Does Kansas require its own withholding form, or is the federal W-4 enough?

Kansas requires its own. Every employee who will have Kansas income tax withheld fills out Form K-4, the Kansas Employee’s Withholding Allowance Certificate, and the Department of Revenue wants it done at the point of hire. If an employee never turns one in, you withhold as if they were single with zero allowances. Kansas needs a form of its own since its allowance rules do not line up with the federal W-4: a married employee with a working spouse uses the single rate, a dependent claimed on one spouse’s K-4 cannot also be claimed by the other, and any employee can ask for extra Kansas withholding on top of the calculated amount. On its own, the federal W-4 does not carry what the Kansas calculation needs.

How often do Kansas employers have to pay employees?

Kansas requires at least one payday every calendar month, with the dates set ahead of time, under K.S.A. 44-314. The detail that trips employers up is subsection (h): no more than 15 days may separate the last day of a pay period from the payday for that period, unless state or federal law authorizes a variance. In practice, that means you cannot build a long processing gap into your calendar between the close of a period and the check date, so test any schedule against that limit before your first run.

When is a final paycheck due in Kansas, and what is the penalty for paying late?

The final check is due on the next regular payday, whether the employee resigned or was fired, under K.S.A. 44-315. Kansas does not demand payment on the employee’s last day, as some states do. The penalty is what makes this rule worth getting right. An employer who willfully fails to pay final wages owes them plus a penalty: one percent of the unpaid amount for every day past the eighth day, not counting Sundays or legal holidays, or 100 percent of what is owed if that figure is lower. That means the penalty on a contested final paycheck can grow as large as the paycheck itself.

Kansas Payroll: Employer Tax and Software Guide

Q: What are the Kansas payroll taxes an employer has to handle?

Three, which puts Kansas among the simpler states to set up. The first is state income tax withholding at 5.20 percent and 5.58 percent across two brackets: you deposit it with Form KW-5 and reconcile the year on Form KW-3. The second is unemployment insurance, which the employer alone pays on each employee’s first $15,100 of wages for 2026, at 1.75 percent for a new employer outside construction or 5.55 percent for a new construction employer. The third is workers compensation, which most employers must carry and buy from a private insurer instead of a state fund. Nothing else applies: no local income tax on wages anywhere in the state, and no state program for disability or paid family leave to pay into.

Q: What is the Kansas income tax rate?

Kansas has two income tax rates in 2026: the lower one, 5.20 percent, covers a single filer’s first $23,000 of taxable income and a joint return’s first $46,000; anything above those amounts is taxed at 5.58 percent. The two-rate structure comes from Senate Bill 1, which lawmakers passed in a 2024 special session, retiring the old three-bracket schedule, with its 3.1 percent bottom rate, 5.25 percent middle rate, and 5.7 percent top rate, starting with tax year 2024. A 2025 statute, K.S.A. 79-32,110c, can trigger lower rates for the next tax year when general fund receipts exceed an inflation-adjusted baseline and the budget stabilization fund holds at least 15 percent of the prior year’s receipts, so check the rates again each January. Some vendor pages and calculators still carry the old figures; if one lists 3.1 percent as the lowest rate, it is out of date, not offering a different reading of the law.

Q: Is there a city or local income tax in Kansas?

Not on wages. Kansas has no city, county, or school district tax on earned income, so you skip a whole layer of work that employers in neighboring Missouri face with the Kansas City and St. Louis earnings taxes. State law does allow counties, cities, and townships to tax income from money, notes, and similar debt instruments, but that levy reaches interest-type earnings, not pay, and employers never withhold it from a paycheck. For payroll purposes, then, there is nothing local to calculate, withhold, or report.

Q: What is the Kansas unemployment insurance wage base?

For 2026, the Kansas unemployment wage base is the first $15,100 each employee earns, up from $14,000 in 2025. A new employer outside construction pays 1.75 percent, a rate in place since Kansas cut it from 2.70 percent in 2025, while a new construction employer pays 5.55 percent. Established employers get an experience rate: the lowest group pays zero and is reserved for accounts whose reserve ratio tops 100 percent, and the U.S. Department of Labor lists 6.95 percent as the 2026 maximum before surcharges. Only the employer pays, and nothing comes out of employee checks. You report each quarter on Form K-CNS-100.

