Florida Payroll: Employer Tax and Software Guide

Florida is the easiest state in the country to run payroll in. If another founder told me they were hiring here, I would warn them that this reputation causes more setup errors than it prevents. This guide covers what Florida actually requires, what state registration does not cover, and how 10 payroll providers price the work at 10, 25, and 50 employees.

The reputation is earned. There is no state income tax, no state withholding account, no state W-4, no monthly deposit schedule, and no year-end state reconciliation. An employer coming from New York or California genuinely does have less to do here.

The trouble is that plenty of people hear that Florida has no state income tax and conclude it has no state payroll obligations. That is wrong in four specific places. Florida charges a reemployment tax on a wage base so small it behaves like a per-head fee. Its constitution set a minimum wage schedule that reached $15.00 on September 30, 2026.

Florida also mandates E-Verify, the federal check of a new hire's eligibility to work, at 25 employees, and backs it with a $1,000 per day penalty. And state law preempts, or overrides, local wage rules so thoroughly that, since September 30, 2026, counties and cities can no longer use their contracts to set what a vendor pays its workers.

What Florida requires from employers

Florida imposes exactly one state payroll tax on employers and no state wage withholding at all. Everything else on a Florida pay run is federal, and the state obligations that do exist sit outside the tax engine: minimum wage, workers compensation, new hire reporting, and employment eligibility verification.

No state income tax, and what that does not remove

Article VII, Section 5(a) of the Florida Constitution bars the state from taxing the income of natural persons (individuals) beyond what could be credited against a similar federal or other-state tax. No such credit exists, so Florida levies no personal income tax. No county or city levies one either, because Article VII, Section 1(a) preempts all forms of taxation to the state unless general law says otherwise.

What that removes is real: no withholding registration, no state equivalent of a W-4, no periodic withholding return, no annual reconciliation. What it leaves in place is everything else. Federal income tax withholding still runs off Form W-4, FICA (Social Security and Medicare) still applies to employer and employee alike, and both unemployment systems, federal and state, still bill the employer.

Reemployment tax, the one state payroll tax

Reemployment tax is Florida's state unemployment tax, renamed in 2012, and only the employer pays it. New employers pay an initial rate of 2.7 percent under section 443.131 of the Florida Statutes. That rate covers any employer whose record has been chargeable with benefits for fewer than eight calendar quarters, in plain terms an employer too new to be rated on its own claims history.

In practice, according to the Florida Department of Revenue, the initial rate holds until the employer has reported for 10 quarters. After that, an experience rate, which reflects the unemployment benefits charged to the employer's own account, is assigned each year on Form RT-20.

The wage base is the detail that reshapes the arithmetic. Section 443.1217 of the Florida Statutes exempts everything paid to an individual above the first $7,000 in a calendar year. Because the base is so low, state unemployment tax here is closer to a fixed annual charge per head than a percentage of payroll, and the spread between the best and worst rate is $371 per employee per year.

Quarterly filing on Form RT-6

There is one state return, and it is quarterly. Form RT-6, the Employer Quarterly Report, is due by the end of the month after each calendar quarter, which puts the deadlines at April 30, July 31, October 31, and January 31. A report is required for every quarter, including quarters with no wages and no tax.

Electronic filing and payment are mandatory under section 443.163 for any employer with 10 or more employees in any quarter of the preceding state fiscal year, which runs July through June. Paper filing when electronic filing is required costs $25 per report plus $1 per employee, to a $300 maximum.

A late report costs $25 for each 30 days it is overdue, under section 443.141. Any provider running your payroll should be handling all of this, not reminding you to.

How a Florida paycheck is calculated

A Florida paycheck is federal arithmetic with one line, state income tax, permanently set to zero. Employers reaching for a Florida payroll calculator usually want one of two answers: what comes out of the employee's check, and what the employer owes on top. The table separates them, using the Social Security and Medicare rates in IRS Topic 751.

Two things fall out of that table. First, both unemployment lines are annual charges that finish early in the year for anyone on a normal salary, which is why a Florida payroll bill is heaviest in the first quarter.

Second, Florida carries no outstanding federal unemployment loan, so it is not on the Department of Labor's list of potential 2026 credit reduction states, the states where an unpaid loan cuts into the federal credit. Florida employers keep the full 5.4 percent credit, and the effective federal rate stays at 0.6 percent. Employers in multiple states should not assume the same.

Minimum wage and the September 30 step

Florida's minimum wage is $15.00, effective September 30, 2026, the final step of a schedule that voters wrote into the state constitution in 2020. Article X, Section 24(c) set the rate at $10.00 on September 30, 2021 and required a $1.00 increase every September 30 until it reached $15.00.

With the schedule complete, indexing takes over. On September 30, 2027 the state calculates an adjusted rate using the twelve-month change in the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W). That rate takes effect January 1, 2028; the same cycle repeats each year. Employers post the state minimum wage notice under section 448.109.

