Two report names keep landing in HR inboxes at federal contractors. EEO-1 and VETS-4212. EEO-1 and VETS-4212. They sound like the same kind of paperwork. They are not. They go to different agencies. They cover different data. They have different filing windows. And they have different size triggers for who must file.

Mix them up and you can miss a deadline, file the wrong data, or assume you are covered when you are not. I have sat on the government side of federal contracts. From the work statement all the way through close-out. I have watched contractors trip over these reports because they treated them as one obligation. They are two.

This guide lays them side by side. Who files each one. The size thresholds. The deadlines. What data each collects. And how to keep both straight without burning your team's time. If you are building or growing a veteran-hiring motion, knowing where these reports fit saves you a lot of guesswork later.

What Is the EEO-1 Report?

The EEO-1 report goes to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). It is a workforce demographic snapshot. You report your employees by job category, sex, and race or ethnicity.

The official name is the "Employer Information Report EEO-1, Component 1." Most people just call it the EEO-1. It is an annual filing. The EEOC uses the data to track workforce composition across industries and to support civil rights enforcement.

The report does not ask about veterans. It does not ask about disability status. It is strictly demographic data tied to race, ethnicity, and sex, sorted into ten job categories. Think executives, professionals, technicians, sales, laborers, and so on.

Who has to file an EEO-1?

Two groups trigger the EEO-1 filing requirement:

• Private employers with 100 or more employees. If you hit 100 employees, you file. Federal contract status does not matter at this size.
• Federal contractors with 50 or more employees that also hold a prime contract or first-tier subcontract of $50,000 or more. Smaller contractors get pulled in at a lower headcount than private firms.

So a 60-person company with no government work files nothing for EEO-1. A 60-person federal contractor with a qualifying contract does file. The contract is what lowers the bar from 100 down to 50.

What Is the VETS-4212 Report?

The VETS-4212 goes to the Department of Labor's Veterans' Employment and Training Service (DOL VETS). It is a veteran employment report. You report how many protected veterans you employ and how many you hired in the reporting period, broken out by job category and hiring location.

The full name is the "Federal Contractor Veterans' Employment Report VETS-4212." It exists because of a federal law called VEVRAA. That stands for the Vietnam Era Veterans' Readjustment Assistance Act. The law puts affirmative action obligations on federal contractors to recruit and hire protected veterans. The report is how the government checks that work.

This report is veteran-specific. It does not ask about race, ethnicity, or sex the way the EEO-1 does. It asks about protected veteran status. That is the core difference in the data each one collects.

Who has to file a VETS-4212?

The VETS-4212 trigger is the contract dollar value, not your headcount. A nonexempt federal contractor or subcontractor files if it holds a contract or subcontract of $150,000 or more with a federal agency for property or services.

That means a small contractor can owe a VETS-4212 even with a modest workforce. If the contract clears $150,000, the obligation kicks in. Headcount does not get you out of it.

How Do the Two Reports Differ?

The short version is that they answer different questions for different agencies. The EEO-1 asks "what does your workforce look like by race, ethnicity, and sex." The VETS-4212 asks "how many veterans do you employ and hire."

The points that matter most, head to head.

One thing trips up a lot of teams. You can owe both reports at the same time. A 200-person federal contractor with a large contract files an EEO-1 for the demographic data and a VETS-4212 for the veteran data. The reports are not interchangeable. Filing one does not satisfy the other.

You can also owe just one. A 300-person private company with no federal contracts files the EEO-1 and never touches the VETS-4212. A 40-person contractor with a $200,000 service contract files the VETS-4212 but is below the EEO-1 contractor headcount of 50.

When Are the Deadlines for Each Report?

The deadlines are different, and one of them moves every year.

The VETS-4212 is the stable one. The filing window runs from August 1 to September 30 each year. You report your data during that two-month window. Mark it and it does not change. For the full filing walkthrough, see our guide on who must file the VETS-4212, the deadline, and how to file.

The EEO-1 deadline is the one that shifts. The EEOC sets the collection window each year, and it does not always land on the same date. The opening and closing dates are announced for that cycle. The 2024 data collection, for example, closed on June 24, 2025. Older idea sheets and some compliance checklists still list a fixed spring date like March 31. Do not trust a hardcoded date. Check the current EEOC announcement before you assume your deadline.

