There's a federal form that employers with 100 or more employees must file every year, and missing the deadline means automatic non-compliance. No extension. No grace period. No retroactive filing next year. The EEO-1 form isn't optional, it isn't well-publicized, and many growing businesses don't know about it until they've already missed a filing deadline.
For multi-location businesses in restaurants, retail, and healthcare, the EEO-1 represents both a compliance requirement you can't miss and a snapshot of your workforce composition that deserves attention beyond mere filing. According to the EEOC's 2024 filing instructions, the filing deadline was June 24, 2025, with no extensions granted.
Who Actually Has to File
The EEO-1 filing requirement captures two categories of employers. Private employers with 100 or more employees must file regardless of industry or federal contractor status. This count includes all employees across all locations, not just a single establishment.
Federal contractors and subcontractors with 50 or more employees and federal contracts totaling $50,000 or more must also file. Even with Executive Order 11246 rescinded, federal contractors still face EEO-1 requirements for the 2024 reporting cycle and beyond.
The employee count looks at whether you had 100 or more employees for any single pay period during the year. Seasonal businesses that employ 150 workers during summer but only 40 during winter still need to file. Part-time employees count the same as full-time for determining filing obligations.
Multi-location employers file separately for headquarters and each location with 50 or more employees, plus a consolidated report. Smaller establishments get reported together on the consolidated report. This means a restaurant chain with 15 locations might file a dozen separate reports depending on location size.
Affiliated companies can push you over the threshold even if you don't think you have 100 employees. If two separately incorporated businesses share centralized ownership or control and together employ 100+ people, both might need to file.
What Information You're Actually Reporting
The EEO-1 form requires a surprising amount of detailed categorization. You select a single pay period between October 1 and December 31 to use as your "snapshot" of the workforce. This snapshot should represent your typical employment during that quarter.
For every employee working during that pay period, you categorize them by job category and by the intersection of race/ethnicity and sex. The job categories are standardized: Executive/Senior Level Officials and Managers, First/Mid-Level Officials and Managers, Professionals, Technicians, Sales Workers, Administrative Support Workers, Craft Workers, Operatives, Laborers and Helpers, and Service Workers.
For shift-based businesses, most employees fall into Service Workers, Operatives, or Laborers and Helpers categories. Managers sort into either Executive or First/Mid-Level categories depending on their scope. Office staff typically classify as Administrative Support.
Race and ethnicity categories follow specific definitions: Hispanic or Latino (of any race), White (not Hispanic or Latino), Black or African American (not Hispanic or Latino), Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander (not Hispanic or Latino), Asian (not Hispanic or Latino), American Indian or Alaska Native (not Hispanic or Latino), and Two or More Races (not Hispanic or Latino).
Sex must be reported as male or female. According to 2024 filing instructions, the option to voluntarily report non-binary employees was eliminated for the 2024 cycle following executive orders requiring binary sex classifications on federal forms.
How to Actually Gather the Data
This sounds straightforward until you try to implement it. How do you know each employee's race and ethnicity? You can't just guess based on appearance. You can't use surnames. You must rely on employee self-identification.
The proper approach involves including self-identification questions on job applications and in onboarding paperwork. Employees select their own race/ethnicity and sex. These categories must match the EEO-1 definitions, not broader or different categories.
For current employees who haven't self-identified, you can invite them to complete a voluntary self-identification form. Emphasize that it's voluntary and that the information is used solely for government reporting and internal diversity analysis.
When employees decline to self-identify, the EEOC requires you to make a determination based on visual observation or other available information. This creates obvious discomfort and potential error, which is why soliciting voluntary self-identification proactively makes more sense.
Job categorization requires judgment calls. Is someone who spends 60% of their time doing individual contributor work but also supervises two employees a First-Level Manager or a Professional? The instruction booklet provides definitions, but edge cases exist.
Pay period selection matters more than you'd think. If you have significant seasonal variation in workforce composition, choosing October versus December might show meaningfully different demographics. Choose the period that best represents your typical operations.
The Filing Process and Technical Requirements
EEO-1 filing happens through a web-based portal at www.eeocdata.org/eeo1. First-time filers need to register and receive authentication credentials. Companies that filed previously should have existing access, though you'll need to update contact information if it's changed.
The portal allows manual data entry or file upload for larger employers. File upload requires specific formatting detailed in the EEOC's specifications document. Even small errors in formatting cause file rejections.