The tip credit, the part of the minimum wage an employer may cover with tips, is where Florida differs from most states. The constitution allows employers to credit tips only up to the allowable federal tip credit as it stood in 2003, which is $3.02 per hour and does not move.

Because the credit is frozen while the wage floor climbs, the employer share of a tipped wage rises with every increase, and a restaurant budgeting on last season's cash wage will be short.

Pay frequency, final paychecks, and registration

Florida sets no pay frequency requirement for private employers. Chapter 532 of the Florida Statutes governs how wages are paid, not how often. A check or payroll debit card must be negotiable and payable in cash on demand without discount at an established place of business in the state. Section 532.04 permits direct deposit only where the employee authorizes it in writing and picks the institution.

Final pay is the same story. No statute sets a deadline, no rule distinguishes a resignation from a discharge, and there is no waiting-time penalty, the extra wages some states add for each day a final check is late. Federal law does not require immediate payment either, according to the Department of Labor.

An employee who goes unpaid can sue, and section 448.08 allows the court to award attorney fees to the prevailing party.

Registration runs through the Florida Department of Revenue, which handles the reemployment tax account. New hires, rehires, and contractors paid $600 or more in a calendar year must be reported to the Florida State Directory of New Hires within 20 days under section 409.2576. Workers compensation coverage is separate: it is required at four employees for non-construction employers and at one in construction.

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The local layer that state registration does not cover

Florida has no local income tax and no city payroll tax anywhere in the state, and state law actively prevents both. What survives locally is a set of non-tax obligations that a reemployment tax registration does nothing to satisfy, plus one preemption rule that changed on the same day as the minimum wage.

Local wage and benefit mandates are preempted

Section 218.077 of the Florida Statutes prohibits a county, municipality, district, or board from requiring any employer to pay a minimum wage other than the state or federal rate, or to provide employment benefits not otherwise required by law. The statute defines employment benefits broadly, and the definition expressly includes health, disability, retirement, and paid or unpaid holiday, sick, and vacation time.

That is why the wage floor in Miami matches the wage floor in Pensacola, and why Florida has no local paid sick leave ordinance despite several large metropolitan labor markets.

The statute's exceptions are narrow: a county, city, or other local government may set terms for its own employees and for employees of a business receiving a direct tax abatement or subsidy from it. The employees of its contractors were a third exception until September 30, 2026.

What sits outside the Department of Revenue

The obligations below are administered outside the Department of Revenue, and none is covered by opening a reemployment tax account. Counties and municipalities may levy a local business tax under Chapter 205 of the Florida Statutes, and under section 205.053 the business tax receipts are due by September 30 each year and expire September 30 of the following year.

E-Verify at 25 employees

E-Verify is the Florida obligation most likely to be missed, because it is an onboarding rule rather than a payroll rule and it fires at a headcount most small employers cross without noticing. Section 448.095 of the Florida Statutes has required private employers with 25 or more employees to use E-Verify since July 1, 2023.

Three details matter operationally. If E-Verify is unavailable for three business days after the employee begins working for pay, the employer documents the outage and falls back to Form I-9. Documentation must be retained for at least three years. And compliance is certified on the first reemployment tax return filed each calendar year, which quietly ties an immigration attestation to a tax filing.

The penalty behind those rules runs by the day: three failures in any 24-month period carry a fine of $1,000 per day until the noncompliance is cured.

10 payroll providers for Florida employers compared

Every provider below files Florida reemployment tax and handles federal withholding, and because Florida has no state income tax and only one quarterly state return, the usual state-compliance differentiators are muted here. The two axes that actually separate outcomes are tip credit handling and what a second state costs.

OnPay

OnPay sells one base plan at $49 per month plus $6 per employee, with no tier to climb. HR tools and time tracking are paid add-ons. Tax filing covers all 50 states with no multi-state surcharge, and year-end W-2 and 1099 filing sits in the base price. For a Florida business with staff drifting across the Georgia or Alabama line, the absence of a per-state fee is the whole argument.

Gusto

Gusto is a common first payroll purchase for US small businesses. Tax filing is automatic, the interface is pleasant, and pricing is published: after the base price rose from $40 during 2025, the Simple plan runs $49 per month plus $6 per employee. Simple files Form RT-6 and the new hire report without prompting.

The catch is that Simple covers single-state payroll only. A remote hire in Georgia or a snowbird arrangement in the Carolinas moves you to Plus at $80 plus $12 per employee, so model the Plus number if a second state is plausible within a year.

Patriot Software

At published rates, Patriot costs the least on this list at 10, 25, and 50 employees. Full Service is $37 per month plus $5 per employee and includes federal, state, and local tax filing, though new hire reports stay with you.

