On January 31, 2020, United States Citizen and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) published the new version of the Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification. The latest version includes minor changes to the form and its instructions and is dated October 21, 2019 (the date the new version was approved). USCIS made the following changes:

Form Changes:

Revised the Country of Issuance field in Section 1 and the Issuing Authority field (when selecting a foreign passport) in Section 2 to add Eswatini and Macedonia, North per those countries’ recent name changes. (Note: This change is only visible when completing the fillable Form I-9 on a computer.)

Instruction Changes:

• Clarified who can act as an authorized representative on behalf of an employer
• Updated USCIS website addresses
• Provided clarifications on acceptable documents for Form I-9
• Updated the process for requesting paper Forms I-9
• Updated the DHS Privacy Notice

The USCIS notice provides that employers should begin using this updated form as of January 31, 2020. However, employers are entitled to additional time to make necessary updates and adjust their business processes. Employers may continue using the prior version of the form (Rev. 07/17/2017 N) until April 30, 2020. After that date, they can only use the new form with the 10/21/19 version date.