How to Complete Fannie Mae Form 1005: Verification of Employment

Fannie Mae Form 1005, the Request for Verification of Employment, is completed in three hands: the lender pre-fills the header and borrower identifiers, the employer fills in employment status, dates, job title, and a detailed earnings breakdown, and the borrower signs the authorization that lets the employer release the information. To complete Fannie Mae Form 1005 correctly, the blank form travels from lender to employer and back to lender without passing through the applicant. This article walks through each part of the form, who is responsible for what, and the rules that govern how it must move.

Who Fills Out Which Parts

The borrower does not obtain or complete Form 1005. The lender generates the form from its loan file, fills in the lender’s contact information, the borrower’s name and address, the loan number, and the employer’s address, and then sends the form directly to the employer. Fannie Mae publishes the blank form through its single-family forms library for lenders who need it outside their origination software.¹

Everything below the header is the employer’s responsibility. The form is divided into three parts: Part I on current employment, Part II on earnings, and Part III on prior employment when relevant. The employer completes what applies, signs, and returns the form directly to the lender.

Part I: Employment Information

Part I captures the basics of the applicant’s current or most recent job. The employer enters the hire date, job title, and current employment status, and indicates whether the employee is still on the payroll and in what capacity: full-time, part-time, or seasonal.

Field 11, labeled “Probability of Continued Employment,” is optional. Fannie Mae classifies it that way in its employment documentation standards, so an employer can leave it blank without creating a problem for the loan file.¹ Several other fields are similarly optional, including projected pay increases, the date of the last raise, and whether overtime or bonus income is likely to continue. An employer who does not track these details, or who declines to speculate about future compensation, can skip them.

Part II: Earnings Breakdown

Part II is the section underwriters care about most. The employer separates the applicant’s compensation into base pay, overtime, commissions, and bonuses, and reports current year-to-date figures alongside total earnings for each of the prior two calendar years. The point of the breakdown is to let the lender judge which income types are stable enough to count toward qualifying. A recurring overtime pattern carries more weight than a single bonus.

The figures should line up with what the borrower’s own documents show. Fannie Mae’s selling guide requires W-2 forms covering the most recent one or two years depending on the income type, and the most recent paystub must be dated no earlier than 30 days before the loan application.¹ If the numbers the employer writes on Form 1005 don’t match the paystubs and W-2s already in the file, underwriting will ask why.

Part III: Previous Employment

Part III applies only when the borrower has been at the current job for less than two years. In that case, the lender sends a second Form 1005 to the prior employer, who fills in the same categories of information for the previous position: job title, dates of employment, and earnings. Short tenure alone is not disqualifying. Lenders are checking that the income trajectory across jobs makes sense given the borrower’s stated current salary.

Borrower Authorization

An employer cannot release payroll data without the employee’s written consent. Fannie Mae requires either the borrower’s signature directly on Form 1005 or a separate blanket authorization that covers the verification requests the lender needs to make.¹ Most HR departments will refuse to answer a verification request without seeing that signature, and they are right to refuse; releasing employee financial data without permission exposes the company to liability.

If the verification runs through a consumer reporting agency such as The Work Number rather than a direct request to HR, the Fair Credit Reporting Act adds a parallel rule: a consumer reporting agency cannot furnish employment information to an employer or potential employer without the consumer’s written consent.²

How the Form Moves Between Lender and Employer

The delivery path is not a formality. Form 1005 includes a lender certification stating that the form was sent directly to the employer and “has not passed through the hands of the applicant or any other interested party.” If the borrower handles the completed form at any point, its integrity is compromised and the lender cannot rely on it for underwriting.

In practice, lenders transmit the blank form to employers by secure online portal, encrypted email, or fax, and the completed form comes back the same way. Many lenders now use automated platforms that pull the same data directly from employer payroll systems and skip the paper form entirely. When the process is manual, turnaround depends on the employer’s HR capacity. A large company with a dedicated verification desk may respond within a day or two; a small business handling verifications informally may take a week or more.

How Long the Completed Form Stays Valid

Fannie Mae does not attach a fixed shelf life to the signature date on Form 1005. Instead, the completed form must comply with the lender’s Allowable Age of Credit Documents policy, which generally means the documentation cannot be stale at closing. If a closing slips by several months, the lender may need to request a fresh VOE before it can fund the loan.

When the Employer Will Not Complete the Form

No federal law requires a private employer to fill out a mortgage lender’s VOE. Child support enforcement is the narrow exception: employers must provide employment and income information to child support agencies on request.³ For a mortgage VOE, an employer that ignores the request faces no penalty, though the silence can delay the borrower’s closing.

Fannie Mae’s selling guide allows alternative documentation when a formal VOE cannot be obtained. The lender can rebuild the same picture of employment and income using documents supplied by the borrower:

The most recent paystub, dated no earlier than 30 days before the loan application, showing year-to-date earnings.
W-2 forms covering the most recent one or two years, depending on the income type.
Tax transcripts pulled directly from the IRS through Form 4506-C, which authorizes the lender to obtain records through the Income Verification Express Service.

The IRS describes IVES as a service that lets borrowers authorize banks and lenders to access tax records when applying for a mortgage or loan.⁴ For a salaried employee with consistent paystubs and clean W-2s, this combination satisfies the same underwriting requirement Form 1005 would have.

The Verbal Reverification Before Closing

A written Form 1005 in the loan file does not end the verification process. Fannie Mae requires a verbal verification of employment within ten calendar days before the loan closing to confirm the borrower is still working.⁵ Freddie Mac has a parallel rule: the verbal verification must occur no more than ten business days before the note date.⁶ If closing slides past that window, the lender must run the verbal check again.

A note on accuracy: misrepresenting employment status or income on Form 1005, whether by the borrower or a cooperating employer, is mortgage fraud. Under 18 U.S.C. § 1014, knowingly making a false statement to influence a federally insured financial institution carries a fine of up to $1,000,000, up to 30 years in prison, or both, and the exposure runs to the employer who signs the form as well as the borrower who benefits from it.⁷

1
Fannie Mae. Standards for Employment and Income Documentation
2
The Work Number. Fair Credit Reporting Act
3
Administration for Children and Families. Standard Response to Verification of Employment Form
4
Internal Revenue Service. Income Verification Express Service (IVES)
5
Fannie Mae. DU Validation Service Frequently Asked Questions
6
Freddie Mac Single-Family Seller/Servicer Guide. Guide Section 5302.2
7
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 1014 – Loan and Credit Applications Generally