What Is Employment Verification? (And How It's Different From Work Authorization, Employment Eligibility, and Employment History Verification)
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Indiana's FAIRNESS Act (Senate Enrolled Act 76) takes effect July 1, 2026, and every employer with workers in Indiana is covered — no size threshold, no industry carve-outs. Violations carry civil fines up to $10,000 per offense, a first-offense 5-business-day suspension of operating authority at the location where the violation occurred, and permanent revocation for repeat offenders. E-Verify enrollment and use creates a rebuttable presumption that the employer did not knowingly hire an unauthorized worker — the statute's strongest safe harbor.
Attorney General Todd Rokita has named construction the enforcement priority, and his office is already gathering tips ahead of the effective date. With roughly six weeks until July 1, this is the priority-ordered checklist HR teams should work through. For the full regulatory background, see our Indiana FAIRNESS Act employer guide.
The FAIRNESS Act 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. Three details matter for planning the next six weeks:
For the full statutory background, penalty structure, and enforcement mechanics, read our Indiana FAIRNESS Act employer guide. The rest of this article is the action list.
Work through these six actions in order. The first three are time-critical because they have external dependencies (E-Verify enrollment timing, employee schedules) that can't be compressed at the last minute. The final three can run in parallel through June.
Confirm E-Verify enrollment. If your company is not already enrolled, register at E-Verify.gov now. Enrollment is free and typically takes a few business days for approval, plus time to acknowledge the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and complete program-administrator setup. Every legal entity that hires employees must enroll separately — a parent company's enrollment does not cover its subsidiaries, and a general contractor's enrollment does not cover its subcontractors. For state-by-state context, see E-Verify Requirements by State.
Confirm E-Verify "good standing." Enrollment is necessary but not sufficient. Log in to the E-Verify portal and verify: no MOU acknowledgment is overdue, no account suspension is in effect, program administrator and general users are current, and there are no unresolved notifications. A lapsed E-Verify account undermines the safe harbor for hires during the lapse — and for any alternative-procedure (remote) I-9s completed during that window.
Run an I-9 self-audit on Indiana-based employees. The FAIRNESS Act's "continuing to employ" prohibition means July 1 applies to your current Indiana workforce, not just new hires. Focus on anyone whose primary worksite is in Indiana, including remote employees living and working in the state. Check for missing or incomplete Section 1 and Section 2 fields, expired work authorization with no reverification, pending reverifications that have fallen off the calendar, and employees who were never run through E-Verify at hire (relevant if you are enrolling now). Our I-9 self-audit playbook walks through the 7-step process — scope, error inventory, classification, correction, electronic system review, remote-verification check, and documentation.
Document E-Verify use for every new hire post-July 1. This is the operational core of the safe harbor. The rebuttable presumption only works if you can produce the E-Verify case record. Under federal E-Verify rules, cases must be created within three business days of the start date — the same deadline as Section 2. Capture and retain the case number, creation timestamp, final case result, and any Tentative Nonconfirmation (TNC) resolution documentation for every Indiana hire.
Train hiring managers on Indiana-specific risks. Document-request scripts that demand specific documents from one group of employees — or that request more or different documents than Form I-9 requires — can trigger document-abuse claims under INA § 274B. Training should cover: which documents the employee gets to choose from List A / List B / List C, how to handle TNCs without taking adverse employment action, and how to mark the alternative-procedure box correctly when remote verification is used.
Update onboarding workflows to capture proof-of-E-Verify. The rebuttable presumption defense requires evidence, not just policy. Update onboarding to automatically capture the E-Verify case number, completion timestamp, final case result, any TNC notice and resolution record, and the identity of the user who ran the case. If the AG issues a civil investigative demand after July 1, this is the record that supports the safe harbor.
"The employers we see get ready well aren't doing anything exotic — they're just making sure E-Verify enrollment is current, every Indiana hire is run through, and the case record is captured in the personnel file alongside the I-9," says Patricia Duarte, Director of Compliance at i9 Intelligence. "The rebuttable presumption only protects you if you can put the case record in front of an investigator. A policy that says you use E-Verify isn't the defense — the case record is."
Attorney General Rokita has made construction the first industry target. The April 16, 2026 press conference at the Signia Hotel construction site in downtown Indianapolis — held jointly with representatives from the Central Midwest Carpenters Union — was the public launch of that enforcement push. Construction employers need three additional checks on top of the standard checklist.
Subcontractor flow-down compliance. A general contractor is not automatically liable for a subcontractor's hiring practices, but a sub's enforcement problem becomes a GC scrutiny problem fast. Add E-Verify enrollment verification to subcontractor prequalification. Require subs to attest in writing that they are enrolled, in good standing, and running cases on every Indiana hire. Verify the subcontractor's E-Verify status through the E-Verify employer search before awarding work.
Federal contractor overlap. If your company holds federal contracts containing the FAR E-Verify clause (FAR 52.222-54), you are already required to use E-Verify for federal-project hires. Confirm the enrollment is being used for ALL Indiana hires after July 1 — not just hires charged to a federal project. The federal-contractor mandate is the floor, not the ceiling.
DBE / MBE / WBE subcontractor verification. Disadvantaged-, minority-, and women-owned business enterprise certifications do not substitute for I-9 and E-Verify compliance. A certified DBE that is not enrolled in E-Verify faces the same FAIRNESS Act exposure as any other employer — and the GC still faces scrutiny of its vendor qualification process. Treat certification status and E-Verify status as separate qualification gates.
