Instacart to Pay $5 Million to Settle Federal Claims It Favoured Foreign Workers in Hiring

The Justice Department and EEOC say the company burdened U.S. applicants in a green card hiring process. Instacart denies wrongdoing.

Instacart’s parent company, Maplebear Inc., has agreed to pay $5 million to resolve a federal investigation into claims that it discriminated against American workers when recruiting for jobs it intended to fill with foreign employees.

The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced the settlements on Tuesday. The agencies said they found evidence that the grocery delivery company preferred hiring foreign workers through an employment-based green card programme over U.S. applicants.

The case centres on PERM, the labour certification process employers use when sponsoring foreign workers for permanent residency. In general, companies must test the job market and recruit U.S. workers before the sponsored position can be certified, to show that qualified American applicants weren’t available.

The Justice Department said Instacart undermined that process by adding extra hurdles for U.S. applicants. In particular, it said the company required those candidates to mail paper applications, instead of using its standard online system. The agencies said this meant some American workers were not considered in time. The department said the conduct ran from December 2023 to February 2026 and violated the Immigration and Nationality Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Maplebear will pay $1 million in civil penalties and up to $4 million to people affected by the practices, who applied for jobs between December 2023 and February 2026. The company also agreed to post openings available to foreign workers on its public website and to accept electronic applications from American applicants.

Instacart says it complied with all applicable laws and regulations. In a statement, the company said it was pleased to resolve the matter so it can focus on serving customers, shoppers, retailers and brands, and that it encourages qualified American job seekers to apply for its roles. The settlement does not include an admission of wrongdoing.

The agreement is part of a wider federal effort. The Justice Department says the Instacart deal is its fifteenth settlement under its relaunched Protecting U.S. Workers Initiative. The EEOC described the case as the fourth public settlement since 2025 involving alleged discrimination against workers of American national origin, and says it is pursuing such cases under an effort called Project Firewall.

EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas said the agreement shows the agency will act when employers put unlawful barriers in front of American workers. The Justice Department has also sued software company Cloudera over similar allegations earlier this year.

For companies that sponsor foreign workers, the message is that how recruitment is run matters as much as whether the paperwork is complete. Treating U.S. applicants differently from the company’s normal process, even for a step required by immigration law, can draw scrutiny. Employers using the PERM process should check that American applicants face the same application channels as everyone else.

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