How to Hire Employees in New Jersey: The Complete Compliance Sequence
Step-by-step New Jersey hiring guide for small business: NJ-REG, workers comp, pay transparency, I-9, the 20-day new hire report, and onboarding.
The first New Jersey hire I was involved in started on a Monday. The workers compensation policy took effect that Thursday. Nobody got hurt, nothing came of it, and I only understood later what those three days had actually been: a period in which the business was operating as an uninsured employer in a state that treats failure to insure as a criminal offense and prices it in ten day blocks.
That is the pattern with New Jersey. Almost nothing here is hard on its own. The state registration is one online form. The new hire report takes five minutes. What catches employers is order and timing, because several of the steps have to be finished before a person legally starts working, and the ones with the highest price tags are the ones that feel like paperwork.
This guide walks the sequence in the order the work actually happens, from the federal Employer Identification Number (EIN) through the ninetieth day. If you are doing this for the first time anywhere, read it next to the general first employee checklist.
I built FirstHR because the failure mode at a business without an HR department is never ignorance of the rule. It is the calendar.
- Sign the offer letter
- Sign the employee handbook
- Workplace Safety course
The New Jersey Hiring Sequence at a Glance
Every step below, apart from the onboarding plan at the end, is a legal obligation with an agency attached and a consequence for missing it. Several of them have to be complete before the employee performs any work, which is the part most first time employers discover too late.
| When | Deadline | Exposure | Agency | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Get your federal EIN | Before anything else | Before the state registration is filed | No New Jersey tax account can be opened without it | Internal Revenue Service |
| File Form NJ-REG | Before you do business | At least 15 business days before doing business in the state | No withholding account, no unemployment account, no Business Registration Certificate | Division of Revenue and Enterprise Services |
| Open the unemployment, disability, and family leave accounts | Same filing | Created by the NJ-REG filing | Interest and penalties on contributions reported or paid late | New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development (NJDOL), Division of Employer Accounts |
| Put workers compensation coverage in force | Before the start date | Active before anyone performs a minute of work | Disorderly persons offense, up to $5,000 for the first ten days and $5,000 for each additional ten day period | NJDOL, Division of Workers Compensation |
| Write a posting with pay and benefits disclosed | Before you advertise | Every posting, internal and external, at covered employers | Up to $300 for a first violation and up to $600 for each later one | NJDOL, Division of Wage and Hour Compliance |
| Keep salary history and criminal history out of the application stage | During screening | From the first application form onward | Civil penalties that escalate with each violation | NJDOL and the Division on Civil Rights |
| Complete Form I-9 | Day 1 to day 3 | Section 1 by the first day, Section 2 within three business days | Federal civil money penalties assessed per form, per employee | US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) |
| Collect Form W-4 and Form NJ-W4 | Before the first paycheck | Before any wages are paid | Wrong withholding, corrected paychecks, and an unhappy first month | IRS and NJ Division of Taxation |
| File the new hire report | Within 20 days | 20 days from the date of hire | A written warning first, then up to $25 per violation, or $500 for a conspiracy not to report | New Jersey State Directory of New Hires |
| Post the notices and hand over the ones that must be delivered personally | Day 1 | Before the employee begins work | Citations on inspection plus federal poster penalties | NJDOL, Division on Civil Rights, US Department of Labor |
| Run a structured onboarding plan | Day 1 to day 90 | Ongoing through the first 90 days | No fine, but early turnover erases the cost of the hire | Internal |
Read the exposure column once before you plan the start date. New Jersey stacks a state layer on top of every federal requirement, and two of those layers, workers compensation and the ABC test for classification, are stricter here than in most of the country.
Step 1: Get Your Federal EIN
The federal Employer Identification Number comes first because the New Jersey registration is keyed to it. Apply through the IRS online application, which issues the number in the same session during operating hours. There is no fee and no waiting period.
If you already hold an EIN from forming the entity, reuse it. If you have been running as a sole proprietor and reporting under your Social Security number, you need one now, because employment tax reporting and the state registration both require it.
Step 2: File Form NJ-REG With the Division of Revenue
New Jersey employer registration happens through Form NJ-REG, filed with the Division of Revenue and Enterprise Services in the Department of the Treasury. The state instructs businesses to complete it at least 15 business days before doing business in New Jersey, which is the single most useful date in this guide: it means the registration should be filed before you finish interviewing, not after the offer is accepted.