Patriot's Basic plan is $17 plus $4 if you file taxes yourself, which in Florida is a genuinely small job: four RT-6 filings a year and no state withholding deposits at all. In a withholding state the self-file plan is a trap.

In Florida, a small employer could plausibly run Basic and save $240 a year on the base fee, plus another $12 a year for each person on the roster. The main risk is the electronic filing mandate at 10 employees.

Restaurants should note one limit: Patriot states that it does not support tip credit calculations, so you have to check on each payroll that tipped staff reach the $15.00 minimum.

Square Payroll

At $35 per month plus $6 per person, Square's base fee is one of the lowest here, after SurePayroll's, and it is a natural pick for the industry Florida is built on. Tourism, restaurants, and bars mean tipped wages. Square calculates direct tips and pulls them into payroll from its own point of sale, along with timecards, with no integration work.

Square's payroll pages describe tip import rather than a tip credit calculation, so confirm how it handles the $3.02 credit and the minimum wage shortfall before relying on it.

SurePayroll

SurePayroll is owned by Paychex and aimed at very small and household employers. The Small Business plan is $29 per month plus $7 per employee, with a flat $9.99 monthly multi-state fee however many states are involved.

QuickBooks Workforce Payroll

Workforce Payroll, formerly QuickBooks Payroll Core, is $50 per month plus $7 per employee. The reason to pick it has always been the same: if your books already live in QuickBooks Online, payroll entries reach the general ledger without an export step. Per-employee pricing rose across all tiers on July 1, 2026.

ADP RUN

ADP says it pays roughly one in six US workers. Every RUN package calculates, files, deposits, and reconciles payroll taxes, and ADP pays the resulting fines if it makes a filing error. Florida is not where that service earns the most, because there is so little state complexity to absorb, but it becomes the argument the moment a Florida headquarters starts hiring in states that do withhold.

The cost is opacity. ADP does not publish RUN pricing, and every package (Essential, Enhanced, Complete, and HR Pro) is quoted individually. ADP says RUN needs no signed contract and the service can be ended at any time.

Paychex Flex

Paychex competes on a service relationship rather than a software subscription: its Complete package includes a payroll specialist and advisors familiar with your business. Pricing is quote-only for all four payroll packages (Basic, Foundations, Advanced, and Complete). Worth a quote if you would rather call a person about a reemployment tax rate notice than read Form RT-20 yourself.

Rippling

Rippling sells a unified employee record where payroll, HR, and IT provisioning share one data model. Its pricing page is a quote form, but Rippling's small-business page starts payroll at $8 per user per month plus a $40 monthly base fee. Its blog prices the core platform and the payroll module at $8 per employee a month each, with payroll billed annually, so configured quotes run higher.

Justworks

Justworks sells two products under one name. Payroll is $50 per month plus $8 per employee and is straightforward software. PEO Basic, at $79 per employee per month, is a professional employer organization (PEO) plan: a co-employment arrangement in which Justworks shares employer duties with you.

Co-employment gives a small business access to benefits priced off a much larger risk pool. In a state with no benefit mandates at all, that is the main reason companies look at a Florida PEO.

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What each provider actually costs a Florida employer

The table below models published rates at three headcounts, plus what happens when a second state enters the picture. Florida employers should weigh the second-state column carefully for a specific reason: the state is a magnet for remote workers and seasonal staff, and a single hire across the Georgia line adds the withholding layer Florida does not have.

Patriot stays cheapest at every headcount, and the gap widens with size: $8 a month below Square at 10 employees, $23 at 25, and $48 at 50. Square lands second, and it imports direct tips from its own point of sale, which for a restaurant already on Square can be worth more than the difference.

The second-state column reorders things. Gusto Simple is competitive until one out-of-state hire forces the Plus tier, at which point a 25-person payroll goes from $199 to $380. OnPay and Square include additional states at no charge, SurePayroll charges a flat $9.99 regardless of how many, and Patriot and QuickBooks add $12 a month for each extra state.

Choosing a payroll provider for Florida

Four questions separate providers that will work here from providers that will quietly generate notices. None of them is about state income tax, because there is none.

One part of the job sits largely outside the payroll engine: the paperwork for each hire. Every Florida new hire needs a federal I-9 and W-4, an E-Verify case at 25 or more employees, a signed direct deposit authorization, and a new hire report within 20 days.

Florida new hire paperwork is shorter than in most states, because there is no state withholding certificate to collect, and that makes it easier to treat as optional.

Before you choose

FirstHR is an onboarding and HR platform, not a payroll provider. The providers above calculate pay, move money, file payroll taxes, and administer benefits, and if running payroll is the problem in front of you, one of them is the answer.

What we handle is the layer that feeds payroll. Onboarding workflows put the I-9, the W-4, and the E-Verify case on each new hire's first-day task list with due dates, and the forms themselves are completed outside our platform.

