Uses the current federal penalty ranges, $288 to $2,861 per I-9 and $716 to $28,619 per unauthorized worker.
Every I-9 with a mistake counts as its own violation, so penalties grow with headcount, turnover, and how far back ICE looks.
Each row uses the same math as the calculator above, so you can plug in your own numbers and compare.
That's your current employees plus the people who left during the period ICE looks back on, usually one year for a first inspection.
Each one is fined $288 to $2,861. When a large share of your forms have mistakes, ICE's opening fine lands near the top of that range.
Knowingly hiring or keeping someone who isn't authorized is fined separately, $716 to $28,619 per worker, on top of the paperwork fines.
Sources: 8 CFR 274a.10; civil penalty inflation adjustment, January 2, 2025; ICE Form I-9 inspection fact sheet; published OCAHO decisions. The estimate uses $2,700 per form with mistakes and $3,721 per unauthorized worker, and the worst case uses $2,861 and $4,500.
The penalties for Form I-9 violations run $288 to $2,861 for each form with a mistake, and every form counts separately. Knowingly hiring or keeping someone who isn't authorized to work is fined on top of that, $716 to $28,619 per worker. Our 2026 I-9 penalties guide covers every category.
Far more of them can be now, because ICE's 2026 fact sheet moved common errors from technical to substantive, including a missing date of birth, a missing hire date, an undated Section 1 or Section 2, a missing employer title, and missing document details, so they can be fined right away. Only a short list of technical mistakes, like a missing physical address or business name, still gets the ten-business-day window to fix. Here's everything ICE reclassified this year.
Not necessarily, since I-9s done in HRIS systems often fail at 30% or more, because the software only records what people enter, so late Section 2s, wrong documents, and missed reverifications still get through. ICE also now lists an electronic I-9 system that doesn't meet the federal standards for signatures, audit trails, and storage as a substantive violation on its own.
No. E-Verify checks the information from the Form I-9 against government records, but it doesn't fix the form itself, so every I-9 mistake can still be fined. Using E-Verify gives you a rebuttable presumption that you didn't knowingly hire someone unauthorized, and only when you followed both the Form I-9 and E-Verify steps correctly.
Sometimes. ICE can issue a Warning Notice instead of a fine when it expects you to comply going forward, but not if you've been warned or fined before, missed the correction window, couldn't present your I-9s, or backdated anything.
Yes. ICE inspects employers of every size, and since every form is its own violation, a small business with paper I-9s can still face a five-figure fine. Our ICE worksite enforcement tracker follows the latest audits and raids.
Audit your I-9s before ICE does, because finding and correcting mistakes now, the right way and without backdating, takes most of them off the table and shows good faith if an inspection ever comes.
Our US-based compliance team reviews your I-9s, on paper or in another system, and shows you exactly what to fix.
in 28 years