One filing does two jobs. It registers you for the taxes administered by the Division of Taxation, which for an employer means gross income tax withholding, and it registers you for the liabilities administered by the Department of Labor and Workforce Development, which means unemployment, temporary disability, and family leave insurance. You file online through the Division of Revenue registration portal.
Corporations, LLCs, and limited partnerships file the public records formation or authorization document first, then the NJ-REG. Sole proprietors and general partnerships go straight to the NJ-REG. Either way you receive a New Jersey tax identification number and can print a Business Registration Certificate shortly after submission.
What the NJ-REG Filing Does Not Cover
Registration is a tax and labor filing, not a general permission slip. It does not form the entity, so an LLC or corporation still needs its formation or authorization filing on record first. It does not obtain workers compensation coverage, which is a separate purchase from an insurance carrier. It does not handle municipal business licensing, and it does not replace any professional or industry license the work itself requires.
It also does not tell you which local payroll taxes apply. If your workplace sits in Jersey City or Newark, those city obligations run alongside the state accounts and are registered with the city, not with Trenton. Sort that out before the first pay run rather than after a city notice arrives.
Step 3: Understand the Four Payroll Accounts You Just Opened
The NJ-REG filing creates four contribution obligations, and New Jersey is unusual in that employees fund a large share of them through payroll deductions rather than the employer carrying the whole cost. Knowing the split before the first paycheck prevents the awkward conversation about why a New Jersey check has more line items than a check from a neighboring state.
| Contribution | New employer rate | Worker rate | Wage base |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unemployment insurance | 2.6825% | 0.3825% | $46,400 |
| Workforce development and supplemental workforce funds | 0.1175% | 0.0425% | $46,400 |
| Temporary disability insurance | 0.5% (new employer) | 0.24% | $46,400 employer / $177,100 worker |
| Family leave insurance | None | 0.24% | $177,100 worker |
Rates come from the Division of Employer Accounts schedule. The worker rates and wage bases shown take effect January 1, 2027, and the new employer rates apply to the fiscal year running July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2027. New employers other than successors stay on the new employer rate for the first three calendar years, after which the state assigns a calculated rate based on your own experience.
Combined, a new employer pays roughly 3.3 percent on the first $46,400 of wages paid to each employee in 2027. That is your true state unemployment cost before the federal unemployment tax (FUTA). Family leave insurance costs the employer nothing directly, because New Jersey family leave insurance is worker funded, but the job protection that surrounds it is now a real obligation for small employers.
Reporting happens quarterly on Form NJ-927 and Form WR-30, both filed electronically, due by the thirtieth day of the month after each quarter ends. Miss the filing and penalties attach to the report, not just to the payment.
What Your Employee Sees on the First Check
A New Jersey pay stub carries more deduction lines than most employees expect, and someone relocating from a state without disability or family leave insurance will ask about them. Beyond federal income tax, Social Security, and Medicare, the check shows New Jersey gross income tax withholding plus the worker share of unemployment, workforce development, disability, and family leave insurance.
None of those state deductions is optional and none of them is an employer fee, but that distinction is invisible on a stub unless somebody explains it. Two sentences in your onboarding packet naming the deductions and what each one buys will prevent the payroll question that otherwise arrives on day two of every hire.
Step 4: Put Workers Compensation Coverage in Force
New Jersey requires every employer not covered by a federal program to carry workers compensation insurance or to be approved for self-insurance. There is no elective option, no employee count threshold, and no grace period for the first hire. The Division of Workers Compensation states the requirement applies to corporations, partnerships, LLCs, and sole proprietorships alike once anyone performs services for compensation.
Coverage has to come from a carrier authorized to write it in New Jersey. Out of state employers can need New Jersey coverage too when the employment contract is made here or the work is done here, and the state regularly cross matches its records with the insurance rating bureau to find uninsured employers.
Practically, this means the binder date belongs on the pre-start checklist next to the offer letter. If the policy takes effect the same week the employee starts rather than before, you have created exposure that no amount of later paperwork can retroactively close.
Who Is Not Counted as an Employee for Coverage
State materials draw the line at people who work for themselves. A sole proprietor operating alone, the partners in a partnership, and the members of an LLC are not employees of their own business, so a business with no one else on the payroll has nothing to insure. The obligation attaches the moment anyone other than those owners performs services for compensation, including part time and seasonal help.
