EEOC Form 573 Notice of Appeal/Petition: Filing Steps and Deadline

To file EEOC Form 573, complete the one-page Notice of Appeal/Petition, attach the agency’s final decision, and submit it to the EEOC’s Office of Federal Operations within 30 days of receiving that decision. You can file online through the EEOC Public Portal at publicportal.eeoc.gov, by mail to P.O. Box 77960, Washington, DC 20013, or by fax to (202) 663-7022. There is no filing fee.¹

The Deadline That Governs Your Filing

For most complainants, the window is 30 days from the date you received the agency’s final action or dismissal.² A few situations use a different clock:

Agency appeals of an Administrative Judge’s decision after a hearing: 40 days from receipt of the hearing file and decision.
Appeals from a negotiated grievance procedure: 30 days from receipt of the final decision of the agency, arbitrator, or FLRA.
Settlement noncompliance: you can file 35 days after notifying the agency’s EEO Director of alleged noncompliance, but no later than 30 days after receiving the agency’s determination on that allegation.

Late appeals get dismissed. OFO rarely accepts an excuse absent extraordinary circumstances, such as never receiving the decision at all, so if you’re close to the deadline, treat it as firm.³ The date OFO receives your form is what counts for mailed appeals, not the postmark.

Filling Out the Form

Form 573 is a single page available on the EEOC’s website and appended to Management Directive 110.⁴ It has four sections.

Complainant Information

Enter your full legal name (last, first, middle initial), mailing address, city, state, ZIP code, daytime phone with area code, and email. OFO will send every notice and decision to the address you list, so use one where you reliably receive mail. If you move during the appeal, update your contact information promptly.

Attorney or Representative Information

If you have an attorney or non-attorney representative, list their name, address, phone, and email. Leaving this blank means you’re representing yourself. Naming someone here authorizes OFO to communicate with that person about your case.

General Information

This is where most errors happen. You need to provide:

The federal agency you filed against.
The agency complaint number, taken directly from the agency’s final action letter. A wrong number can delay docketing or attach your appeal to someone else’s case.
The duty station or local facility where the alleged discrimination occurred.
Whether a final action has been taken, and the date you received it. OFO uses that date to determine timeliness, so be exact.
Whether you’re alleging breach of a settlement agreement. Check this only if the appeal concerns the agency’s failure to honor a prior settlement.
Whether you’ve raised the same matter through another agency, administrative procedure, or collective bargaining process, with the name and docket number if so.
Whether a civil action has been filed on the same claim. Filing a lawsuit generally ends EEOC jurisdiction over the appeal.

Signature and Date

Sign and date the form, or have your representative sign. An unsigned form is incomplete and can be returned.

What to Attach

Attach a copy of the final decision or order you’re appealing. If you had a hearing before an EEOC Administrative Judge, attach both the agency’s final order and the Administrative Judge’s decision.¹ Without these documents, OFO has no way to identify what you’re challenging, and missing attachments can result in delay or dismissal. You do not need to submit your supporting brief with the form. The brief has its own deadline after filing.

Submitting the Form

EEOC Public Portal

At publicportal.eeoc.gov you can create an account, upload Form 573, and attach documents electronically.⁴ The portal generates a confirmation receipt showing your filing date, and it notifies the agency for you. That last point matters: filers who use the portal do not have to separately serve a copy on the agency’s EEO office, which removes one of the most common procedural traps.

Mail

Send the completed form and attachments to:

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
Office of Federal Operations
P.O. Box 77960
Washington, DC 20013³

Use certified mail with return receipt so you have proof of the date OFO received it. Remember that receipt date, not postmark, is what fixes your filing date.

Fax

Fax to (202) 663-7022 with a cover sheet identifying the document as an EEOC Form 573 appeal.³ Keep your fax confirmation page as proof.

Serving the Agency

If you file by mail or fax, you must send a copy of your appeal to the agency’s EEO office at the same time, and you must certify in the appeal itself the date and method you used to deliver that copy.³ Failing to show proof of service can result in denial.⁴ The Public Portal handles agency notification on its own, so no separate service step is required if you file that way.⁵

What Happens After You File

OFO dockets the case and assigns an appellate tracking number. Put that number on every document you send in afterward.

You then have 30 days from the date you filed the appeal to submit a statement or brief explaining why the agency’s decision was wrong.⁶ A brief is not required, but skipping it leaves OFO with only the agency’s reasoning and the investigative file. Focus the brief on errors of fact or law in the agency’s decision. If you file the brief by mail, mail a copy to the agency at the same time.⁵

The agency has 30 days from receiving your brief to file its opposition statement. If you don’t submit a brief, the agency gets 60 days from receiving the appeal to respond.⁶ OFO also pulls the complete investigative file from the agency and conducts an independent review.

There is no set timeline for OFO’s decision on a standard appeal. Cases can remain pending for many months depending on the office’s workload and the complexity of the record.

Why Appeals Get Dismissed

The most common reason is untimeliness. A day past the 30-day or 40-day window without a persuasive explanation is enough for dismissal. Other frequent triggers are failing to show proof of service on the agency, filing without the final action letter attached, and, for agency appeals of an Administrative Judge’s order, failing to comply with interim relief requirements.³ These are procedural problems, not merits problems, and every one is avoidable.

If OFO Rules Against You

You have two options. You can ask OFO to reconsider within 30 days of receiving the decision, but reconsideration is granted only if you can show the decision was based on a mistake about the facts or the law applied to those facts. Disagreement alone is not enough.⁷

You can also file a civil action in federal district court within 90 days of receiving OFO’s appeal decision.⁸ That 90-day clock runs from the appeal decision itself, not from a later reconsideration decision, so a reconsideration request does not automatically extend your litigation window. If court is on the table, talk to an attorney soon after the appeal decision arrives.

1
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Notice of Appeal/Petition – Complainant
2
eCFR. 29 CFR 1614.402 – Time for Appeals to the Commission
3
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Management Directive 110 – Chapter 9 Appeals to the Commission
4
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Appeals
5
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Guide to Writing Appeal Briefs for Unrepresented Complainants before the EEOC Office of Federal Operations
6
eCFR. 29 CFR 1614.403 – How to Appeal
7
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Appeals Process
8
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Overview of Federal Sector EEO Complaint Process