I-9 acceptable documents: the list, and the mistake of asking for more

The I-9 acceptable documents are the items an employee may present to establish identity and authorisation to work, arranged in three lists. List A documents establish both at once. List B establishes identity only, and List C establishes work authorisation only, so a List B item must be paired with a List C item. The employee presents either one List A document, or one from B plus one from C — and the choice is theirs.

That last clause carries most of the legal risk in the process. An employer who names the document they want, asks for a second one because the first looked unfamiliar, or requires a specific document from someone who appears foreign, has committed document abuse. It is a separate violation with its own penalties, and it is usually committed by people trying to be careful.

How the I-9 acceptable documents lists work

• List A — identity and work authorisation together. A United States passport or passport card, a permanent resident card, a foreign passport with the appropriate endorsement or accompanying document, and the employment authorisation document are the common ones.
• List B — identity only. A state driver’s licence or ID card with photograph or identifying information, and a limited set of alternatives including specific documents for people under eighteen.
• List C — work authorisation only. A Social Security account number card without employment restrictions, and certain birth certificates and other federal documents.
• One from A, or one from B and one from C. Never one from B alone, and never extras "for the file".

What the employer actually has to judge

The standard is whether the document reasonably appears to be genuine and to relate to the person presenting it. That is deliberately not a forensic standard: employers are not document examiners and are not expected to detect a good forgery. Accepting a document that reasonably appears genuine is a defence; rejecting one because it is unfamiliar is not, and asking for something else instead is where the violation happens. If a document genuinely does not appear genuine or does not relate to the person, the employee may present other documents from the lists — the employee still chooses.

Receipts for lost, stolen or damaged documents are acceptable for a limited period, after which the actual document must be presented. Track that date. A receipt accepted and never followed up is an incomplete form, and it is the kind of gap an audit finds immediately.

Copying documents: all or none

Employers may photocopy the documents presented, and are required to if they use E-Verify. What they may not do is copy selectively — copies for employees who look foreign and not for others is evidence of discriminatory practice. Decide the policy, write it down into the employee onboarding checklist, apply it to everyone, and keep the copies with the form rather than in the personnel file. Copies are not a substitute for completing section two properly; they are supporting evidence for it.

Expiry and reverification

Where the document establishing work authorisation expires, the authorisation must be reverified before it does — but not for permanent resident cards, and not for List B identity documents whose expiry is irrelevant to authorisation. Getting this backwards in either direction is common: reverifying a green card is itself improper, while failing to reverify an expiring employment authorisation document leaves the employee working without a current record. Ettex Sheets tracks the reverification dates per person, Ettex Records keeps the forms and any copies together with the retention date, and the form itself is covered in i 9 form.

Plainly: not legal advice, and the lists themselves change — items have been added and removed over the years and the authoritative version is the one printed with the current edition of the form and on the USCIS site. Use that, not a copy of the list from a blog.