Two situations catch employers off guard. Officers of a corporation are generally treated as employees of that corporation even when they own it, and a contractor who fails the state classification test is treated as your employee for coverage purposes, which means an uninsured injury claim can arrive from someone you never considered part of the team.
Nick Anisimov, FirstHR founderStep 5: Write the Posting and the Offer to New Jersey Rules
New Jersey regulates the hiring process itself, not just the employment relationship that follows. Three rules shape the posting and the screen: pay transparency, the salary history ban, and the Opportunity to Compete Act.
Since June 1, 2025, covered employers must include in every posting for a new job or transfer opportunity the hourly wage or salary, or a range, plus a general description of benefits and other compensation programs the employee would be eligible for.
The pay transparency requirement covers employers with 10 or more employees over 20 calendar weeks that do business, employ people, or accept applications in the state. Penalties run up to $300 for a first violation and up to $600 for each violation after that.
The Department of Labor has proposed rules under which that 10 employee threshold would count employees wherever they work. Under the same proposal, an out of state business that takes applications from New Jersey residents for jobs done remotely from New Jersey would be covered too.
The same law requires reasonable efforts to notify current employees in the affected department of promotional opportunities before a promotion decision is made. That internal duty is the part small employers skip, because a promotion rarely feels like a posting.
Salary history has been off limits since January 1, 2020. Employers may not screen applicants based on prior wages, salaries, or benefits, or require salary history to satisfy any minimum or maximum criteria.
If a candidate volunteers their salary history without prompting or coercion, you may verify it and consider it when setting pay, but a refusal to share cannot count against them. Civil penalties reach $1,000 for a first violation, $5,000 for a second, and $10,000 for each one after.
Criminal history is governed by the Opportunity to Compete Act, which bars employers with 15 or more employees from asking candidates about criminal records during the initial application process, in writing or verbally. That window closes once you have conducted a first interview.
The safer pattern is the one described in our guide to ban the box hiring: move any background inquiry to after a conditional offer, and apply the same rule to every candidate.
| Hiring stage | Allowed | Not allowed |
|---|---|---|
| Job posting | Wage or range plus a benefits summary | Open ended figures with no ceiling or floor |
| Application form | Skills, experience, certifications, availability | Prior pay; criminal history questions at employers with 15 or more employees |
| Phone screen | Your budgeted range for the role | Asking what the candidate earns now |
| Interview | Job related questions applied to every candidate | Questions touching protected characteristics under state law |
| Conditional offer | Background check with proper authorization | Withdrawing the offer without the required notice steps |
Interview questions sit under the Law Against Discrimination, which applies to employers of every size in New Jersey and covers a broader list of protected characteristics than federal law does.
Keep questions job related, ask every candidate the same ones in the same order, and record the answers on a scored form. A structured interview is better hiring practice, and it is also the documentation that makes a rejected candidate complaint answerable months later, when nobody remembers the conversation.
The offer letter itself should state the rate of pay, the pay frequency, the position, and whether the role is exempt. New Jersey requires wages to be paid at least twice per calendar month on regular paydays designated in advance, with a narrow exception allowing monthly payment for bona fide executive, supervisory, and similar classifications.
Step 6: Verify Work Authorization With Form I-9
Every employer in the United States completes Form I-9 for every new hire, and New Jersey adds no state verification program on top of it. The employee completes Section 1 no later than the first day of work. You complete Section 2 within three business days of the start date, after physically examining documents the employee chooses from the list of acceptable documents.
You cannot tell the employee which documents to present. Specifying documents by national origin or citizenship status is its own violation, separate from any paperwork error.
Civil money penalties for paperwork violations are assessed per form and per employee, and the range published at 8 CFR 274a.10 runs from $288 to $2,861 for each individual.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement gives an employer at least three business days to produce the forms after a notice of inspection, then at least ten business days to fix technical or procedural failures. Anything still uncorrected when that window closes is treated as a substantive violation.
E-Verify in New Jersey
New Jersey does not require private employers to use E-Verify. Unlike states that have layered a verification mandate on top of the federal system, New Jersey leaves participation voluntary, so the I-9 is the whole state level obligation for an ordinary private employer. Federal contractors are a separate case, because the federal contract clause that requires E-Verify comes from the contract, not from state law.