The lesson here is simple. Build your VETS-4212 reminder once and leave it. Re-check the EEO-1 date at the start of every year.

How Does VEVRAA Fit In With VETS-4212?

The VETS-4212 does not stand alone. It is the reporting piece of a larger obligation under VEVRAA. If your contract makes you subject to VEVRAA, you owe more than just the annual report.

VEVRAA requires covered federal contractors to take affirmative steps to recruit, hire, and advance protected veterans. That includes writing an affirmative action program, tracking applicant and hire data, and meeting a hiring benchmark. The VETS-4212 is how you report the veteran numbers, but the program work happens year round.

There is a threshold detail worth flagging. VEVRAA's contract coverage threshold moved to $200,000, effective October 1, 2025. The VETS-4212 reporting threshold has historically sat at $150,000. A contractor can be inside the VETS-4212 reporting net at $150,000. The broader VEVRAA affirmative action obligations attach at the $200,000 level. These dollar figures shift with policy and rulemaking. Confirm the current numbers on dol.gov before drawing a hard line for your own contracts.

For the full picture of what VEVRAA asks of you beyond the report, see our deeper breakdown on VEVRAA compliance for federal contractors. And if you are tracking how your veteran hiring stacks up against the federal target, our guide on the OFCCP veteran hiring benchmark covers what contractors actually have to measure.

What Data Goes Into Each Report?

The data sets do not overlap much. Understanding what each one wants keeps you from pulling the wrong numbers.

EEO-1 data

The EEO-1 sorts every employee into one of ten job categories. Then it counts each category by sex and by race or ethnicity. You report headcount, not names. The snapshot is taken from a single pay period in the last quarter of the year.

VETS-4212 data

The VETS-4212 wants two veteran numbers per job category and hiring location. The number of protected veterans you currently employ, and the number you hired during the reporting period. It also asks for your total employee and total hire counts so the veteran numbers have context. You report the maximum and minimum number of employees during the period too.

Why the Veteran Data Is Hard to Get

The EEO-1 demographic data is usually sitting in your HRIS. Race, ethnicity, and sex are standard fields. Pulling them is mostly a query.

The VETS-4212 is harder. Protected veteran counts depend on self-identification. If your applicants and employees never tell you they are veterans, your numbers look thin. That is not just a reporting problem. It is a sourcing problem. You cannot report veterans you never hired, and you cannot hire veterans you never reached.

This is where the report connects to your actual hiring work. Contractors that build a real veteran pipeline have stronger VETS-4212 numbers because they are hiring more veterans, not because they fill out the form better. If your veteran counts are low, the fix lives upstream in sourcing and recruiting, not in the filing.

If you want to move those numbers, two of our guides go straight at it. The veteran recruiting strategy playbook lays out how to build the pipeline from scratch. And for the screening side, the recruiter checklist for screening veteran applicants helps your team move qualified veterans through faster instead of letting strong candidates rack-and-stack to the bottom of the pile.

For contractors whose veteran hiring ties to government work specifically, our piece on recruiting veterans for government services contracts covers the sourcing angle that feeds both your delivery and your compliance numbers.

How to Keep Both Reports Off Your Risk List

Missing either report carries consequences. The EEOC has sued employers for failing to file the EEO-1. For federal contractors, a missed VETS-4212 can affect your standing on current and future contracts. Neither is a paperwork formality you can let slide.

The cleanest way to stay ahead of both is to treat them as two separate tracks from day one. Different owner if you can. Different calendar entry. Different data source. When teams collapse them into one "compliance reporting" task, that is when one gets forgotten.

Run a quick annual check. Did your headcount cross 100, or 50 with a contract? That is your EEO-1 answer. Do you hold a contract at $150,000 or more? That is your VETS-4212 answer. Did a new contract push you past the VEVRAA threshold? That triggers the broader affirmative action work, not just the report.

The deeper point is that strong compliance numbers come from strong hiring. Veterans bring a track record you can verify. They hold security clearances that take months to replace. And they bring the kind of mission focus that holds under pressure. BMR exists to connect employers with that talent. We add over 1,000 new veteran profiles every month and have built more than 60,000 resumes. The pool you are sourcing from keeps growing. If you want to hire from it, you can reach out to access BMR's veteran talent pool directly. Filing the report is the floor. Hiring the veterans is the point.