If your company holds a federal contract, there is a yearly report you cannot skip. It is called the VETS-4212. It tells the U.S. Department of Labor how many protected veterans you hired and how many you employ. Miss it, and you put your federal contracts at risk.

The rules are simple once you know them. But the dollar thresholds and the filing window trip people up every year. The threshold that makes you file is not the same threshold that triggers your broader veteran-hiring duties. And the filing season is short. It runs only two months.

This guide walks through who must file, the deadline, the dollar cutoffs, and how to submit the report. It is written for the HR or compliance lead at a midsize federal contractor. No full legal team required. Every figure below comes straight from the Department of Labor and carries its effective date. Always re-check the current numbers on dol.gov before you file, because the rules do shift.

What Is the VETS-4212 Report?

The VETS-4212 is an annual report federal contractors file with the Department of Labor. The full name is the Federal Contractor Veterans' Employment Report. It is run by the Veterans' Employment and Training Service, known as VETS.

The report does one job. It counts protected veterans on your payroll. You report how many you hired during the year. You also report how many you employ in total. The numbers are broken out by job category and by hiring location.

This report comes from a federal law called VEVRAA. That is the Vietnam Era Veterans' Readjustment Assistance Act. The law is found at 38 U.S.C. § 4212. It is the same law behind your other veteran-hiring duties as a contractor. The VETS-4212 is the reporting piece of that law.

One thing to be clear about. The VETS-4212 is filed with DOL VETS. It is not filed with the OFCCP. The OFCCP handles your written affirmative action plan and the hiring benchmark. Those are separate duties. If you want the full picture of your contractor obligations, read our guide on VEVRAA compliance for federal contractors.

Who Must File the VETS-4212?

You must file if your company holds a federal contract or subcontract worth $150,000 or more. That dollar figure is the trigger. It applies to contracts for personal property or for non-personal services with any U.S. department or agency.

Subcontractors count too. If you hold a subcontract of $150,000 or more under a covered prime contract, you file. The duty does not stop at the prime.

This is where the two thresholds split. The VETS-4212 filing threshold is $150,000. But the broader VEVRAA coverage threshold is $200,000, effective October 1, 2025. So a contract between $150,000 and $200,000 can owe a VETS-4212 report. At the same time, it sits below the VEVRAA bar for the written affirmative action plan. Two different rules. Two different dollar amounts. Keep them apart. If you also file an EEO-1, our breakdown of the difference between the EEO-1 and the VETS-4212 shows how the two reports relate.

Not sure if your contract counts? DOL runs a free online tool called the VETS-4212 Report Advisor. It walks you through the questions. When in doubt, use it or ask your counsel.

When Is the VETS-4212 Deadline?

The filing season is short. It opens August 1 and closes September 30 each year. You get two months. That is the whole window.

You file for the calendar year in which you held a covered contract. So the report you submit in the August-to-September season covers the prior period. Do not wait until the last week. The portal sees heavy traffic near the deadline. A technical snag in late September leaves you no room to recover.

Treat this like a fixed annual task. Put it on the calendar the same way you do W-2 season. The companies that file clean every year do it because someone owns the date.

What Data Goes Into the Report?

The VETS-4212 counts protected veterans. The law splits them into four groups. You report the numbers across these categories.

For each location, you report two sets of numbers. First, the count of protected veterans you employ. Second, the count of protected veterans you hired during the year. You also report your total employee count at each spot. The numbers are spread across standard job categories.

Where does this data come from? Self-identification. Veterans choose whether to tell you they are protected. You invite them to self-identify, but you cannot force it. The numbers you report reflect who chose to share their status. This is why a clean intake process matters. If your onboarding never asks, your report will undercount, and your data will look thin in an audit.

Knowing who counts also helps you read a resume. If you want to get sharper at spotting protected-veteran signals during screening, our recruiter checklist for screening veteran applicants breaks it down.

How Do You File the VETS-4212?

You file through the VETS-4212 Reporting Application. It is the official online portal run by the Department of Labor. The report can be completed online for most filers.

First, you register an account. The portal asks for your contact details and your company's identifying information. Your request then goes to your company's primary point of contact for approval. Once they approve, you get an email with steps to finish registration. So do not start this the morning of the deadline. The approval step takes time.

Single-establishment employers file one report. That is the simple case. You have one location, you enter your numbers, you submit. Most midsize contractors with one site fall here.

If you get stuck, DOL VETS lists a help email for the application. Use it early in the season, not on September 29.

What Is the 10-Location Paper-vs-Electronic Cutoff?

This rule depends on how many hiring locations you run. The number 10 is the line.

Multi-establishment employers with more than 10 hiring locations must submit as an electronic data file. The file has to match the current Department of Labor specifications. You cannot key it in one location at a time. You build the file and upload it.

Multi-establishment employers with 10 or fewer hiring locations are strongly encouraged to file electronically, but they are not required to. They can still use the online form. So if you run six sites, you have a choice. If you run twelve, the data file is mandatory.

If you are near the 10-location line and growing, plan ahead. Building the data file the first time takes setup. Get your HRIS export mapped to the DOL spec before the year you cross the threshold. Many payroll systems can generate the file for you, but it needs configuring.

What Happens If You Miss the Filing?

The VETS-4212 is a condition of doing business with the government. Filing it is part of holding the contract. A missed or late report is a compliance gap. Compliance gaps put your contracts and future bids at risk.

Audits do happen. When they do, the auditor checks whether you filed and whether the data ties to your records. They also check whether your self-identification process is sound. A clean filing history is the easiest part of that audit to get right. You either filed on time or you did not.

The veteran-hiring duties under VEVRAA do not end at the report. There is also a hiring benchmark you are expected to set and track. That is a separate piece, handled through the OFCCP. We cover the math in our guide on the OFCCP veteran hiring benchmark and what contractors track.

One note on the current climate. VEVRAA is statutory law and remains in force in 2026. There has been rulemaking activity and policy change around contractor obligations in recent years, so do not assume the rules are frozen. Confirm the current VETS-4212 requirements on the DOL VETS contractor page and check with counsel before each filing season.

How Does Filing Connect to Actually Hiring Veterans?

The report counts veterans. But the report is easier to file when you actually have veterans to count. A strong veteran headcount makes your data look healthy and makes your benchmark easier to hit.

This is where many midsize contractors stall. They know the compliance duty. They file the report. But they have not built a real pipeline to bring veteran talent in the door. The report becomes a chore instead of a reflection of good hiring.

If you are building that pipeline, two of our guides go deep on it. Our veteran recruiting strategy and talent acquisition playbook covers the full motion. And if you work in the government-services space, our piece on recruiting veterans for government services contracts speaks to your exact world.

This is also where Best Military Resume fits. We run a growing pool of veteran talent. More than 1,000 new veteran profiles are added every month, and we have built more than 60,000 resumes for the military community. Federal contractors that need to keep veteran numbers strong need one thing: a steady supply of candidates. You can reach out to access our veteran talent pool when you are ready to source.

Your VETS-4212 Filing Checklist

Here is the short version to keep your team on track each year.

The VETS-4212 is a yearly box to check, but it sits on top of something bigger. It reflects how seriously your company hires and keeps veterans. Get the filing tight, and get the pipeline behind it strong. When you are ready to bring more veteran talent into your reqs, BMR's pool is built for exactly that.