The EEO-1 report is a required yearly survey. Private employers with 100 or more people must send it to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). It breaks down your headcount by job category, sex, and race or ethnicity. If your team is growing toward that 100-person mark, this guide covers who must file, the 2026 filing schedule, the 10 job categories, the filing steps, and the mistakes that trip up first-time filers.
Most guides online assume you already file every year. This one is built for the moment before that. It is for the growing team that will soon cross the line and wants to be ready, not caught off guard.
What is an EEO-1 report?
The EEO-1 report (officially the "Employer Information Report EEO-1, Component 1") is a survey. It collects basic data about who works for you. The EEOC uses it to track hiring patterns and enforce federal laws that ban job discrimination, like Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
Here is the core idea. Once a year, covered employers count every employee. You sort each one into one of 10 standard job categories. Then you report how many are male or female across seven race and ethnicity groups. You are not reporting names or personal records. You are reporting counts.
The data is private. The EEOC does not publish results by company. Federal law bars the agency from making your report public. The government uses the counts to spot patterns across industries and to support a case when a worker files a discrimination charge.
One quick note on wording. You may see "Component 1" and "Component 2." Component 1 is the headcount survey described here, and it is the only part in effect. Component 2 (pay data by hours worked) was collected once for 2017–2018. It is not part of the yearly filing today.
Who needs to file an EEO-1 report?
Not every business files. The duty kicks in at set team-size and contract levels. Here is who is covered.
Private employers with 100+ employees
Any private employer with 100 or more employees must file an EEO-1 report every year. This is the most common trigger. The count includes both full-time and part-time staff. You base it on a "workforce snapshot" pay period you pick in the fourth quarter of the reporting year.
There is also a group rule. Say your company has fewer than 100 people on its own, but it is owned by or tied to another company. If the whole group employs 100 or more, you are still covered.
Federal contractors with 50+ employees
The line is lower for federal contractors. You must file if you have 50 or more employees and you meet any of these:
- You hold a federal contract, subcontract, or purchase order worth $50,000 or more.
- You hold government funds on deposit in any amount.
- You are a bank that issues and pays out U.S. savings bonds.
If you do business with the federal government and you are growing past 50 people, watch this line. It arrives 50 employees earlier than the private-sector rule.
Exemptions for small businesses
If you have fewer than 100 employees and you are not a covered federal contractor, you do not file an EEO-1 report. Full stop. Most small teams sit well below the line and have no filing duty at all.
Still, "not required yet" is not the same as "never." A team that grows from 60 to 90 people in a year can cross 100 faster than you expect. First-time sign-up also takes time. Knowing where you stand keeps the deadline from becoming a surprise. A good HR compliance checklist should flag the EEO-1 line as a milestone to plan for.
Here is a quick reference:
| Employer type | Must file if... |
|---|---|
| Private employer | 100+ employees |
| Private employer (part of a larger group) | Enterprise total is 100+ employees |
| Federal contractor | 50+ employees and a contract of $50,000+ |
| Depository of government funds | 50+ employees, any contract amount |
| Small business, no federal contract | Fewer than 100 employees → exempt |
EEO-1 deadlines and filing schedule (2026)
The EEO-1 does not run on a fixed calendar date. Instead, the EEOC opens a filing window each year. It usually opens a few months after the reporting year ends. The agency posts the exact dates on its data collection page.
Recent history gives you a sense of the rhythm. The 2024 EEO-1 Component 1 collection opened on May 20, 2025 and closed on June 24, 2025. That is a roughly five-week window in late spring, after the reporting year. Earlier cycles ran on a similar spring-to-summer pattern, though the pandemic years shifted some dates.
As of mid-2026, the EEOC has not yet posted the dates for the next cycle. The agency adds updates to its EEO data collections page as they come out. Bookmark it and check back in the spring.
A few scheduling facts help you plan:
- Reporting year and filing year differ. You report on last year's workforce during a window that opens the next spring.
- The window is short. It has run about five to ten weeks. Miss it, and you are stuck chasing a late-filing process.
- Sign-up is separate and slower. First-time filers must register before they can submit. That step can take longer than the filing itself.
The takeaway is simple. Treat spring as EEO-1 season and get your data ready before the window opens, not after.