If you do enroll voluntarily, use it consistently. Running it for some hires and not others, or running it before an offer, creates a discrimination exposure that the program was never meant to produce.
Enrollment also changes how you can examine I-9 documents for a remote hire. Only employers enrolled in E-Verify and in good standing may use the DHS alternative procedure, which replaces physical examination with a document review over live video.
Step 7: Collect Both Withholding Forms Before the First Paycheck
New Jersey has a state gross income tax, so the federal Form W-4 is only half the job. Each new hire also completes Form NJ-W4, the Employee Withholding Allowance Certificate, which selects the state withholding rate table the employer applies. Employers must furnish the form and withhold at the rate the employee chooses.
The rate table selection matters more here than the equivalent choice in most states, because New Jersey tables are built around household filing situations. A two income household that leaves the default in place frequently under withholds and finds out in April. Explaining the difference between payroll tax and income tax during onboarding takes two minutes and prevents a complaint that lands on you rather than on the state.
Collect both forms with the offer packet rather than on the first morning. Every form that arrives before day one is a form that is not competing with introductions, equipment setup, and the first team meeting.
Step 8: File the New Hire Report Within 20 Days
New Jersey law at N.J.S.A. 2A:17-56.61 requires every employer to report each newly hired or rehired employee to the New Jersey State Directory of New Hires within 20 days of the date of hire. The duty covers full time, part time, and temporary employees who work in the state, and it exists to support child support enforcement, which is why the reporting portal is run through the child support employer services program.
The report carries eight data elements: your business name, address, and federal EIN, plus the employee name, address, Social Security number, date of birth, and date of hire.
New Jersey law also covers contracting with anyone who works in the state and will be paid, so independent contractors are reported as new hires too, which surprises most employers. Employers who transmit reports electronically report every 15 days instead. The 20 day rule and the reporting portal are documented by New Jersey Child Support.
The penalty is small: a written warning for the first violation, then up to $25 per violation, or up to $500 where employer and employee conspire not to report. The reason to care is not the fine. It is that a missing new hire report is the kind of gap that turns a routine audit into a broader one, and it takes five minutes to close.
What Counts as the Date of Hire
The clock starts on the first day the employee performs services for pay, not the day the offer was signed and not the day the paperwork was completed. If a start date slips by two weeks, the 20 day window slips with it, which is why the report belongs next to the I-9 in your day one task list rather than in a monthly cleanup routine.
Rehires count as new hires. An employee who separates and later returns has to be reported again, and the statute also reaches an employee returning to work after a layoff, a furlough, or a leave without pay. A seasonal worker coming back for another season is reported again too. Employers who run seasonal crews tend to report the first cohort correctly and forget the returning ones entirely.
Step 9: Deliver the Notices, Then Run the First 90 Days
New Jersey splits its notice obligations into two kinds, and employers who treat them as one kind get the second kind wrong. Some notices are posted. Others must be handed to the employee individually, and posting them does not satisfy the duty.
| Notice | How it is delivered | Who it applies to |
|---|---|---|
| Earned sick leave notification of rights | Given to each employee at hiring, plus posted | All employers |
| Gender equity notice | Distributed at hire, annually, and on request, with acknowledgment | Employers with 50 or more employees |
| Misclassification notice | Posted where all employees can see it | All employers, regardless of size |
| Wage and hour law abstract | Posted | All employers |
| Family leave insurance and disability notices | Posted | All employers |
| Conscientious Employee Protection Act notice | Posted, plus distributed once a year at 10 or more employees | All employers |
| Workers compensation notice | Posted, supplied by your carrier | All insured employers |
| Form BC-10 unemployment instructions | Given to the employee at separation | All employers |
The complete state set is published as a single employer poster packet by the Department of Labor and Workforce Development, and the federal posters come from the US Department of Labor. Both are free. There is no reason to buy a poster service for a single location.
For the notices that must be handed over at hire, not just posted, what proves compliance is not the notice. It is a dated record that the notice was handed over, signed by the person who received it. One page per hire does that, and it belongs in the same packet as the offer letter so nobody has to remember it separately.
