By Mitchell Chamberlin
BLOG OVERVIEW: As of mid-May 2026, the EEO-1 filing portal opening date and 2026 deadline remain unannounced. EEOC has not yet submitted its proposed instruction booklet to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, putting this year's cycle behind 2025's timeline. Two significant 2025 changes still likely apply: the rescission of Executive Order 11246 eliminated the 50–99 employee EEO-1 reporting threshold for federal contractors, and Executive Order 14168 removed the option to report non-binary employee counts in the EEO-1 comment field. Employers with 100 or more employees should prepare now by collecting employee-level data, including EEO-1 job category, race/ethnicity, gender, and establishment from a Q4 snapshot pay period.
Each year, employers with 100 or more employees are required to file an EEO-1 report with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). While filing periods, deadlines, and grace periods have fluctuated, EEOC has settled on summertime filings for the past number of years.
As we approach mid-May, this begs the question: what is the status of EEO-1 filings in 2026? The short answer is that we do not yet know when the filing portal will open, nor do we know the deadline for filing. By this time last year, EEOC had already submitted its proposed instruction booklet via an Information Collection Review to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. 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.
That being said, employers should not plan for the federal government to skip EEO-1 reports in 2026. In 2019, EEOC attempted to skip a briefly lived addition to the EEO-1 filing meant to collect compensation information from covered employers, and a judge compelled the Commission to move forward with the data collection.
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 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, there were changes regarding the reporting of employees that identify as non-binary. Previously, employers had the option to include counts of non-binary employees in the Comment field of their EEO-1 reports. This option was removed in order to comply with Executive Order 14168.
How Should Employers Prepare for 2026 EEO-1 Filing?
In 2025, employers were given just over a month to complete and submit their EEO-1 reports. This leaves 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)
DCI will continue to monitor for updates regarding EEO-1. Be sure to sign up for DCI Alerts to receive the latest updates in HR compliance.