EEO-1 job categories explained
Every employee on your report must go into exactly one of 10 EEO-1 job categories. These are the same for every employer, so the data can be compared across the country. Getting them right is the biggest data-quality task in the whole process.
The categories run from most senior to least. They map loosely to the job groups the federal government uses.
| # | Job category | Typical roles |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Executive/Senior Level Officials and Managers | CEO, COO, VP, department heads who set policy |
| 2 | First/Mid-Level Officials and Managers | Team leads, office managers, supervisors |
| 3 | Professionals | Engineers, accountants, lawyers, designers, most degreed roles |
| 4 | Technicians | Lab techs, IT support, drafters, licensed practical nurses |
| 5 | Sales Workers | Account executives, retail sales, sales reps |
| 6 | Administrative Support Workers | Bookkeepers, receptionists, schedulers, clerks |
| 7 | Craft Workers | Electricians, mechanics, carpenters, skilled trades |
| 8 | Operatives | Machine operators, assemblers, drivers |
| 9 | Laborers and Helpers | Movers, construction helpers, general labor |
| 10 | Service Workers | Janitors, security guards, food service, care aides |
A few rules make sorting cleaner:
- Sort by the actual work, not the title. A "Marketing Ninja" who spends the day on professional-level campaign work belongs in Professionals, not somewhere fancier.
- The two manager tiers turn on scope. Executive/Senior managers set policy and direction. First/Mid-Level managers carry it out and supervise others.
- When a role could fit two groups, pick the one that matches most of the job.
If your titles are messy, clean role and department data pays off here. A set list of roles and titles in your employee directory software makes it much easier to map each person to the right category when the window opens.
How to file an EEO-1 report (step-by-step)
Filing happens online through the EEOC's secure portal. Here is the sequence from start to finish.
Step 1: Register on the EEOC portal
First-time filers must set up an account on the EEOC filer portal and request a company login. The EEOC gives each filer its own company ID. Do this early. Sign-up is not instant, and you cannot submit anything until it clears. Returning filers reuse their existing login.
Step 2: Gather employee demographic data
Collect three things for every employee: their job category, sex, and race or ethnicity. The best way to get race and sex data is to let each person pick their own categories on a private form.
If an employee chooses not to self-identify, you may fill in the count from employment records or by observation. The EEOC allows this, and the report cannot have blanks. The seven race and ethnicity groups are: Hispanic or Latino; White; Black or African American; Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander; Asian; American Indian or Alaska Native; and Two or More Races.
Step 3: Sort employees into job categories
Using the 10 categories above, put every employee into exactly one. This is the step that most rewards prep. Run it against a current headcount export so nobody is missed and nobody is counted twice.
Step 4: Submit Component 1 data
Enter your counts into the portal. You can type them in by hand for a small team or upload a data file for a larger one. The portal checks your entries and flags plain errors, like totals that do not match your reported headcount.
Step 5: Review and certify
Before you submit, check every count against your source data. A company officer then confirms that the report is correct. Once confirmed, the report is filed. Keep a copy of the confirmation for your records.
Tip: Pull your workforce snapshot from one source of truth. When headcount, job category, and demographic fields all live in one system, checking the report is a quick review, not a data hunt.
EEO-1 reporting for multi-location businesses
If your company works out of more than one location, the EEO-1 gets more detailed. You do not file one blended report. You file a set of them.
Employers with more than one site submit:
- A consolidated report that covers the whole company (all locations combined).
- A headquarters report for the main office.
- A site-level report for each location. How much detail you give depends on how many people work there.
Small sites can be reported in a shorter form. Larger sites need the full demographic breakdown. The totals across all your site reports must match your consolidated report exactly. A mismatch is one of the fastest ways to get flagged.
For remote-heavy teams, the tricky part is assigning each employee to the right site (usually the one they report to). Clean location data in your people records makes this simple. If you are still working out your headquarters-versus-remote setup, our guide to people operations covers how to keep that data tidy as you grow.
Common EEO-1 filing mistakes to avoid
First-time filers tend to stumble in the same spots. Avoiding these keeps you off the EEOC's correction list.
- Signing up too late. Sign-up is separate from filing and can take weeks. Start the moment you know you will cross the line.
- Miscounting the team. The count is based on one snapshot pay period, not "roughly how many people we have." Pick your snapshot and use it every time.