Q: What is the Kansas 46-hour overtime rule?

K.S.A. 44-1204 sets a state overtime threshold of 46 hours per workweek instead of the federal 40. That rule reaches only employers outside the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, which in practice means small, purely local businesses with less than roughly $500,000 in yearly revenue and no interstate commerce. Most Kansas employers fall under the FLSA, so for them the federal 40-hour threshold is the one that counts, and the Kansas statute itself carves out employees the FLSA overtime rules already cover. Reading 46 hours as the general Kansas rule is an expensive mistake: a covered employer would leave up to six overtime hours per employee per week unpaid.

Q: How long do Kansas employers have to report a new hire?

Twenty days from the date of hire, says the Kansas Department of Labor, which runs the Kansas New Hire Directory. Under K.S.A. 75-5743, a returning employee must be reported again after a break of 60 consecutive days or more, so seasonal workers, substitutes, and people coming back from a long layoff or unpaid leave all count. The same hire also needs three forms on file: the federal W-4, the state Form K-4, and Form I-9. The K-4 is the form most often missed, because employers used to states that rely on the federal W-4 alone do not have a second withholding certificate on their checklist.

Kansas payroll for employers: the two-bracket 5.20 and 5.58 percent rates, Form K-4, the $15,100 SUTA base, the 46-hour rule, and 10 providers compared.

Nick Anisimov

FirstHR Founder

Payroll•

July 24, 2026

•

17 min

Kansas Payroll: The Employer Guide

A two-bracket income tax that older published guides still get wrong, a state withholding form separate from the federal W-4, an unemployment wage base that rose to $15,100 for 2026, an overtime threshold of 46 hours that applies to almost nobody, and how 10 payroll providers price the work

Kansas is one of the easier states in the country to run payroll in, but some of what is published about Kansas payroll is out of date. If another founder asked me where to start here, I would tell them to check the income tax rates in their payroll software before anything else.

This guide covers what Kansas actually requires in 2026, the state-specific forms and quirks that trip up employers, and how 10 payroll providers price the work.

The structural picture is simple. There are three obligations rather than the much longer lists some states impose, no city or county income tax anywhere in the state, no disability or paid family leave contribution, and a wage payment law that gives you until the next regular payday to issue a final check. An employer arriving from California or New Jersey will find the list short.

The problem is the rate table. Kansas replaced its three-bracket income tax with a two-bracket schedule for tax year 2024, and some of the vendor pages, calculators, and tax guides covering Kansas payroll still show the retired 3.1 percent, 5.25 percent, and 5.7 percent figures. Withhold on those and every paycheck you issue is wrong.

TL;DR

Kansas income tax runs 5.20 percent on the first $23,000 of a single filer's taxable income and 5.58 percent above it. New hires complete Form K-4. Unemployment tax covers the first $15,100 of wages, at 1.75 percent for most new employers. There is no local income tax, minimum wage is $7.25, and the federal 40-hour overtime rule covers most employers.

The three layers of Kansas payroll

Kansas payroll has three layers: state income tax withholding, unemployment insurance, and workers compensation. It is worth seeing the whole set at once, because the useful fact about Kansas is how much is absent rather than how much is present.

Layer	Who pays	2026 figure	Who collects it
State income tax withholding	Employee	5.20% and 5.58% on two brackets	Kansas Department of Revenue
Unemployment insurance	Employer only	$15,100 wage base, 1.75% new employer	Kansas Department of Labor
Workers compensation	Employer only	Private carrier, required above $20,000 payroll	Private insurance market
Local or city income tax	Nobody	None on wages anywhere in the state	Not applicable
Disability or paid family leave	Nobody	No state program	Not applicable

The bottom two rows are the ones that matter for planning. States with local income taxes force address-by-address tax lookups and filings with several agencies; states with paid leave programs add contributions on separate wage bases. Kansas has neither. A Kansas employer with staff in Wichita, Topeka, and Overland Park files with exactly the same two agencies as an employer with one person in one town.

