The one gate that decides everything
The remote option is a DHS-authorized alternative procedure, and it is available only to employers enrolled in E-Verify and in good standing, at their E-Verify hiring sites. That's the whole gate. If you are not in E-Verify, there is no virtual I-9 process available to you — you are still required to physically examine original documents, in person, within three business days of the hire.
This is where most of the confusion comes from. The COVID-era flexibilities let almost anyone inspect documents remotely, they ended in 2022, and a lot of businesses never registered that the replacement rule is narrower rather than broader. If you hired remotely between the end of the flexibilities and enrolling in E-Verify, those files are worth pulling.
The workaround for everyone else is an authorized representative: you may designate any person to complete Section 2 in person on your behalf. A notary, a manager at a nearby office, a staffing partner, in a pinch a trusted friend of the new hire. There's no certification requirement. The liability stays with you for anything they get wrong, which is the reason to give them written instructions rather than a link.
The three steps, in order
For employers who do qualify, USCIS specifies the procedure tightly. Doing four out of three steps is not compliance.
- Collect and examine copies of the documents, front and back. Both sides, if the document is two-sided. You examine the copies to satisfy yourself the documentation reasonably appears genuine and relates to the person. A receipt is acceptable where a receipt would be acceptable in person.
- Conduct a live video interaction with the person holding the documents.Live is the operative word. A recorded video, a set of photos, or a video call where the employee doesn't present the actual documents on camera does not satisfy this. The employee must present the same documents you were sent copies of, and you must be able to see them.
- Retain a clear and legible copy of the documentation — again front and back — with the Form I-9. Retention here is mandatory, which is a real difference from the standard in-person process, where keeping copies is generally optional as long as you're consistent about it.
The box everyone forgets
On the Form I-9, check the box in the Additional Information field in Section 2 indicating you used an alternative procedure. It is a single checkbox and it is the most commonly missed element of the entire process.
An unchecked box on an otherwise perfect remote verification reads, to an auditor, as an employer who examined documents remotely without authorization to do so. Same file, same facts, worse finding. If you have been doing remote verifications for a while, this is the first thing to spot-check in an internal review.
Consistency, and where the discrimination risk lives
If you offer the alternative procedure to new employees at an E-Verify hiring site, you must do so consistently for all employees at that site. You cannot decide case by case who gets video and who has to appear in person — and if that decision correlates with citizenship status or national origin, you have a discrimination problem independent of any I-9 paperwork issue.
Employers who want to narrow it further — offering remote examination only to genuinely remote workers while onsite hires do it in person — are in the area where the written rule and the anti-discrimination exposure interact, and it's worth an actual legal opinion rather than an inference from a guide. Decide the policy once, write it down, and apply it mechanically. Mechanical application is the defense.
Check which form edition you're on. Today.
A timing issue that has nothing to do with remote work and will bite anyone who misses it: the Form I-9 bearing an 08/01/23 edition date and a 07/31/2026 expiration date is valid only through July 31, 2026. After that, the form you use for new hires must show an expiration date of 05/31/2027.
Deadline · July 31, 2026
05/31/2027
the expiration date your Form I-9 must show after this month. Employers running an electronic I-9 system have to have it updated by then — which means checking what your HR platform is actually serving, not assuming your vendor handled it.
Two editions remain acceptable: the 01/20/25 edition and the 08/01/23 edition, both bearing the 05/31/2027 expiration. The one to get off of is the 08/01/23 edition stamped 07/31/2026. Open the PDF your onboarding flow generates and read the bottom corner — that takes a minute and it's the cheapest compliance check on this page.
Where this fits with fraud screening
Worth being precise about what the I-9 does and doesn't do, because it gets conflated with fraud prevention constantly. The I-9 establishes identity and work authorization. It is not a background check, not an income verification, and it will not tell you whether the person is who they say they are in any deeper sense than the documents assert.
A remote hiring process that only runs an I-9 is thin. The gap it leaves is the one identity verification tools exist to close, and a fabricated employee with clean-looking documents is precisely the scenario where a video call and a photocopy aren't enough. If you're hiring remotely at any volume, background screening and identity verification belong alongside the I-9, not instead of it.
Sources and the usual caveat
The procedure above comes from USCIS I-9 Central and the Handbook for Employers (M-274); the alternative procedure was authorized in the Federal Register on July 25, 2023 and took effect August 1, 2023. Rules in this area have changed more than once and the primary source is authoritative in a way this page isn't — check uscis.gov/i-9-central before you rely on any of it, and talk to an immigration or employment attorney if you're remediating past files rather than setting up new ones. I-9 penalties are assessed per form, which is what makes a systematic error expensive.
The companion question — when an existing employee's authorization expires and what you're required to do about it — is in the I-9 reverification rules. The short version is that you reverify less often than most employers think.