E-signatures on offer letters and policy acknowledgments, employee records, and HR document management for the completed forms come at a flat $98 a month for up to 10 people or $198 for 11 to 50.

Florida is a state where the line between payroll and that layer bites, because so much of what it actually requires is documentation rather than calculation.

If the recurring problem is that an E-Verify case never got run for a hire made after you crossed 25 people, the direct deposit authorization never came back, or nobody is sure whether the 20-day new hire report went out, that is a document collection failure rather than a payroll processing failure. Each of those can sit on the onboarding plan as a task with a deadline, while the case, the form, and the report themselves are completed outside the platform.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Does Florida have a state income tax on wages?

No. Article VII, Section 5(a) of the Florida Constitution bars taxing the income of natural persons beyond amounts creditable against a similar federal or other-state tax, and no such credit exists. Section 1(a) preempts local taxation, so no county or city levies one either. There is no withholding account, no state W-4, and no state reconciliation.

What is the Florida reemployment tax rate?

New employers pay 2.7 percent. Once experience rated, the assigned rate falls between the 0.1 percent minimum and the 5.4 percent statutory maximum. Because the wage base is $7,000, that is $7 to $378 per employee per year. Rates arrive annually on Form RT-20.

What is the Florida taxable wage base for reemployment tax?

The first $7,000 of wages paid to each employee in a calendar year, under section 443.1217 of the Florida Statutes. It is among the lowest state unemployment wage bases in the country and it matches the federal base exactly, so one ceiling governs both lines.

How often does a Florida employer file reemployment tax?

Quarterly on Form RT-6, due by the end of the month after each quarter: April 30, July 31, October 31, and January 31. A return is required even for quarters with no wages, and employers with 10 or more employees in any quarter of the prior state fiscal year must file electronically.

What is the Florida minimum wage?

$15.00 per hour, effective September 30, 2026, the final step of the schedule in Article X, Section 24 of the state constitution. The rate then indexes to the twelve-month change in CPI-W: the first adjusted rate is calculated September 30, 2027 and takes effect January 1, 2028.

What is the tipped minimum wage in Florida?

$11.98 in cash wages against the $15.00 minimum, effective September 30, 2026. The tip credit is fixed at $3.02, the allowable federal credit as it stood in 2003, and it does not rise with the wage. Tips plus cash wage must reach the full minimum every workweek.

How often must Florida employers pay employees?

There is no state pay frequency law for private employers. Chapter 532 of the Florida Statutes governs only the form of payment: instruments must be negotiable and cashable without discount in the state, and direct deposit needs written authorization with the employee choosing the institution.

When is a final paycheck due in Florida?

No statute sets a deadline, there is no separate rule for quitting versus discharge, and there is no waiting-time penalty. Federal law adds no immediate-payment rule either, though the Department of Labor points former employees still unpaid after the regular payday to its Wage and Hour Division. Unpaid wages are pursued in a civil action, with attorney fees available under section 448.08.

Does Florida require E-Verify?

Yes, for private employers with 25 or more employees, since July 1, 2023 under section 448.095. Documentation is retained three years, compliance is certified on the first reemployment tax return each calendar year, and three failures in a 24-month period draw a fine of $1,000 per day.

How long do Florida employers have to report a new hire?

Twenty days from the hire date, to the Florida State Directory of New Hires under section 409.2576. Contractors paid $600 or more in a calendar year are reportable too. Electronic filers may use two monthly transmissions 12 to 16 days apart instead.

Does Florida require workers compensation insurance?

Yes, at four or more employees for non-construction employers and at one employee in construction, under section 440.02. Agricultural work is excluded only for a bona fide farmer with five or fewer regular employees and fewer than 12 seasonal workers. Coverage comes from a carrier, not a payroll registration.

Can a Florida city set its own minimum wage?

No. Section 218.077 preempts local minimum wages and local employment benefit mandates for private employers. The remaining exceptions cover a local government's own employees and workers at businesses that receive a direct tax abatement or subsidy from it. Chapter 2024-80 removed the contractor exception on September 30, 2026, without impairing contracts signed before that date.

Do Florida employers still withhold federal taxes?

Yes, in full. Form W-4, federal income tax withholding, Social Security at 6.2 percent, Medicare at 1.45 percent with the additional 0.9 percent above $200,000, employer matching, Form 941, and federal unemployment tax all apply. Florida carries no federal unemployment loan balance, so the state credit against that tax is not reduced.

How much does payroll software cost for a Florida small business?

At 10 employees, published October 2026 rates run roughly $87 for Patriot Full Service, $95 for Square, $99 for SurePayroll, $109 for OnPay or Gusto Simple, $120 for QuickBooks Workforce Payroll, and $130 for Justworks Payroll. At 50 employees the same plans land between $287 and $450. ADP RUN and Paychex Flex quote individually.