, July 1 is a hard deadline to rethink the process.
The FAIRNESS Act is Senate Enrolled Act 76, signed into law by Governor Mike Braun on March 5, 2026. The law takes effect July 1, 2026, and creates the first state-level penalties in Indiana's history for employers who knowingly employ unauthorized workers.
The act adds a new chapter to the Indiana Code covering employer obligations related to work eligibility. It gives the Indiana Attorney General the authority to investigate employers suspected of violations, bring civil actions against them, and request court orders suspending or revoking business operating authority. Previous Indiana law addressed immigration status at a policy level but did not create employer-facing civil penalties. The FAIRNESS Act changes that.
For legal analysis of the law's practical implications, see coverage from Kahn, Dees, Donovan & Kahn and The Indiana Lawyer.
Every employer operating in Indiana is covered by the FAIRNESS Act. Unlike state laws that target specific industries or company sizes, Indiana's law applies uniformly:
The law targets the hiring, recruiting, and continued employment of workers in Indiana — not whether the employer itself is based in the state. If you have workers performing services in Indiana, the FAIRNESS Act applies to those hires.
The statute prohibits three related categories of conduct. An employer violates the law if it knowingly or intentionally:
The "continuing to employ" prohibition is the one most likely to trip up employers operating in good faith. It means that once an employer learns a current employee is not authorized to work — through a Social Security Administration mismatch, an expired document with no valid reverification, or any other reliable indicator — the employer cannot keep that worker on payroll. The obligation runs through the entire employment relationship, not just at hire.
The "knowing or intentional" standard is important. The law does not create strict liability — an employer who follows good-faith verification practices and is deceived by fraudulent documents is not automatically in violation. But the law puts the burden on the employer to demonstrate what that good-faith practice looked like.
The FAIRNESS Act includes an explicit safe harbor for employers who exercise reasonable diligence to confirm work eligibility. The statute identifies two ways to demonstrate reasonable diligence:
For employers who use E-Verify, the protection goes a step further. If a worker comes back as work-authorized through E-Verify, the law creates a rebuttable presumption that the employer did not knowingly hire an unauthorized worker. This is the strongest protection available under the statute. In practice, it means that an employer running proper E-Verify cases on every new hire has a documented, verifiable defense against a knowing-hire allegation — even if the underlying work authorization later turns out to have been issued in error.
The "industry best practices" path is the weaker option. Because the term is undefined, an employer relying on it is essentially inviting the Attorney General's office to second-guess its hiring practices during an investigation. Employers who skip E-Verify will need to document what their verification process looks like, why it qualifies as an industry best practice, and how it compares to what similarly situated employers do — all in real time, under investigative pressure.
Our compliance team can review your current I-9 and verification practices and walk you through what the FAIRNESS Act changes for your specific situation. Schedule a free compliance call — no obligation, no sales pitch. Just answers.
The FAIRNESS Act establishes a penalty structure that escalates based on the number of violations and the severity of the conduct. These are state-level penalties — separate from any federal I-9 or E-Verify penalties that may apply independently.
| Consequence | When It Applies |
|---|---|
| Civil fines up to $10,000 | Per violation, imposed by a court on AG motion |
| 5-business-day suspension of operating authority | First-offense shutdown at the location where the violation occurred |
| Permanent revocation of operating authority | Repeat offenses — can extend to all of the employer's Indiana locations |
| Injunctive relief | Court-ordered corrective action, compliance monitoring, or other remedies |
The statutory language gives the court broad discretion to match the remedy to the scale of the violation. A single knowing hire at one location is a different case from a pattern of violations across a company's entire Indiana operation. The Attorney General has signaled that both will be pursued, with the most severe consequences reserved for employers with repeat or widespread violations.
These state penalties are in addition to any federal penalties for I-9 violations, which range from $288 to $2,861 per paperwork violation and up to $28,619 per unauthorized hire under the current 2026 Federal Register adjustment. See our full breakdown of I-9 penalties in 2026.
The Indiana Attorney General is the sole enforcement authority under the FAIRNESS Act. Here is how the process works in practice:
The civil investigative demand is the tool employers are most likely to encounter first. Responding to a CID without legal counsel is a mistake — the information the employer produces becomes the foundation of the AG's case. If you receive a civil investigative demand regarding FAIRNESS Act compliance, contact employment counsel immediately.
Attorney General Rokita has made clear that construction is the first industry target for FAIRNESS Act enforcement. The Center for Migration Studies estimates that construction accounts for approximately 20% of the undocumented workforce nationally, making it the industry with the highest concentration of unauthorized workers.
The political coalition behind the law reinforces this focus. The Central Midwest Carpenters Union — a major construction trades organization — has publicly backed the FAIRNESS Act. Union representatives have cited wage undercutting as the core issue, pointing to reports of workers hanging drywall for as little as 15 cents per square foot on commercial projects. For the carpenters union, enforcement of employer hiring rules is an economic fairness issue: contractors who comply with the law cannot compete on price with contractors who don't.
For construction contractors, subcontractors, and labor brokers operating in Indiana, this means:
Contractors who already enroll in E-Verify and document their compliance have a significantly stronger defense position than contractors who don't.
The FAIRNESS Act is part of a broader pattern. Multiple states have moved in the past two years to create state-level employer penalties for immigration violations — recognizing that federal I-9 enforcement alone has historically been reactive and resource-limited.
Notable state-level mandates include:
The common thread across these state laws is E-Verify as the compliance path. States that have created employer-facing penalties have almost universally adopted E-Verify as the safe harbor, the requirement, or both. For employers operating across multiple states, the operational reality is that E-Verify is no longer a nice-to-have federal option — it is the practical default for maintaining compliance across a patchwork of state laws.
