What happens if you work without a work permit in the U.S.?

The federal law that bans unauthorized employment is written against whoever does the hiring, not against the person who does the work. INA §274A (8 U.S.C. §1324a) makes it unlawful for “a person or other entity” to hire or continue to employ someone without authorization, and both its civil money penalties and its criminal provision fall on that “person or entity.” No official source we reviewed says that performing the work is, by itself, a federal crime committed by the worker.

That does not mean nothing happens. What does land on the individual is immigration exposure, and it is severe: USCIS names termination of immigration status, being barred from adjusting to lawful permanent residence, and removal from the United States. And there are other laws — separate from §274A — that do reach the individual, but they attach to documents and to the attestation signed under penalty of perjury on Form I-9, not to the labor itself.

This page explains who answers for what, quoting the text of each law. It is general information, not legal advice.

The consequence that actually matters: adjustment of status

USCIS summarizes it this way in its Policy Manual, Volume 10 (page marked current as of August 6, 2026): “Working without authorization may lead to a number of negative consequences, such as DHS terminating the person’s immigration status, being barred from adjusting status to lawful permanent residence, and DHS removing the person from the United States.” The same chapter is explicit about who the government fines: “The U.S. government imposes penalties on employers that knowingly employ persons not authorized to work in this country or that fail to comply with verification requirements.”

The bar to adjustment is not internal policy — it is in the statute. 8 U.S.C. §1255(c) (INA §245(c)) makes adjustment unavailable to, among others, an applicant who “hereafter continues in or accepts unauthorized employment prior to filing an application for adjustment of status” (paragraph 2), and to “any alien who was employed while the alien was an unauthorized alien, as defined in section 1324a(h)(3) of this title, or who has otherwise violated the terms of a nonimmigrant visa” (paragraph 8).

Three things USCIS puts in writing in its Policy Manual, Volume 7 (current as of August 6, 2026), that change how that bar looks:

  • What counts as unauthorized employment: “any service or labor performed for an employer within the United States by an alien who is not authorized by the INA or USCIS to accept employment or who exceeds the scope or period of the alien’s employment authorization.”
  • It has no time limit, and leaving the country does not clear it: “USCIS places no time restrictions on when unauthorized employment must have occurred, because the INA does not state that the unauthorized employment must have occurred during any particular period of time.” The same chapter adds that the departure and subsequent re-entry of an applicant who worked without authorization before filing does not erase the bar.
  • What the officer looks at: the manual lists the Arrival/Departure Record (Form I-94), Notices of Action (Form I-797), pay stubs, W-2 statements, income tax records, and employment contracts.

Who the bars do not apply to, and the §245(k) exception

The same chapter lists who the INA §245(c)(2) and §245(c)(8) bars do not apply to: “Immediate relatives; Violence Against Women Act (VAWA)-based applicants; Certain physicians and their accompanying spouse and children; Certain G-4 international organization employees, NATO-6 employees, and their family members; Special immigrant juveniles; or Certain members of the U.S. armed forces and their accompanying spouse and children.”

Separately, INA §245(k) opens a narrow exception, and only for certain employment-based categories (those in paragraphs (1), (2), (3), and (5) of 8 U.S.C. §1153(b)): the person must be present “pursuant to a lawful admission” on the date of filing and, after that lawful admission, must not have accumulated more than 180 days in total — “for an aggregate period exceeding 180 days” — of failing to maintain lawful status, unauthorized employment, or otherwise violating the terms of admission. USCIS adds that in assessing §245(k), “USCIS only considers the time period following the applicant’s most recent lawful admission.”

Placing a specific case in one of those boxes is the work of a licensed immigration attorney or a DOJ/BIA-accredited representative, not of a web page. Where to look for one: how to find an immigration attorney.

There is one more consequence for a person who had status: 8 U.S.C. §1227(a)(1)(C)(i) makes deportable “Any alien who was admitted as a nonimmigrant and who has failed to maintain the nonimmigrant status in which the alien was admitted … or to comply with the conditions of any such status.” Working outside what a status permits is exactly that.

Who INA §274A penalizes: the hiring entity

The statute names its subject in the first line. 8 U.S.C. §1324a(a)(1): “It is unlawful for a person or other entity — (A) to hire, or to recruit or refer for a fee, for employment in the United States an alien knowing the alien is an unauthorized alien … with respect to such employment, or (B)(i) to hire for employment in the United States an individual without complying with the requirements of subsection (b)…” Continuing to employ is likewise an entity offense, §1324a(a)(2): “It is unlawful for a person or other entity, after hiring an alien for employment in accordance with paragraph (1), to continue to employ the alien in the United States knowing the alien is (or has become) an unauthorized alien with respect to such employment.”

