Your employee may have entered an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) in the Social Security Number field on Form I-9. The Internal Revenue Service issues ITINs for the purpose of federal tax reporting only. ITINs always begin with the number nine; Social Security Numbers never begin with that number. ITINs and the cards on which they are printed do not provide evidence of employment authorization and are not acceptable for Form I-9 or E-Verify.
To continue, you and your employee must correct Form I-9:
- You must ask your employee to correct the Social Security number entered in Section 1. E-Verify will not allow you to create a case for this employee without a valid Social Security number.
- You should review Section 2 of this employee’s Form I-9: If your employee presented an ITIN card as a List C document for Section 2, you must ask the employee to present valid employment authorization documentation from the List of Acceptable Documents so that you can correct Section 2.
- If your employee does not provide a valid Social Security number, you cannot create an E-Verify case. If your employee does not present acceptable employment authorization documentation, you should not continue to employ this individual.
Once you and your employee have corrected Form I-9 with a valid Social Security number and acceptable employment authorization documentation that satisfies Form I-9 requirements, create a new case in E-Verify with the corrected information.