OMB Delays Agencies’ Race And Ethnicity “Action Plans” To March 2027

April 6, 2026

What's New

The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has again extended the deadline for the EEOC and other federal agencies to submit their Agency Action Plans on Race and Ethnicity Data—a key step in implementing OMB’s revised federal race/ethnicity data standards announced in 2024.

Agency Action Plans are now due March 28, 2027. The deadline for agencies to bring current data collections into compliance is September 28, 2029.

What It Means

OMB’s 2024 revisions made major changes, including adding Middle Eastern or North African (MENA) as a new minimum reporting category and moving toward a single combined race-and-ethnicity question that allows multiple selections.

While OMB sets the overarching standards, many of the details will be decided later by implementing agencies as they update their own reporting forms and instructions (for example, whether and how the EEO-1 Report may change). The Agency Action Plans will likely be an early indicator of what changes employers could eventually see.

What You Should Do

Employers should continue to comply with existing agency data collection and reporting requirements until formal changes are made. If you already use the MENA category or other detailed race/ethnicity categories, ensure they can be mapped back to the minimum categories required by the EEOC and other agencies.

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