The penalties follow the same subject. §1324a(e)(4)(A) directs that an order “require the person or entity to cease and desist from such violations and to pay a civil penalty” for each unauthorized worker, in ranges that rise when the entity has already been subject to prior orders. This page does not reproduce those amounts: the statute carries the figures as enacted, and DHS adjusts them annually for inflation, so the figure in the statutory text is not the amount charged today.

The criminal provision in §274A is also aimed at the entity and requires a pattern, §1324a(f)(1): “Any person or entity which engages in a pattern or practice of violations of subsection (a)(1)(A) or (a)(2) shall be fined … imprisoned for not more than six months for the entire pattern or practice, or both…”

The term that triggers all of this is defined by absence, §1324a(h)(3): “the term ‘unauthorized alien’ means, with respect to the employment of an alien at a particular time, that the alien is not at that time either (A) an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence, or (B) authorized to be so employed by this chapter or by the Attorney General.” (U.S. Code text retrieved August 11, 2026.)

The one duty §274A places on the worker: the Form I-9 attestation

A single obligation in §274A runs to the person being hired, and it is Section 1 of Form I-9. §1324a(b)(2), headed “Individual attestation of employment authorization”: “The individual must attest, under penalty of perjury on the form designated or established for purposes of paragraph (1), that the individual is a citizen or national of the United States, an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence, or an alien who is authorized under this chapter or by the Attorney General to be hired, recruited, or referred for such employment.”

That is the hinge of this entire page. §274A does not fine or imprison the worker for the labor, but it does put the worker under oath on the form — and what follows is what that oath can trigger.

The laws that do reach the individual

None of these punishes the work. All of them punish a document or an attestation.

  • Document fraud — 8 U.S.C. §1324c(a). It opens with “It is unlawful for any person or entity knowingly” and reaches anyone who forges, alters, uses, possesses, obtains, accepts, or provides a false document “in order to satisfy any requirement of this chapter or to obtain a benefit under this chapter,” as well as anyone who uses or provides “any document lawfully issued to or with respect to a person other than the possessor.” It carries civil money penalties per document, also inflation-adjusted from the amounts in the original text.
  • Someone else’s document, or a false attestation on the I-9 — 18 U.S.C. §1546(b). This is the criminal statute that does reach the individual, and it is written around documents and the attestation: whoever uses an identification document knowing (or having reason to know) that it was not issued lawfully for their use, or that it is false, “or (3) a false attestation, for the purpose of satisfying a requirement of section 274A(b) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both.”
  • Another person’s Social Security number — 42 U.S.C. §408(a)(7). This is a separate federal offense, reaching anyone who, “with intent to deceive, falsely represents a number to be the social security account number assigned by the Commissioner of Social Security to him or to another person, when in fact such number is not the social security account number assigned by the Commissioner of Social Security to him or to such other person” — and, in the next subparagraph, anyone who alters, buys, sells, or counterfeits a Social Security card, or possesses one with intent to sell or alter it.
  • Checking the “citizen” box — INA §212(a)(6)(C)(ii). This is the act with the harshest consequence. It makes inadmissible anyone who “falsely represents, or has falsely represented, himself or herself to be a citizen of the United States for any purpose or benefit under this chapter (including section 1324a of this title) or any other Federal or State law” — and “section 1324a” is precisely Form I-9. The statute’s waiver note is written for clause (i) only, the fraud-or-willful-misrepresentation ground: “For provision authorizing waiver of clause (i), see subsection (i).” The only exception the text contemplates for clause (ii) is very narrow: that each natural (or adoptive) parent is or was a citizen, that the person permanently resided in the United States before turning 16, and that the person reasonably believed at the time of the representation that he or she was a citizen.

(Statutory text retrieved August 11, 2026.)

When work authorization expires

The regulation is written as an employer duty with a direct consequence for the worker. 8 CFR §274a.2(b)(1)(vii): “If an individual’s employment authorization expires, the employer, recruiter or referrer for a fee must reverify on the Form I-9 to reflect that the individual is still authorized to work in the United States; otherwise, the individual may no longer be employed, recruited, or referred. Reverification on the Form I-9 must occur not later than the date work authorization expires…” The same paragraph explains that where an EAD (Form I-766) was presented together with a Notice of Action (Form I-797C) stating that it has been automatically extended, reverification happens at the end of the extended validity period rather than on the date printed on the card.

