We wanted to answer a question that represents an important issue of semantics: what should an employer enter for the “hire date” requested by the E-Verify system? Much of the E-Verify literature, including DHS presentations, has indicated that the “hire date” is the day on which the employee accepts the position. The I-9 regulations, however, define “hire date” as the first day the employee starts work, which may be different.

Faced with this confusion, many employers have been entering the employee’s actual start date into E-Verify, to be consistent with the I-9 form. The problem with this scenario is that the E-Verify system will not allow a hire date in the future, so these employers cannot perform the E-Verify query in advance, which is allowed by DHS as long as an offer of employment has been accepted and the I-9 form has been completed.

We recently posed this question to E-Verify staff and received confirmation that in such a scenario, the E-Verify hire date can be the same date on which the E-Verify initial verification query is performed, or any date in the past (such as the date of job acceptance or date of I-9 completion). The E-Verify staff indicated that they will develop additional materials to clarify the hire date concept, although there was no timeline given for its release.