For the construction-specific picture across Indiana and Ohio — including the Ohio Workforce Integrity Act that took effect March 19, 2026 — see our Ohio E-Verify construction mandate guide.
Indiana joins a growing list of states with employer-facing penalties for immigration violations. For multi-state employers, the operational implication is that E-Verify has become the practical default for maintaining consistent compliance across a patchwork of state laws.
| State / Law | Effective | Who's Covered | Penalty / Enforcement |
|---|---|---|---|
| Indiana FAIRNESS Act (SEA 76) | July 1, 2026 | Every employer, no size threshold | Up to $10,000 per violation; 5-business-day to permanent operating-authority suspension. AG-enforced. |
| Florida SB 1718 | July 2023 | Private employers with 25+ employees | Quarterly fines for repeated noncompliance; license suspension for repeat violations. State-agency enforced. |
| Ohio HB 246 (Workforce Integrity Act) | March 19, 2026 | Nonresidential construction contractors, subcontractors, labor brokers | $250–$1,500 for failure to create a case; $5,000–$25,000 for continuing employment after Final Nonconfirmation; permanent license revocation for knowing violations. AG-enforced. |
| Other all-employer or most-employer mandate states | Varies | Alabama, Arizona, Georgia (10+ employees), Mississippi, North Carolina (25+ employees), South Carolina, Tennessee (50+ employees, with smaller-employer alternative) | Most state-agency enforced. Indiana is distinctive in covering every employer with no size threshold and in pairing fines with operating-authority suspension. |
For a full state-by-state breakdown — including states with public-contractor and industry-specific mandates — see our guide E-Verify Requirements by State.
The pre-FAIRNESS-Act baseline in Indiana was a state with no employer-facing penalties — so many employers built I-9 processes that satisfied the federal floor and nothing more. With six weeks left, triage by priority.
Priority 1 — this week. Enroll in E-Verify if you are not already enrolled. The downstream actions all depend on this. Complete the MOU acknowledgment and program-administrator setup the same week. To scope the enrollment and the rest of the lift, schedule a free compliance call — a phone-call kickoff and a quick read on what's actually required usually takes 30 minutes.
Priority 2 — next two weeks. Run the I-9 self-audit on your current Indiana population using the 7-step process in our self-audit playbook. Federal I-9 rules don't allow you to retroactively run E-Verify on existing employees in most circumstances, and trying to manufacture a clean history is itself a risk. Focus on remediating the worst current errors (missing Section 1 signatures, missing dates of hire, missing employer titles) and documenting that you did so.
Priority 3 — final two weeks. Train hiring managers and update onboarding workflows to capture E-Verify case records in the personnel file. The goal is a defensible, documented process by July 1 — not perfection. An employer 80% of the way there with documented good-faith effort is in a meaningfully better position than one with no documentation.
Document everything: enrollment date, training sessions held, audits completed, workflow updates deployed. If the AG opens an investigation, this is the record that demonstrates reasonable diligence.
If you would rather not run the audit and the workflow lift in-house, our compliance team can do it for you. i9 Intelligence's I-9 audit service reviews every Indiana I-9 against current ICE standards, delivers a corrective action report with specific remediation language for each error, and can configure onboarding to capture E-Verify case records automatically. Schedule a free compliance call to scope the work — no obligation, just answers.
Yes. The FAIRNESS Act has no size threshold and no industry carve-outs. A single Indiana hire — including a remote employee working from their home in Indiana — triggers the obligation. The penalty structure is the same whether you have one Indiana employee or one thousand.
The FAIRNESS Act applies to workers performing services in Indiana, regardless of headquarters location. Remote work from a home office in Indiana counts. Multi-state employers need to know which remote employees are physically located in Indiana and ensure those hires meet the FAIRNESS Act standard. Confirm edge cases with employment counsel.
If the PEO is the co-employer of record and runs E-Verify cases for your hires, the PEO's E-Verify use likely supports the safe harbor — but the legal posture depends on which entity is treated as the employer for I-9 purposes. Document the arrangement in writing, confirm the PEO is enrolled and in good standing, and verify that cases are run on Indiana hires within the federal three-business-day window. The rebuttable presumption requires the case record; whether it sits on your system or the PEO's, you need to be able to produce it.
Form I-9 and E-Verify obligations only apply to employees, not to independent contractors properly classified as 1099 workers — and the FAIRNESS Act follows the same employee-employer framework. But misclassifying an employee as a 1099 contractor is a separate exposure under federal and state employment law, and an AG investigation that finds misclassification can pull the worker into FAIRNESS Act scope. Cleanest posture: 1099 contractors are correctly classified per IRS and Department of Labor standards, and every actual employee gets an I-9 and an E-Verify case.
Form I-9 and federal E-Verify rules apply to the hire date. A June 30 hire's I-9 is governed by pre-FAIRNESS rules. But the rebuttable presumption only protects post-July 1 hires that were E-Verify-checked, and the "continuing to employ" prohibition applies to your current workforce starting July 1. Practically: if you are enrolled in E-Verify by the hire date, run a case on the June 30 hire within three business days of the start date. If you are not yet enrolled, complete the I-9 properly, document your good-faith verification, and ensure post-July 1 hires are run through E-Verify the moment enrollment is active.
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.