- Sloppy job sorting. Sorting by title instead of real duties is the most common data error. Two similar titles can land in different categories.
- Leaving demographic gaps. The report cannot have blanks. If someone will not self-identify, you must still fill in their entry with an allowed method.
- Match errors in multi-site reports. Site totals that do not add up to the company total will bounce back.
- Waiting for the window to prep data. The filing window is short. Get your data together before it opens.
- Thinking EEO-1 covers pay. It does not. The standard EEO-1 collects demographics only. Pay analysis is a separate job. See our overview of pay transparency laws if pay reporting is on your radar.
How to prepare for EEO-1 before you hit 100 employees
The best time to get EEO-1-ready is before the law requires you to file. Prep is cheap when you are at 70 people and costly when you are at 101 with a window closing. Here is a practical runway.
At 50–75 employees: Start capturing clean demographic data through self-identification during onboarding. Map every new hire to one of the 10 job categories in your records from day one. This turns the future report into an export, not a project.
At 75–90 employees: Do a dry run. Pull a headcount snapshot and sort everyone into the 10 categories. You will spot the unclear roles and messy titles now, while you still have time to fix them. This is also a good time to firm up your HR compliance checklist so nothing else is quietly waiting to become a rule.
At 90–100 employees: Register on the EEOC portal early if you can, or at least learn the steps. Give the filing an owner. Pick your workforce snapshot period. Line up your headcount data across systems so there are no surprises.
Tracking these numbers over time also feeds wider workforce planning. If you are building out reporting anyway, our guide to people analytics shows how the same role and demographic data supports diversity metrics and headcount planning, not just compliance.
How Tiny Team helps with people data
The hardest part of the EEO-1 is rarely the filing. It is having accurate, tidy workforce data ready when the window opens. That is the gap a lightweight HR system fills for small teams.
Tiny Team keeps employee records, job roles, departments, and company data in one place. So pulling a clean headcount snapshot and mapping people to job categories is a quick lookup, not a scramble. Its work structure tools let you set custom roles, titles, and departments up front. That is the backbone that keeps EEO-1 sorting consistent.
For teams under 100 people, the price fits the stage. Tiny Team is free for up to 10 people (no credit card). Above that, it is a flat $79/month for up to 50 people. That is not per-seat, and every feature is included. The paid plan starts with a 30-day free trial, which needs a credit card to begin. It is an HR-side option for keeping people data tidy as you near the reporting line, not a payroll or benefits system. For a wider view of what small teams need early on, our HR for startups guide is a good companion read.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is required to file an EEO-1 report?
Private employers with 100 or more employees must file every year. Federal contractors must file at 50 or more employees if they hold a federal contract worth $50,000 or more. A business with fewer than 100 employees and no qualifying federal contract is exempt.
What is the EEO-1 deadline for 2026?
The EEOC sets a new filing window each year instead of a fixed date. The 2024 collection ran from May 20 to June 24, 2025. As of mid-2026, the next cycle's dates were not yet out. Check the official EEOC data collections page in the spring for the current schedule.
What are the 10 EEO-1 job categories?
They are: 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. You place each employee in exactly one, based on their real duties.
Do I need to file an EEO-1 report if I have fewer than 100 employees?
Usually, no. If you have fewer than 100 employees and are not a covered federal contractor, you have no duty to file. The exception is federal contractors, who must file at 50 or more employees with a qualifying $50,000+ contract.
Is EEO-1 data confidential?
Yes. The EEOC does not publish EEO-1 data by company, and federal law bars the agency from making individual reports public. The data is used to study patterns and to support discrimination cases.
What happens if I miss the EEO-1 filing deadline?
The EEOC can seek a court order that forces you to file, and missing it can affect your standing for federal contracts. If you miss the window, contact the EEOC right away about late filing rather than skipping the report.
The bottom line
The EEO-1 report is a simple yearly survey once your data is in order. The "in order" part is where growing teams get caught. If you are nearing 100 employees, start capturing clean demographic and job-category data now, register early, and treat spring as EEO-1 season. Do that, and what feels like a compliance hurdle turns into a routine export.
Want to keep your people data tidy before you hit the line? Tiny Team puts your directory, roles, and company data in one flat-rate plan built for small teams.
