Examining a Permanent Resident Card without getting it wrong

What a genuine Permanent Resident Card looks like, how counterfeits fail, and what an employer may and may not do when a green card looks wrong.

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What the card is, and where it sits on the I-9

The Permanent Resident Card, Form I-551, is issued by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to lawful permanent residents. Everyone calls it a green card. On a Form I-9 it is a List A document, which means a single card establishes both identity and work authorization: if a new hire presents one, you do not ask for anything else.

Two versions circulate widely and both are valid. Cards issued from May 2017 onward follow a redesign that added significant security features. Cards issued before that date, in earlier designs, remain acceptable as long as they are unexpired. An older-looking card is not a suspicious card, and treating it as one is a mistake that has cost employers money.

There is also a category distinction that changes the expiration logic. Most permanent residents hold a card valid for ten years. Conditional permanent residents, typically those who obtained status through a recent marriage or through investment, hold a card valid for two years and carry a category code beginning with the letters CR. Neither is more or less genuine than the other.

What a genuine card carries

The 2017 redesign is the one you will see most often on new hires. These are its defining elements.

  • A photograph on both sides

    The redesigned card displays the holder's photograph on the front and again on the back. A card in the current design with a photograph on the front only is not right.

  • A distinctive image and colour palette

    Green Cards in the current design carry an image of the Statue of Liberty and a predominantly green palette. Employment Authorization Documents, which are a different card entirely, carry an image of a bald eagle and a predominantly red palette. Confusing the two is common and avoidable.

  • Holographic and optically variable elements

    Images that change appearance as you tilt the card. This is the property that flat counterfeits cannot reproduce, and it takes two seconds to test.

  • Laser-engraved personal data

    The text and image elements are engraved into the polycarbonate rather than printed on the surface. You can feel the relief with a fingernail on parts of the card.

  • The USCIS number

    A nine-digit number, also known as the alien registration number or A-number. It identifies the person and follows them from one document to the next.

  • The card number

    A separate identifier consisting of three letters followed by ten digits. The three letters correspond to the USCIS office or service center that produced the card.

  • A category code

    A short code such as IR1, CR1, IR6 or F21, indicating the basis on which permanent residence was granted. Codes beginning with CR indicate conditional residence and a two-year card.

  • A machine-readable zone on the back

    Three lines of characters in a fixed-width font, encoding the card number, date of birth, expiration date and other fields. This is the part counterfeiters get wrong most often.

Examining the card in front of you

Your obligation under the I-9 is to decide whether the document reasonably appears to be genuine and to relate to the person presenting it. You are not required to be an expert. The steps below meet that standard and take about a minute.

  1. Tilt the card under a light

    The holographic elements should shift and change as the angle changes. A flat printed image that looks identical from every angle is the single clearest sign of a counterfeit, and it is the check most people skip.

  2. Feel the surface

    A genuine card is rigid polycarbonate with laser-engraved elements you can detect with a fingernail. A counterfeit is typically a printed card with a laminate over it, uniformly smooth, sometimes with a slightly tacky feel at the edges where the laminate was applied.

  3. Read the back carefully, line by line

    Counterfeiters put their effort into the front, because that is where people look. Errors cluster on the reverse: misspellings, awkward or garbled sentences in the small print, blocks of text that are not squared with the card edge. A single misspelled word on the back settles the question.

  4. Check the machine-readable zone against the front

    The date of birth and the expiration date encoded in the three lines on the back must match what is printed on the front. Check also that the characters sit on a consistent baseline and that each line has the same length. Uneven spacing or lines of unequal length are a strong signal.

  5. Sanity-check the numbers

    The USCIS number should be nine digits. The card number should be three letters followed by ten digits. A number of the wrong length, or a three-letter prefix that does not correspond to any USCIS office, does not fit a genuine card even when the rest looks convincing.

  6. Read the expiration date, then read the category code

    If the card has expired, do not stop there. Ask whether the person has a receipt notice from USCIS extending it. Renewal and conditional-residence filings generate a notice that extends the card's validity, and the notice itself states how long the extension runs. Examine the card and the notice together.

  7. Compare the photograph to the person

    The most common fraud involving this document is not a counterfeit at all. It is a genuine card belonging to someone else. Look at the face, look at the photograph, and look at the second photograph on the back.

Genuine card and counterfeit, side by side

Government awareness material published for employers shows genuine and counterfeit examples of the same card version next to each other. The differences below are the ones that recur.

  • Depth

    Genuine: elements engraved into the card body, holograms that move, tactile relief. Counterfeit: everything on one plane, a hologram that is a printed picture of a hologram, no relief anywhere.

  • Language on the reverse

    Genuine: correct, standard English in the legal notice. Counterfeit: the notice is where forgers reveal themselves, with dropped letters, invented words and sentences that almost make sense. It is worth reading in full.

  • Edges and thickness

    Genuine: a single moulded piece with clean, uniform edges. Counterfeit: a laminate sandwich, often with a visible seam, slight thickness variation, or a corner that has begun to separate.