Manual entry works fine for single-location businesses or small multi-location operations. You input employee counts into the grid matching job categories with race/ethnicity and sex combinations. The portal validates totals and flags obvious errors.
For multi-location filers, the consolidated report should match the sum of all individual establishment reports. Discrepancies trigger warnings.
According to the EEOC's 2024 filing updates, all communications are now electronic only. No postal mail notifications will be sent about the data collection period, deadlines, or filing issues. Check the email address registered with the EEOC and monitor the portal.
What Happens If You Miss the Deadline
The consequences of missing the EEO-1 deadline have become more serious. Starting with the 2024 cycle, the EEOC eliminated the "Notice of Failure to File" letters that previously reminded employers who hadn't submitted reports. Once the deadline passes, the portal closes. Late filers cannot submit retroactively in future cycles.
Non-compliance can trigger EEOC enforcement actions including compelled filing through court order, contempt charges for continued non-compliance, and enhanced scrutiny if discrimination charges are filed against you.
The EEOC's hard deadline approach means you can't rely on getting an extension. Build buffer time into your preparation. Don't wait until the last week of the filing window.
For businesses that genuinely didn't know about the requirement until after the deadline, no relief mechanism exists for that cycle's filing. You'll need to ensure you're in the system for the following year's collection.
What You Should Actually Do With This Data
Beyond compliance, your EEO-1 data reveals workforce composition patterns worth examining. Significant disparities between your workforce demographics and the demographics of your labor market might indicate problems in recruiting or retention.
If your management ranks look dramatically different from your line staff, ask why. If certain job categories have strong skews that don't reflect applicant pools, investigate. These patterns can signal problems before they become EEOC charges.
Compare your data across locations. If one location's demographics differ substantially from similar locations in similar labor markets, that location's hiring or promotion practices might need review.
Look at year-over-year trends. Is your workforce becoming more or less diverse? Are certain job categories moving in different directions? Understanding trends helps you evaluate whether diversity and inclusion initiatives are working.
This data can also benchmark against industry norms. Trade associations and research firms publish aggregate EEO-1 statistics by industry. Knowing where you stand relative to competitors and industry averages provides context.
Special Considerations for Multi-Location Businesses
Businesses with employees in multiple locations face additional complexity. Each establishment needs separate reporting if it has 50 or more employees. Establishments below that threshold get aggregated.
An "establishment" is a single physical location where business is conducted or services are performed. For most restaurants, retail stores, or healthcare facilities, each location is a separate establishment. For businesses where employees work at client sites or from home, determining establishments requires more judgment.
Corporate or administrative offices count as separate establishments. Your headquarters might file separately even if it has fewer than 50 employees if it's your principal office.
Employees who work at multiple establishments should be counted at the location where they spend most of their time or where their time records are maintained. Consistency in assignment matters more than precision.
Remote workers present special challenges. According to recent guidance, you should categorize them based on their home address or the establishment to which they report. The key is consistent methodology across all remote workers.
Integration With Your HRIS
For businesses already using an HRIS or payroll system, much of the required data should already exist in your database. Most modern HRIS platforms include EEO-1 reporting functionality that extracts the necessary data and formats it appropriately.
Verify that your system's job category assignments match EEO-1 definitions. Many HRIS platforms use different job classification schemes internally. The EEO-1 categories are specific and won't perfectly align with your organizational structure.
Ensure demographic data flows into your HRIS from onboarding paperwork. If employees self-identify on paper forms but that information never gets entered into your database, it won't be available for EEO-1 reporting.
Test your reporting well before the deadline. Extract a sample report from your HRIS in February or March, review it for obvious errors, and fix data quality issues. Don't discover during the filing week that 40% of your employees have no race/ethnicity data because nobody's been entering it.
When to Get Help
Many employers outsource EEO-1 filing to HR consulting firms or compliance specialists. This makes sense when you have multiple establishments requiring separate filings, your internal systems don't easily produce the required data formats, you lack confidence in correctly categorizing jobs, or you'd rather have experts handle compliance requirements with hard deadlines.
The cost of outsourcing is usually modest compared to the time investment required to understand requirements, extract data, categorize employees, and file correctly. It's definitely modest compared to the cost of non-compliance.
For businesses managing hourly workers across multiple locations, the EEO-1 requirement represents basic compliance hygiene. Missing it creates problems that aren't fixable after the fact. Mark the filing window on your calendar every year, build processes to capture required data throughout the year, and treat the deadline with the seriousness it deserves.
