Local governments are prohibited from entering into contracts if the contractor/vendor (and their subcontractors) are not compliant with North Carolina's E-Verify law. E-Verify is a free, web-based system operated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) in partnership with the Social Security Administration (SSA) that allows participating employers to electronically verify the legal employment status of newly hired employees.

Employers submit information taken from a new hire's Form I-9 (Employment Eligibility Verification Form) through E-Verify to the SSA and USCIS to determine whether the information matches government records and whether the new hire is authorized to work in the United States. The employer receives an electronic verification of the new hire's legal employment status.

Private Employers

Private employers subject to the E-Verify requirement are those who do business in this state and employ 25 or more workers in this state. The requirement applies regardless of the location of the employer's headquarters, but only for newly hired employees working in North Carolina (it does not apply to employees working in another state). Private employers with 24 or fewer employees are not required to use E-Verify, even if they employ 25 or more employees in other states.