Form I-9 Edition Dates: How to Tell If Your Version Is Still Valid

If a new hire wants to check whether the Form I-9 (Employment Eligibility Verification) their employer used is a current, valid edition, the form itself carries the answer in two dates printed on the page: an edition date at the bottom and an expiration date at the top, per USCIS’s official Form I-9 page (USCIS I-9). Reading those two dates — and knowing which prior editions USCIS still permits — settles the edition question without needing to consult anyone else.

This original record-reading guide is a general reading aid, not cited evidence. It does not depict a source record; the article text and source links provide the facts.

Key points

• The edition date sits at the bottom of the form and instructions, in mm/dd/yy format; the expiration date sits at the top, in mm/dd/yyyy format.
• USCIS currently allows use of the 08/01/23-edition form under two different expiration dates, depending on which printing an employer holds.
• Employers running an electronic I-9 system have a hard deadline to move to the newer expiration date.
• A form assembled from pages of different editions can be rejected outright.
• Employers must keep a completed Form I-9 on file for a set minimum period tied to hire and termination dates.

Form I-9 dates

The two dates are not interchangeable, and they are not in the same place on the page. According to USCIS, “You can find the edition date at the bottom of the page on the form and instructions” (USCIS I-9), and that date is formatted differently from the expiration date: “Edition dates are listed in mm/dd/yy format” (USCIS I-9).

The expiration date is printed separately, at the opposite end of the page, in a longer format: “You can find the expiration date at the top of the page on the form and instructions” (USCIS I-9), and “Expiration dates are listed in mm/dd/yyyy format” (USCIS I-9). A reader checking their own copy should look at the bottom margin for a short two-digit-year date (the edition) and the top margin for a longer four-digit-year date (the expiration) — these are two different pieces of information, not two ways of stating the same date.

Valid prior editions

USCIS’s Form I-9 page states that employers “may also use the following previous editions” (USCIS I-9) alongside the current one, rather than requiring immediate retirement of every earlier printing. Specifically, the page lists two currently acceptable versions carrying the same edition date but different expiration dates:

• “Form I-9 with an 08/01/23 edition date, valid until its expiration date of 05/31/2027” (USCIS I-9)
• “Form I-9 with an 08/01/23 edition date, valid until its expiration date of 07/31/2026” (USCIS I-9)

In other words, two printings share the identical 08/01/23 edition date at the bottom of the page but carry different expiration dates at the top — one running to 2027 and one running to 2026. Checking the edition date alone is not enough to confirm a form’s status; the expiration date at the top is what distinguishes the two currently valid versions from each other.

The deadline for electronic I-9 systems

Employers who use an electronic Form I-9 system face a specific cutover date rather than an open-ended allowance. USCIS states: “Employers using an electronic version of Form I-9 must update their systems with the version that has the expiration date of 05/31/2027 by 07/31/2026” (USCIS I-9). That means the 07/31/2026-expiration version of the form is not meant to remain in an electronic system indefinitely — it has a scheduled replacement date built into the same guidance that lists it as currently valid.

Mixed-edition rejection

USCIS also warns that a form is not judged only by its overall edition date — every page must match. Per the agency: “If any of the form’s pages are missing or are from a different form edition, we may reject your form” (USCIS I-9). A form assembled by combining pages from two different printings, even if each individual page is otherwise a currently valid edition, is treated as defective for that reason alone.

I-9 retention period

Once a Form I-9 is completed, USCIS specifies a minimum retention period tied to two possible reference points, whichever comes later: “Retain and store Form I-9 for three years after the date of hire, or for one year after employment is terminated, whichever is later” (USCIS I-9). This retention rule is separate from the edition-validity questions above — it governs how long the completed record must be kept, not which edition was used to create it.

What this article does not cover

This article answers only the edition-identification question — how to read the edition and expiration dates on a Form I-9, which prior editions remain valid and until when, the electronic-system deadline, why mixed-edition forms can be rejected, and how long a completed form must be retained. It does not address which supporting documents (from List A, B, or C) a specific worker should present to complete Section 2, and it does not speak to any reader’s own work authorization or immigration status — those are individual determinations outside the scope of an edition check. It also does not evaluate whether a specific employer completed or retained a given I-9 correctly; the retention figure above states the federal minimum period only, not a judgment about any particular employer’s practice. Finally, because Form I-9 is a federal requirement with no state-level layer described in USCIS’s own guidance, this article does not discuss any state-specific I-9 rule.

Source links

• https://www.uscis.gov/i-9