Compliance ends there. Onboarding starts. Everything above gets the person legally onto payroll and none of it makes them productive, which is why the first 90 days deserve the same structure as the compliance steps.
| Timeline | What happens | Owner |
|---|---|---|
| Before day 1 | Offer letter signed, I-9 Section 1, W-4 and NJ-W4, direct deposit, sick leave notice, handbook acknowledgment | Founder or manager |
| Day 1 | Welcome, introductions, workspace and access, role expectations, I-9 Section 2 started | Founder or manager |
| Day 1 to 3 | I-9 Section 2 complete, notices delivered, new hire report filed | Founder or manager |
| Week 1 | Role specific training, a named buddy, first manager check in | Manager |
| Day 30 | First formal check in against written 30 day goals | Manager |
| Day 60 | Second check in, employee contributing with less supervision | Manager |
| Day 90 | Formal review, transition from onboarding into ongoing performance | Manager |
This is the workflow I built FirstHR around. The offer goes out with e-signature, and the state notices are collected digitally before day one. Form I-9, W-4, and NJ-W4 go on the first-day task list for the new hire, and completed forms are kept in their employee file. The I-9 itself is completed outside the platform. The three day and 20 day deadlines become tasks with due dates, and the AI onboarding wizard turns the job description into a 30-60-90 day plan instead of a blank page. FirstHR is an onboarding and HR platform, not a payroll provider.
New Jersey Rules That Change How You Hire
Six state rules materially change hiring decisions here compared with most of the country. They affect what you put in the employee handbook, how you budget wages, and how much flexibility you have when a role does not work out.
Employment in New Jersey is at will, but the exceptions are broader than in the strongest at will states. The Law Against Discrimination reaches employers of every size and covers a long list of protected characteristics, and the Conscientious Employee Protection Act gives employees a retaliation claim for reporting activity they reasonably believe is unlawful. Neither has a headcount floor.
| Topic | New Jersey rule | Federal floor |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum wage | $15.92 for most workers in 2026, $16.48 from January 1, 2027, indexed to CPI each January | $7.25 |
| Overtime | One and one half times the regular rate over 40 hours in a week | Same |
| Paid sick leave | One hour per 30 hours worked, up to 40 hours, all employers | No federal requirement |
| Workers compensation | Mandatory, no size threshold, criminal exposure for willful failure | State governed |
| Pay frequency | At least twice per calendar month for most employees | No federal requirement |
| Final pay | By the regular payday for the pay period in which employment ended | No federal requirement |
| Pay in job postings | Wage or range plus benefits description for covered employers | No federal requirement |
| Contractor test | ABC test, employer carries the burden on all three prongs | Common law and economic reality tests |
Final wages follow the payday rule rather than an immediate payment rule, which makes New Jersey more forgiving than states that require same day payment.
Two more state programs arrive as the team grows rather than at the first hire. Group terminations are governed by the state mass layoff statute, explained in our New Jersey WARN Act guide, and employers without a qualified retirement plan eventually fall under the RetireReady NJ mandate, whose coverage threshold the state has been lowering.
Neither is a first-hire problem, but both are cheaper to plan for than to retrofit.
City Requirements: Jersey City and Newark
Two New Jersey cities add obligations that are easy to miss because they are municipal rather than state. Both are payroll matters, not licensing matters, so they surface on the first paycheck rather than at formation, and Jersey City adds a job posting rule on top.
Jersey City imposes a payroll tax of one percent of payroll for work performed in the city or supervised from it. Wages of Jersey City residents are excluded, a business is not a taxable employer unless its payroll tops $2,500 in a calendar quarter, and the tax may not be deducted from employee wages. Returns and payment are due quarterly, by the last day of April, July, October, and January.
Jersey City also has its own pay transparency law. It reaches employers in the city with 5 or more employees, counting independent contractors, and requires pay and benefits in every print or digital job posting, with fines of up to $2,000. That threshold is half the state one, so an employer inside the city should check the local rule rather than assume the state threshold governs.
Newark imposes a payroll tax of one percent of payroll for work performed in the city, supervised from it, or tied to a principal reporting location there, and quarterly payroll of $2,500 or less owes no tax. Newark handles residency through a wage exclusion rather than a lower rate. Newark returns are also quarterly, due the last day of the month after each quarter.
| Requirement | Jersey City | Newark |
|---|---|---|
| Employer payroll tax | 1% of payroll for work in or supervised from the city; resident wages excluded | 1% of payroll for work in, supervised from, or tied to a principal reporting location in the city; wages of residents above the 50% mark excluded |
| Small employer relief | No tax unless payroll tops $2,500 in a quarter | No tax on quarterly payroll of $2,500 or less |
| Filing cadence | Quarterly, due the last day of April, July, October, and January | Quarterly, due the last day of the month after the quarter |
| Job posting rules | Own pay transparency law at 5 or more employees, fines up to $2,000 | State pay transparency law |
The two cities treat residency differently, which matters for a remote or hybrid hire. Jersey City takes the wages of city residents out of the tax base entirely. Newark excludes resident wages only when residents make up more than half of the workforce, and then only for the residents above that 50 percent mark, starting with the most recently hired.