  • Machine-readable zone

    Genuine: three lines of equal length, characters evenly spaced on a shared baseline, values that agree with the front. Counterfeit: uneven spacing, a wrong character count, or encoded values that quietly contradict the printed ones.

What employers get wrong, and what it costs

In enforcement practice, employers are penalized far more often for how they handled the document than for failing to detect a forgery.

  • Asking for a green card by name

    Telling a new hire that you need to see their green card is document abuse. The employee chooses what to present from the lists. Saying it helpfully, or saying it only to people you assume are not citizens, makes it worse rather than better.

  • Re-verifying a permanent resident

    Lawful permanent residents are not re-verified on the I-9, ever. Their work authorization does not expire when the plastic does. Diarizing a green card expiration date and demanding new documents on that date is one of the most frequent and most expensive compliance errors.

  • Rejecting a card in an older design

    Cards issued before the 2017 redesign remain valid until they expire. Unfamiliarity with a design is not a lawful reason to refuse a document.

  • Refusing a card extended by a receipt notice

    An expiration date that has passed does not automatically end the card's usefulness. USCIS extends validity through receipt notices, and the length of that extension has changed more than once in recent years. Read the notice the person hands you rather than assuming.

  • Asking for a second document on top

    The card is a List A document. Requesting a Social Security card or a driver's license in addition is over-documentation, and it is treated the same way as demanding a specific document.

  • Photocopying selectively

    If you retain copies of documents, do it for every employee. Copying the documents of some hires and not others creates a record that is difficult to explain later.

The rules around the examination

Two obligations apply at the same time, and they pull in opposite directions. Getting the balance right is the whole job.

  • The reasonable appearance standard

    You must examine the document and decide whether it reasonably appears to be genuine and to relate to the person presenting it. That is a lay standard, not a forensic one. If a card passed a sensible examination and later turns out to be a forgery, you have a good-faith defense, provided you completed the form properly and had no actual knowledge.

  • The anti-discrimination rule

    The Immigration and Nationality Act prohibits treating people differently in the verification process based on citizenship status or national origin. The Immigrant and Employee Rights Section of the Department of Justice enforces it. Same process, same requests, same scrutiny, for every hire without exception.

  • Where to look for reference images

    The government publishes fraudulent-document awareness material for employers, showing genuine and counterfeit examples of each document version side by side. It costs nothing and it is the single best training resource for whoever completes I-9s in your organization.

  • Declining a document is allowed

    If a document does not reasonably appear genuine, you may decline it and ask the employee to present a different one from the lists. Leave the choice of replacement to them, apply the same threshold to everyone, and write down what you observed at the time you observed it.

The fraud you are most likely to meet

Sophisticated counterfeit Permanent Resident Cards exist, and if one is put in front of you there is a fair chance you will not identify it. That is an accepted limit of the system, which is why the standard is reasonable appearance rather than certainty.

What you are far more likely to encounter is a genuine card that belongs to someone else. There is nothing wrong with the plastic, the holograms move as they should, the machine-readable zone is perfect. The only thing that is wrong is the person holding it. This is why the comparison between the photograph and the face is not a formality to rush through, and why the second photograph on the back of the redesigned card exists at all.

The other pattern worth knowing is the package. Counterfeit green cards frequently arrive alongside a counterfeit Social Security card, produced by the same source at the same time, and often sharing tells: identical paper stock quality, sequential numbers, the same misspelling logic. If one document in a pair looks off, examine the other with the same attention rather than letting it pass because you have already found your answer.

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Frequently asked questions

No. You present the Lists of Acceptable Documents and let the employee choose. Naming the green card, even with good intentions, is document abuse under the anti-discrimination provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act, and it is enforced independently of immigration compliance.

Almost certainly yes. Permanent residence does not expire when the card does, and lawful permanent residents are never re-verified on the I-9. If the card is expired at the moment of a new hire, ask whether USCIS has issued a receipt notice extending it, and examine the card and the notice together.

The Permanent Resident Card, Form I-551, evidences permanent residence. The Employment Authorization Document, Form I-766, evidences temporary permission to work and is issued to people in a range of other situations. In the current designs the green card carries a Statue of Liberty image and a green palette, and the EAD carries a bald eagle and a red palette. Both are List A documents on the I-9, but they are not interchangeable.

It indicates conditional permanent residence, usually granted through a recent marriage or through investment. The card is issued for two years rather than ten, and the person is expected to file to remove the conditions before it expires. A CR card is entirely genuine and fully supports employment while valid.

The prefix identifies the USCIS office or service center that produced the card, and only a limited set of codes exists. A prefix outside that set is a reliable signal that the card is not genuine. This check is worth doing whenever anything else about the card gave you pause.

This is the most common fraud involving the document, so take it seriously, but take it calmly. People change, photographs are years old, and appearance shifts. Look at both photographs on the card, look at the identity information, and ask. If the document still does not reasonably appear to relate to the person, you may decline it and ask for a different document from the lists.

You are not required to report it as part of completing the form, and you should be careful about acting on a suspicion you cannot support. What you cannot do is knowingly proceed with a document you have concluded is not genuine. Decline it, offer the lists again, document what you observed, and apply the same threshold to everyone.

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