You just learned that a company you've never knowingly done business with has your entire W-2 work history — every employer, every date, often your income — sitting in a database that lenders, landlords, and background screeners can pull on demand. That company is The Work Number (TWN), run by Equifax, and now you want it locked down. This guide takes you through the full freeze process, start to finish, so you can follow along and have it done in one sitting.
What The Work Number is, and where it came from
The Work Number started in the 1990s as a product of TALX Corporation, built to automate employment and income verification so HR departments wouldn't have to field phone calls confirming where people worked. Equifax acquired TALX in 2007 and folded it into its workforce business.
What began as a convenience tool is now one of the largest employment databases in the country, covering well over 145 million U.S. employment records. Thousands of large employers feed it — Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, major retailers — reporting payroll data automatically.
Here's the part that catches most people off guard: you almost certainly never opted in. Your data landed in TWN because your employer participates as part of its payroll setup, and the consent for that is bundled into the stack of onboarding paperwork you signed on day one. Nobody hides it, exactly, but nobody walks you through it either. So discovering the database exists, and that it's been quietly tracking your work history for years, is a perfectly reasonable thing to want to shut off.
Why people freeze The Work Number
People reach the freeze form for different reasons. Five come up most often.
- Privacy and control. The most basic one. Your employment and income history is sensitive, it landed in a commercial database without your explicit say-so, and freezing it is how you take that control back.
- Identity protection. Every active verification channel is a potential avenue for misuse. If your personal data has been exposed in a breach, a frozen TWN is one fewer place where that data can be turned into a fraudulent verification.
- Salary negotiation. In states without salary history bans, a prospective employer can pull your past income before they make you an offer — which quietly anchors that offer to what you used to earn. A frozen TWN closes that window, so the number on the table reflects the role, not your history.
- Overemployment. Some people work more than one full-time remote job at the same time, and freeze TWN so one employer's verification process can't surface income data tied to another. It's a real and common reason people land on the freeze form, and the mechanics are the same as any other freeze.
- Sensitive personal situations. For someone leaving an abusive relationship or dealing with a stalker, an employment database is one more channel through which they could be located. Freezing TWN shuts down that particular avenue.
Whatever your reason, the process is identical. Let's get into it.
Step 1: Pull your own report first
Before you freeze anything, see what's actually in your record. Equifax lets you request your own employment data report through the employee portal, and it's worth doing for two reasons.
First, you find out exactly what's been reported about you — which employers, which dates, which income figures. If something is wrong (a job that ran March 2021 to August 2022 showing up as ending in 2021, say), you'll want to know before that record affects a real verification.
Second, pulling the report now gives you a clean "before" picture, so that after you freeze you can log back in and confirm the freeze actually took. If reviewing your report turns up errors you're not sure how to handle, a record review can walk through it with you, and our guide to what actually shows up on an employment background check explains how this data gets used. If you find an error, Equifax also has an official process to dispute and correct your data at employees.theworknumber.com/employee-data-dispute.
Step 2: Freeze it online (the recommended method)
The online form is the primary, fastest way to place a freeze. Work through it in order.
- Go to the freeze page. Open https://employees.theworknumber.com/data-freeze-form and click "Start a Data Freeze."
- Fill in your identity fields. You'll enter your full legal name (exactly as it appears on your government ID), your current mailing address (the one where you actually receive mail), your Social Security number, and your date of birth.
- Get these details exactly right. This is the step where freezes stall. Equifax matches what you enter against existing records, and a mismatch — a maiden name, an old address, a transposed digit in your SSN — can leave your request stuck in identity-verification limbo. Slow down here and double-check each field before moving on.
- Upload your supporting documents. You'll need proof of identity and proof of address. The commonly accepted documents are listed in the next section; the form itself shows the current requirements, so confirm against it before you upload.
- Submit the form.
- Wait for Equifax to verify and apply the freeze. Equifax processes freeze requests within about 3 days of receiving them, then mails you a confirmation that includes a PIN.