A payroll setup that treats the two ordinances as one rule will get one of them wrong, so document the primary work location in the offer letter before a city ever has to ask.
One thing that no longer applies: the municipal paid sick leave ordinances that several New Jersey cities adopted before the statewide Earned Sick Leave Law took effect. The state law preempts them and bars new ones, so a single sick leave policy now works statewide.
Employee or Contractor: New Jersey Uses the ABC Test
New Jersey applies the ABC test from the Unemployment Compensation Law at N.J.S.A. 43:21-19(i)(6), and the hiring business carries the burden of proving all three prongs. Fail one and the worker is an employee, no matter what the agreement says or who asked for the arrangement.
| Prong | What you must prove | Where employers lose |
|---|---|---|
| A. Control | The worker is free from control and direction over performance, in fact and under the contract | Set schedules, assigned tools, direct supervision of method |
| B. Course of business | The service is outside the usual course of your business, or performed outside all of your places of business | The contractor does the exact work you sell to customers |
| C. Independent trade | The worker is customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, or business | No other clients, no business entity, no ability to survive losing you |
Prong B decides most disputes. A design studio that pays a plumber on a 1099 is on solid ground. The same studio paying a designer on a 1099 is not, because design is the usual course of its business.
The written agreement does not settle the question. A contract that calls someone an independent contractor, recites that they carry their own insurance, and waives every employee benefit is evidence about prong A at best, and it does nothing for prongs B and C. Auditors look at how the relationship ran: who set the hours, whose equipment was used, whether the person invoiced other clients, whether there was a business entity behind the invoices.
Which is why the analysis belongs on paper before the first invoice is paid, written in the terms an auditor will use rather than the terms the contract uses. Filling this in takes ten minutes and it is the only version of the argument that exists if the question comes up two years later.
A reclassification reaches backward. The state assesses unpaid unemployment, disability, and family leave contributions with interest and penalties, and wage and hour claims often follow, because a worker who was an employee all along was also entitled to overtime and earned sick leave. New Jersey also requires every employer, regardless of size, to post the misclassification notice, which tells workers exactly how to file the complaint that starts the process.
Nick Anisimov, FirstHR founderThe Mistakes That Cost New Jersey Employers the Most
These five account for most of what goes wrong at small New Jersey employers hiring for the first time. Every one is a timing or template problem rather than a knowledge problem.
Notice the pattern. Nobody in these scenarios disagreed with the rule. The workers compensation policy was ordered. The application form was inherited. The notice was in the packet somewhere. Compliance at a business without a dedicated HR person fails on sequencing, which is exactly the kind of failure that a checklist with dates attached prevents.
Frequently Asked Questions
What do I have to register before hiring my first employee in New Jersey?
You register the business with the New Jersey Division of Revenue and Enterprise Services by filing Form NJ-REG, and the state instructs you to do it at least 15 business days before you begin doing business in New Jersey. That one filing registers you for the taxes and liabilities administered by both the Division of Taxation and the Department of Labor and Workforce Development, which means gross income tax withholding on one side and unemployment, temporary disability, and family leave insurance on the other. You need a federal EIN from the IRS before you file, because the state registration is keyed to it. Corporations, LLCs, and limited partnerships file a public records formation or authorization filing first, then the NJ-REG. A Business Registration Certificate is available shortly after submission and is required for public contracting and state incentive programs.
How many days do I have to report a new hire in New Jersey?
Twenty days. The clock runs from the date of hire, and the deadline comes from N.J.S.A. 2A:17-56.61, which makes every employer send the State Directory of New Hires a report on each new or rehired worker. Full time, part time, and temporary staff who work in the state are all included. Each report lists the business name, address, and federal EIN along with the worker's name, address, Social Security number, birth date, and hire date. Employers that transmit electronically submit every 15 days instead. The first miss draws a written warning. After that, the fine can reach $25 per violation, rising to $500 if the employer and employee conspire to skip or falsify the report. Filing goes through the state child support employer portal.