For a complete breakdown, see our state-by-state guide: E-Verify Requirements by State (2026).
"Indiana is the latest, but it won't be the last. Every quarter we're watching another state pass employer-facing penalties, and construction always gets hit first," says Jed Butler, CEO of i9 Intelligence. "The employers who figure this out now — who just make E-Verify part of how they onboard, period — stop having to track 50 state laws. They have one compliant process that works everywhere."
If your company hires workers in Indiana, here is what to do before July 1, 2026:
If your company is not already enrolled in E-Verify, register at E-Verify.gov. Enrollment is free and typically takes one to two business days for approval. You will need your company's legal name, EIN, and a designated program administrator. Every legal entity that hires employees must enroll separately — a parent company's enrollment does not cover its subsidiaries.
The "continuing to employ" prohibition means that the July 1 effective date applies to your current workforce, not just new hires after that date. Review your existing I-9 records for:
An internal audit now — while the errors are still correctable — is significantly less expensive than responding to a civil investigative demand after July 1.
Starting when you enroll, you must create an E-Verify case for every new employee within three business days of the employee's start date — the same deadline as completing Section 2 of Form I-9. The E-Verify case uses information from the completed Form I-9. You cannot run a case without a completed I-9, and you cannot run a case before the employee has started work.
Even with E-Verify enrolled, your compliance posture is only as strong as your documentation. Keep records that demonstrate:
If the Attorney General's office opens an investigation, this is the documentation that supports the rebuttable presumption.
Anyone involved in hiring needs to understand the new Indiana law. This includes HR staff, hiring managers, project managers on construction sites, and office administrators who handle onboarding. Common mistakes to avoid:
Complying with the FAIRNESS Act requires more than just enrolling in E-Verify. Indiana employers — especially multi-state employers, construction contractors with workers on active job sites, and companies with significant existing workforces to audit — need a system that keeps I-9 and E-Verify processes connected, on time, and audit-ready.
E-Verify integration. i9 Intelligence connects directly to E-Verify, so cases are created automatically from completed Form I-9 data. No duplicate data entry, no missed deadlines, no toggling between systems.
Remote Section 2 verification. Indiana workers start at job sites, field offices, and remote locations — not always at a central HR desk. With remote verification, new hires complete Section 2 of Form I-9 over a live video call with a trained i9 Intelligence authorized representative — from the job site, a hotel, or anywhere with a phone. No travel, no notary, no delay.
Compliance tracking and reverification scheduling. Every I-9 and E-Verify case is stored electronically with automatic reverification scheduling. Expiring work authorization documents surface before they become "continuing to employ" violations under the FAIRNESS Act.
Audit-ready records. If the Attorney General's office issues a civil investigative demand, you need to produce E-Verify records and documented reasonable-diligence evidence quickly. i9 Intelligence keeps every case result, TNC notice, and confirmation page organized and accessible.
To see how it works, book a demo or use our I-9 Risk Calculator to estimate your current compliance exposure.
Yes. Unlike Florida's E-Verify law — which applies only to private employers with 25 or more employees — Indiana's FAIRNESS Act has no size threshold. A two-person company that hires its third employee in Indiana on July 1, 2026, is subject to the same obligations as a 5,000-person employer.
E-Verify is not expressly mandated by the FAIRNESS Act. Employers can theoretically rely on "industry best practices" instead. In practice, E-Verify is the only path that creates a rebuttable presumption that the employer did not knowingly hire an unauthorized worker. Employers who skip E-Verify bear the burden of demonstrating their alternative verification practice qualifies as an industry best practice — a much weaker position if investigated.
No. Form I-9 is a federal requirement for every U.S. employer and predates the FAIRNESS Act. Completing I-9s properly is necessary but not sufficient under Indiana law. To get the statute's safe-harbor protection, Indiana employers need E-Verify enrollment and documented use, in addition to proper I-9s.
The FAIRNESS Act applies to workers performing services in Indiana, regardless of the employer's headquarters. An out-of-state company that hires an Indiana-based employee on July 1, 2026, or later must meet the FAIRNESS Act's requirements for that Indiana hire. Multi-state employers should review their enrollment and process consistency across all states where they have Indiana workers.
Existing employees do not need to be retroactively run through E-Verify. Federal E-Verify rules prohibit running cases on existing employees except in narrow circumstances (new federal contracts with the E-Verify clause, for example). However, the FAIRNESS Act's "continuing to employ" prohibition applies to your current workforce as of July 1, 2026. If you learn a current employee is not authorized to work — through a reverification, a Social Security mismatch, or any other reliable indicator — you cannot continue employing that worker.
The statute focuses on the direct employer-employee relationship. A general contractor is not automatically liable for a subcontractor's hiring practices under the FAIRNESS Act. However, subcontractors who knowingly hire unauthorized workers face their own FAIRNESS Act exposure, and general contractors whose subcontractors have enforcement problems will face scrutiny of their own vendor qualification processes. Adding E-Verify enrollment verification to subcontractor prequalification is a straightforward way to reduce risk.
The Indiana Attorney General's office has said enforcement begins July 1, 2026 — the law's effective date. Attorney General Rokita has publicly announced that worksite inspections will begin that day, with construction as a stated priority. Given the AG's stated interest in gathering tips now, investigations initiated in July could involve conduct and hiring practices in place today.
Need help with Indiana FAIRNESS Act compliance? Call (713) 668-6200 (Mon–Fri, 8 AM – 5 PM CT), email support@i-9intelligence.com, or submit a support ticket.
