It is important to know the meaning of a verification location, a hiring site and the differences between the two. For a description of each, review the ‘Verification Location – Hiring Site – Overview.’

VERIFICATION LOCATION – HIRING SITE – OVERIVEW

• A verification location is where the employer’s staff takes the information from an employee’s Form I-9 and creates a case in E-Verify. Generally, each verification location has its own employer account. If the employer has staff at each location that uses E-Verify, then each location is considered a verification location. If the employer centralizes the use of E-Verify to certain locations, then only those locations are considered verification locations.
• A hiring site is the location where the employer hires employees and they complete Form I-9. If your company creates cases in E-Verify at the same location, it is a verification location and a hiring site. Employers select which sites participate in E-Verify on a hiring site by hiring site basis. This means that if you decide to have a hiring site participate in E-Verify, you must verify all newly hired employees for that hiring site. If you decide not to have a hiring site participate, you are not permitted to verify any employees at that location.
• 

Example: Kevin owns a furniture store in Springfield. His employees complete their Forms I-9 at the store, and Kevin plans to use the computer at the store to use E-Verify.

In this case, Kevin will enroll in the E-Verify employer access method, and he has a single verification location and hiring site, both of which are the furniture store.

Example: Rebecca owns three restaurants, two in Georgia and one in Florida. In addition, Rebecca runs the business operations of these restaurants from a small office in Florida with its own staff. When her restaurant managers hire a new employee, the manager and the employee complete the Form I-9 on site at the restaurant. The manager then forwards the Form I-9 to Rebecca’s central office. Rebecca plans to have her office staff create the E-Verify cases.

In this case, Rebecca will enroll in the E-Verify employer access method and designate her central office as the verification location and the two restaurants in Georgia and two restaurants in Florida as hiring sites. (The central office counts as a hiring site because Rebecca hires staff members there as well.)

You may choose to use E-Verify throughout your company or limit your company’s participation to certain locations. While you are free to choose E-Verify participation on a site-by-site basis, your company must use E-Verify for all newly hired employees and employees assigned to a covered federal contract at each participating site. During enrollment, you’ll need to enter the number of hiring sites in each state that will participate in E-Verify.