Is workers compensation insurance mandatory in New Jersey?
Yes, and there is no elective alternative. Every New Jersey employer that is not under a federal program has to carry workers compensation or be approved to self-insure, and no headcount is small enough to wait. Sole proprietors and partners do not count as employees of their own business, but the obligation starts the moment anyone else works for pay. Going uninsured is a disorderly persons offense, and if the failure is found to be willful it becomes a fourth degree crime. The state can fine you up to $5,000 for the first ten days without coverage and up to $5,000 for every additional ten day period. Corporate officers and LLC members can be held personally liable, and the employer still owes the medical and disability benefits for any worker hurt during the gap.
What is the minimum wage in New Jersey and does it change on its own?
The New Jersey minimum wage is $15.92 per hour for most employees through December 31, 2026 and $16.48 from January 1, 2027, according to the public notice the Department of Labor and Workforce Development issued for that year. From January 1, 2027, seasonal employers and employers with fewer than 6 employees pay $16.25 per hour (up from $15.23) and agricultural workers $15.00 per hour (up from $14.20), under separate schedules that are still catching up to the standard rate. Tipped employees receive a cash wage of $6.05 per hour in 2026 and $6.61 from January 1, 2027 with a maximum tip credit of $9.87, and the cash wage plus tips must reach the full minimum. The rate is indexed: state law directs an annual adjustment based on the Consumer Price Index, so the number moves every January without any new legislation. Budget for the increase rather than waiting for it to surprise your payroll in the first week of the year.
Does New Jersey require its own withholding form in addition to the federal W-4?
Yes. New Jersey has a state gross income tax, so every new hire needs Form NJ-W4, the Employee Withholding Allowance Certificate, in addition to the federal Form W-4. The NJ-W4 selects a withholding rate table, which matters for two income households because the wrong table produces a large April balance. Employers must furnish the form and withhold New Jersey income tax at the rate the employee selects. Pennsylvania residents who work in New Jersey are covered by a reciprocal income tax agreement and file Form NJ-165, the Employee Certificate of Nonresidence in New Jersey, to stop New Jersey withholding. Without that certificate on file, New Jersey tax comes out of the check and the employee has to chase a refund on a nonresident return the following year.
Do I have to put a salary in a New Jersey job posting?
Covered employers do. A New Jersey law in effect since June 1, 2025 says a posting for a new job or a transfer opportunity must show the hourly wage or salary, or a range, and a general description of the benefits and other compensation on offer. It applies to any employer with 10 or more employees over 20 calendar weeks that does business, employs people, or takes applications in New Jersey, and it covers company websites, job boards, print ads, newsletters, email, and social media alike. The Department of Labor has proposed rules that would also reach an out of state company recruiting New Jersey residents for remote jobs. Before filling a role by promotion, a covered employer also has to make reasonable efforts to tell current employees in the affected department about the opening. A first violation can cost up to $300, and each one after that up to $600.
How does New Jersey decide whether a worker is an employee or a contractor?
New Jersey applies the ABC test codified in the Unemployment Compensation Law at N.J.S.A. 43:21-19(i)(6). The hiring business carries the burden of proof and has to satisfy all three prongs: the worker is free from control and direction over the performance of the service, the service is either outside the usual course of the business or performed outside all the places of business of the enterprise, and the worker is customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, profession, or business. Failing any one prong makes the worker an employee, regardless of what the contract says or whether the worker asked to be paid on a 1099. A reclassification brings back unemployment, disability, and family leave contributions with interest and penalties, and often wage and hour claims as well.
Which notices must a New Jersey employer hand to a new employee, not just post?
Several. The Earned Sick Leave Law requires a written copy of the notification of employee rights to be given to each employee at the time of hiring. Employers covered by the gender equity notice requirement must distribute that notice at hire, annually, and on request, along with an acknowledgment form. Federal Form I-9 must be completed with the employee, and when employment ends the employer has to provide the instructions for claiming unemployment benefits on Form BC-10 to every worker who separates, whether the separation is permanent or temporary and whatever the reason. Alongside these, the physical posting set includes the wage and hour abstract, earned sick leave, family leave insurance, disability, the whistleblower notice under the Conscientious Employee Protection Act, and the misclassification notice that applies to every employer regardless of size.
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