Ohio E-Verify Contractor Requirements: HB 246 and the 2026 Law

What Changed on March 19, 2026

Governor DeWine signed Substitute House Bill 246 — the E-Verify Workforce Integrity Act — on December 19, 2025. It took effect on March 19, 2026, creating mandatory employment verification requirements for nonresidential construction contractors, subcontractors, and labor brokers operating in Ohio.

For covered businesses, this is not optional. If you are a nonresidential construction contractor, subcontractor, or labor broker that hires employees to perform work on a nonresidential construction project in Ohio, the law applies to your business.

Who's Covered (and Who's Not)

The law defines covered work as the construction, alteration, or repair of nonresidential structures — commercial buildings, industrial facilities, highways, bridges, utilities, and public infrastructure.

Residential construction is excluded. Work on one-, two-, and three-family dwellings doesn't trigger HB 246's requirements. This matters because Ohio's contractor landscape already splits along that residential/commercial line — OCILB state licenses cover commercial specialty trades, while residential work is regulated locally.

Each contractor and subcontractor on a covered project must enroll independently. A general contractor's E-Verify registration does not cover independent subcontractors.

The Three-Day Verification Window

For every new hire assigned to a covered nonresidential project, you must create an E-Verify case within three business days of the employee's start date. The case uses information from the completed Form I-9. You cannot run E-Verify before the employee officially begins work — that's a federal rule that conflicts with some employers' instinct to verify during the hiring process.

Enrollment on the federal E-Verify portal (everify.uscis.gov) is free and takes one to two business days.

The Reverification Conflict

HB 246 appears to require E-Verify for existing employees whose work authorization is subject to federal reverification — for example, when an Employment Authorization Document expires. But federal E-Verify rules prohibit running existing employees through the system unless you're a federal contractor subject to a FAR E-Verify clause.

This state-federal conflict is unresolved as of mid-2026. Commercial contractors facing reverification situations should work with legal counsel to navigate the overlap.

Record Retention

Ohio law requires you to keep E-Verify confirmation pages and case results for three years from the date of hire, or one year after termination — whichever is longer. This is stricter than the federal minimum, so use the Ohio timeline as your floor.

Penalty Structure

The Ohio Attorney General's office investigates violations, which can start from public complaints or anonymous reports:

If E-Verify issues a Final Nonconfirmation notice for an employee — meaning their work eligibility couldn't be verified — you must terminate their employment immediately.

Protecting Yourself as a GC

One important provision: the law protects general contractors from direct liability for their subcontractors' E-Verify failures, provided the general contract includes explicit compliance and indemnification clauses. If your subcontractor agreements don't already have E-Verify language, updating them should be a priority.

The Ohio General Contractor License Guide covers the full E-Verify onboarding workflow, including a compliance sequence for building E-Verify into your hiring pipeline and subcontractor agreement templates that address the indemnification requirement.

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