USCIS says it again from the pending-adjustment side: “The filing of an adjustment application itself does not authorize employment,” and this includes “refraining from employment after the applicant’s work-authorized status or previously approved EAD expires until USCIS issues the new EAD.”

Which categories get an automatic extension, for how long, and what documents prove it belongs to the form’s own page: Form I-765, employment authorization (EAD).

Wages for work already performed

The Department of Labor takes an explicit position on work already done. From its Fact Sheet #48: “The Department’s Wage and Hour Division will continue to enforce the FLSA and MSPA without regard to whether an employee is documented or undocumented.” The reason it gives is that under the FLSA or MSPA the claim is for “back pay for hours an employee has actually worked,” and the Hoffman Plastic Court’s concern about paying “for years of work not performed, for wages that could not lawfully have been earned” does not apply to work actually performed.

Two caveats about that fact sheet, both from the document itself. It is marked Revised July 2008 and has not changed since, and it carries its own disclaimer: “The contents of this document do not have the force and effect of law and are not meant to bind the public in any way.” And on retaliation, DOL left a question open that is still open: “The Department of Labor is still considering the effect of Hoffman Plastics on other labor laws it enforces, including those laws prohibiting retaliation for engaging in protected conduct.” That is an unresolved question, not a confirmed protection.

How to report unpaid wages, and what other labor protections exist regardless of status: workplace rights. If the problem began with an ICE action at the job site, see ICE at your workplace and after a workplace raid.

“1099 contractor” and self-employment

This is the question that circulates most often without a source, so it is worth separating what the text says from what people assume:

  • The regulation excludes bona fide independent contractors from the definition of employee: “The term employee means an individual who provides services or labor for an employer for wages or other remuneration but does not mean independent contractors as defined in paragraph (j) of this section” (8 CFR §274a.1(f)). That describes the employer’s Form I-9 verification duty, not a permission granted to the worker.
  • The label decides nothing: whether someone is an independent contractor “regardless of what the individual or entity calls itself, will be determined on a case-by-case basis,” weighing factors such as who supplies the tools, whether services are made available to the general public, whether the person works for a number of clients at the same time, and who sets the order and hours of the work (8 CFR §274a.1(j)).
  • The law reaches contract labor: anyone who “uses a contract, subcontract, or exchange … to obtain the labor of an alien in the United States knowing that the alien is an unauthorized alien … shall be considered to have hired the alien for employment in the United States in violation of paragraph (1)(A)” (8 U.S.C. §1324a(a)(4)).

No official source we reviewed states that self-employment without employment authorization is permitted, and the definition of unauthorized employment USCIS uses for the adjustment bar carves out no exception for working for yourself. The routes that are documented are set out in employment pathways by immigration status. What is clear, and independent of all of the above, is that the obligation to file taxes exists either way: ITIN.

What the sources do NOT say

This section matters as much as the ones above it. Inferring permission from a source’s silence is exactly how errors on this topic spread.

  • No source we reviewed says that performing work without authorization is, by itself, a federal crime committed by the worker. §1324a contains no penalty directed at the person who accepts or performs the work; §1324c and 18 U.S.C. §1546(b) attach to documents and to the attestation. That is the whole of what can be said, and it should not be read as reassurance: the immigration consequences described above are severe and, in the case of §245(c)(8), carry no expiration.
  • Every source on this page is federal, and none of them addresses state criminal law. Several states have enacted their own unauthorized-work or unauthorized-entry offenses and some are in active litigation. Federal silence on a point does not mean state silence.
  • DOL has not resolved whether Hoffman Plastic limits retaliation remedies. It says so itself, and that sentence has stood unchanged since the July 2008 revision.
  • There is no federal source stating that workers’ compensation applies regardless of immigration status. DOL routes the topic away from federal law: “Individuals injured on the job while employed by private companies or state and local government agencies should contact their state workers’ compensation board.” Coverage is a matter of state law and varies; our workplace rights page treats it with that hedge.
  • OSHA has no rule-level statement that its protections apply regardless of immigration status. OSHA coverage is also covered on workplace rights.

Last verified: 2026-08-11. General information, not legal advice. Determining whether a specific case falls within one of the INA §245(c) exemptions, or inside the 180-day window of §245(k), is the work of a licensed immigration attorney or a DOJ/BIA-accredited representative.