By Mitchell Chamberlin and Fred Satterwhite
BLOG OVERVIEW: On May 14, 2026, EEOC submitted a proposal to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs to rescind EEO-1reporting requirements, but employers should not assume the 2026 EEO-1 filing will be cancelled. The rescission must move through several Administrative Procedure Act steps including OIRA review, a 60-day Federal Register comment period, and an Information Collection Request before taking effect, and that timeline is tight relative to this year's filing window. Employers should continue preparing their EEO-1 data, including EEO-1 job category, ethnicity/race, gender, and establishment information, based on a pay period in October, November, or December 2025. EEOC has not yet announced the 2026 filing window or released a proposed instruction booklet, signaling continued uncertainty for private employers with 100 or more employees.
On May 14, 2026, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) submitted a proposal to rescind EEO-1 reporting requirements to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). This proposal also includes a request to rescind EEO-2, EEO-3, EEO-4, and EEO-5 reporting requirements.
However, employers should not plan to skip EEO-1 reports in calendar year 2026, as there are a number of steps under the Administrative Procedure Act that the federal government must take to fully rescind this requirement. These steps would have to be completed by September 30, the date by which EEO-1 reports must be submitted each year as required by law.
First, OIRA must review and approve this proposal. If approved, EEOC would then need to publish the proposed rule in the Federal Register for a 60-day comment period. EEOC would also need to submit an Information Collection Request to rescind the EEO-1 form, similar to how the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs proposed to rescind self-identification forms meant to collect information on disability status from applicants and employees of federal contractors. (It is important to note that the disability self-identification form is still required).
It is possible that EEOC tries other procedural avenues to make this process faster in an attempt to stop this year’s EEO-1 filing, but that timeline appears to be very tight and would likely invite legal challenges, to which EEOC is not immune. In 2019, the Office of Management and Budget and EEOC attempted to skip a short-lived addition to the EEO-1 filing meant to collect compensation information from covered employers. However, a judge compelled EEOC to move forward with the data collection.
What Should Employers Do to Prepare for a Potential 2026 EEO-1 Filing?
In 2025, employers were given just over a month to complete and submit their EEO-1 reports for the 2024 Component 1 data collection. This left little time for data collection and cleaning, as well as report completion, submission, and certification. While we do not yet know what time period the report will cover, it is likely that this year’s filing will be similar to recent years and require data from a pay period in October, November, or December. Employers should ensure they have all the required employee-level data, including:
- EEO-1 job category
- Ethnicity/race
- Gender
- Establishment (if a multi-establishment employer)
Recent Changes to EEO-1 Reporting
While EEO-1 reports have been collected annually for more than five decades, there have been a number of changes to them over the years. In 2025, two major changes occurred. Federal contractors with 50-99 employees were previously required to file EEO-1 reports annually. However, due to the rescission of Executive Order 11246, federal contractors no longer had a lower employee count threshold than other private employers. All private employers with 100 or more employees are now required to submit EEO-1 reports annually.
Additionally, changes regarding the reporting of non-binary employees occurred. Previously, employers had the option to include counts of non-binary employees in the Comment field of their EEO-1 reports. However, this option was removed in order to comply with Executive Order 14168.
What Timeline Can Employers Expect for the 2026 EEO-1 Filing?
EEOC has not announced when the filing portal will open, nor has it announced the deadline for filing. By this time last year, the commission had already submitted its proposed instruction booklet via an Information Collection Review to the OIRA. However, as of the publishing of this blog, no such request has been sent by EEOC, and no proposed instruction booklet has been made publicly available.
DCI will continue to monitor for updates regarding the EEO-1. Be sure to sign up for DCI Alerts to receive the latest updates in HR compliance.