- Store the PIN somewhere safe. You'll use it to lift the freeze later. If you lose it, you're not locked out forever, but you'll have to re-verify your identity from scratch — so save yourself the future hassle and file it now.
Documents you'll need
These documents are required when you freeze by mail or email — you'll return photocopies along with the freeze form. The phone line is mainly for questions and for freezes on behalf of a minor or incapacitated person. Equifax updates its requirements periodically, so treat the form as the authoritative source for the current list.
Proof of identity (must show your current legal name):
- State or government-issued ID / driver's license (must be valid)
- Paystub (dated within the last 60 days)
- W-2 or 1099 (current year)
- Social Security card
- Military ID card
- Passport or passport card (U.S. only, must be valid)
- Birth certificate / certificate of live birth
Proof of address (must show your current mailing address and be issued within the past 60 days):
- State or government-issued ID / driver's license (must be valid)
- Paystub (dated within the last 60 days)
- W-2 or 1099 (current year)
- Utility bill (telephone, water, gas, electric, trash, sewer, cable, or internet)
- Housing rental agreement or mortgage statement (current and in your name)
A W-2 or 1099 can satisfy either category, but plan to supply one document for identity and a separate one for address rather than leaning on a single piece of paper for both.
Backup methods: phone, email, and mail
If you can't or don't want to use the online form, three other channels reach the same outcome.
Phone. Call Equifax's Work Number line at 1-800-367-2884 (TTY for the hearing impaired: 1-800-424-0253) and request a data freeze. Have your identity and address documents in front of you before you dial.
Email. Download the Employment Data Freeze Placement Form (PDF), complete it, attach your verification documents, and email everything to TWNFreeze@equifax.com.
Mail. Print and complete that same form, then mail it with your documents to:
Equifax Workforce Solutions
ATTN: Employment Data Freeze
3470 Rider Trail South
Earth City, MO 63045
Step 3: Verify the freeze actually worked
Don't assume — confirm. Once the freeze is in place, log back into the employee portal and pull your employment data report again. You should see a notice indicating that a freeze is active and that verifications are blocked.
One detail that makes this simpler than people expect: TWN aggregates your data by Social Security number, not by employer. That means a single freeze covers every employer reporting on you — past and present — at once. You don't need to file separate freezes for each job.
When you're ready to unfreeze
A freeze isn't a one-way door. When you actually want a verification to go through — you've accepted an offer and the screening partner needs to confirm your history, or you're applying for a loan — you lift the freeze through the same four channels. Online, use the "Remove a Data Freeze" option at employees.theworknumber.com/data-freeze-form. For mail and email, use the Freeze Removal Form (PDF) — not the placement form. Phone uses the same number; mail and email use the same address as placement. You'll need the PIN from your confirmation letter to remove the freeze, so keep it handy.
One thing worth knowing: employer monitoring
Equifax also sells employers a product called Talent Report Employment Monitoring, which can notify a company when an employee's employment data changes. Depending on how your current employer has things set up, your TWN record may be watched more actively than you'd assume. That's not a reason to panic, but it is one more reason to know exactly what's in your record and who can see it — which loops right back to pulling your own report first.
The trade-offs, briefly
Freezing TWN isn't free of friction. While the freeze is on, things you want to go through can stall — a new employer's background check, a mortgage or loan application, and in some cases social-services benefit verification all rely on the same data you've just locked. The fix is simply to lift the freeze when one of those is in progress, but the timing matters. Our guide to what actually shows up on an employment background check explains how employment data gets pulled during screening and what to plan for before you freeze. And if your concern is a gap in your history rather than the data itself, how to explain an employment gap on a background check covers that directly.
Bottom line
Freezing The Work Number is free, reversible, and entirely in your hands. Pull your own report first so you know what's in it, then use the online form at employees.theworknumber.com/data-freeze-form — with phone, email, and mail as backups — and have one proof-of-identity and one proof-of-address document ready. When the freeze lands, log back in to confirm it took, and store the security PIN for the day you need to lift it. Lock it down for privacy, open it up when a verification needs to run. Either way, you're the one holding the switch.