Maplebear Inc., the parent company of Instacart, has agreed to pay $5 million to resolve allegations from the U.S. Department of Justice and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that it discriminated against international talent based on citizenship status and national origin during federally regulated hiring. The settlement does not constitute an admission of liability, according to the DOJ announcement.
The case was announced under the Trump administration’s Protecting U.S. Workers Initiative and Project Firewall, federal programs aimed at preventing employers from favoring foreign workers over U.S. workers in violation of employment law.
What Instacart Allegedly Did
Federal investigators say Instacart required U.S. applicants to mail paper applications for certain jobs while accepting online submissions from everyone else.
PERM, short for Permanent Labor Certification, requires employers to make a genuine effort to recruit U.S. workers before sponsoring a foreign worker for permanent U.S. residence. The process requires a showing that no qualified, willing, and available U.S. worker could fill the role before a foreign worker is sponsored.
Federal investigators alleged that between December 2023 and February 2026, Instacart required U.S. applicants for PERM-linked positions to physically mail their applications. The company’s standard hiring process, by contrast, accepted submissions online.
That added friction, investigators said, caused many U.S. applicants not to be timely considered for those positions.
Settlement Terms
The $5 million agreement splits between a compensation fund for affected workers and civil penalties owed to the federal government.
Under the agreement, Instacart must meet the following conditions, according to the DOJ:
- Up to $4 million placed into a compensation fund for affected applicants and those who may have been deterred from applying
- $1 million in civil penalties paid to the U.S. government
- PERM positions posted on Instacart’s public careers website, with electronic applications accepted from U.S. workers
- Revised employment policies, anti-discrimination training for relevant personnel, and federal monitoring and reporting requirements
Instacart’s Position and the Bigger Picture
Instacart maintained that its practices were lawful, while also pointing to PERM rules it considers misaligned with modern hiring.
Instacart said its practices complied with applicable laws and agreed to resolve the matter to focus on its business and customers. The company also characterized certain PERM requirements as outdated and poorly suited to modern online recruitment, according to AP and KQED.
PERM’s recruitment rules predate the internet era and still include newspaper advertising requirements, according to KQED citing ProPublica. That tension between legacy rules and digital hiring systems has produced enforcement actions across the technology sector. OpenAI settled a similar case for more than $3 million, and Apple and Facebook previously resolved comparable matters, according to KQED.
Federal regulators have now pursued enforcement actions against multiple tech employers over similar PERM-related practices.
What This Means Going Forward
This case is distinct from Instacart’s $46.5 million settlement in 2022, which resolved allegations that delivery workers were misclassified as independent contractors and denied mileage reimbursement. That dispute concerned gig workers; this one concerns corporate job applicants affected during a federally mandated hiring process.
Employers using PERM sponsorship now face heightened scrutiny over whether their application processes treat U.S. applicants as accessible a path as any other candidate.