The comparison that matters is with Missouri, because the Kansas City metro spans the state line

The Kansas City metropolitan area straddles the state line, and a great many employers in Johnson County have staff or clients on the Missouri side. Missouri levies local earnings taxes in Kansas City and St. Louis, and Kansas has no reciprocity agreement with any state (the kind of deal that lets commuters pay income tax only to their home state), so a Kansas employer who hires across the line picks up Missouri withholding, a Missouri unemployment account, and potentially the Kansas City earnings tax all at once.

The two-bracket rate older guides get wrong

Kansas income tax now runs on two rates, 5.20 percent and 5.58 percent. Senate Bill 1, passed in the 2024 special session, collapsed the three-bracket Kansas income tax into two and made the change retroactive to tax year 2024 and applicable to every year after.

Structure	Bottom rate	Middle rate	Top rate
Retired three-bracket schedule	3.10%	5.25%	5.70%
Current two-bracket schedule	5.20%	Not applicable	5.58%

Note what happened in each direction. The bottom rate rose sharply, from 3.1 percent to 5.20 percent, while the top rate came down slightly, from 5.7 percent to 5.58 percent.

Senate Bill 1 also raised the personal exemption, now $9,160 for a single filer, so despite the higher bottom rate, an employer still withholding on the old schedule generally takes too much from each paycheck. The error does not announce itself until an employee files a return.

Filing status	5.20% applies to	5.58% applies to
Single, head of household, married filing separately	Taxable income up to $23,000	Taxable income above $23,000
Married filing jointly	Taxable income up to $46,000	Taxable income above $46,000

Because the two rates sit only 0.38 percentage points apart, Kansas behaves close to a flat-rate state. The practical consequence for an employer is that the bracket boundary rarely does much work; getting the two rates themselves right is what matters.

Check your provider's rate table before the first run, not after the first W-2

Because the retired three-bracket figures still circulate on some calculator and vendor pages, this is one of the few state facts worth verifying inside the software rather than trusting to a general claim of automatic tax updates. Ask a prospective provider to show the Kansas withholding rates in the account, and confirm you see 5.20 and 5.58 rather than 3.1, 5.25, and 5.7. A platform that has not picked up a rate change enacted in 2024 is telling you something about its maintenance cadence generally.

Withholding is deposited on Form KW-5, whose frequency the Department of Revenue assigns based on your withholding volume, ranging from annual through quarterly, monthly, semi-monthly, and quad-monthly (four times a month). The KW-5 is filed even in a period with zero withholding. The annual reconciliation is Form KW-3, due January 31 along with W-2s and any 1099s reporting Kansas withholding.

Form K-4 and why the federal W-4 is not enough

Kansas maintains its own employee withholding certificate, Form K-4, and missing it is the single most common onboarding gap for employers expanding into the state.

Element	How it works
Form	K-4, Kansas Employee's Withholding Allowance Certificate
Who must complete it	Every employee who is to have Kansas tax withheld
When	As soon as the employee is hired or taxable pay begins
If none is on file	Withhold at the single rate with no allowances
Refiled when	Marital status or number of exemptions changes

Kansas keeps a separate form because its allowance rules diverge from the federal ones in ways the W-4 cannot express. A married employee whose spouse also earns income marks the single allowance rate, which keeps two Kansas earners from being under-withheld.

Dependents a spouse has already claimed on their own K-4 cannot be claimed again. An employee can also specify an additional Kansas-only amount to withhold from each paycheck. The form has no section for tax credits, unlike Step 3 of the federal W-4.

The deadline is the hire date, which makes this an onboarding problem rather than a payroll one

Many payroll setups treat state tax forms as something to collect during the first pay cycle. Kansas asks for the K-4 as soon as an employee is hired, which puts it in the same bucket as Form I-9 and ahead of the first payroll run entirely. If your process is to send new hires a packet after their first week, the K-4 is already late. Build it into the same pre-day-one document set as the federal W-4 and I-9.

There is also Form K-4C, the Kansas Employee Certificate for Allocation of Withholding Tax. Residents and nonresidents who work partly outside Kansas can use it to report the share of their income earned in the state.

Nonresident situations arise more often here than the geography alone would suggest, because Kansas has no reciprocity agreement with any state, including Missouri directly across the metropolitan area.

Unemployment insurance and the new wage base

Kansas unemployment tax has seen two big changes since 2024: the new employer rate fell for 2025, and the wage base rose for 2026. The construction rate and the top experience rate also rose for 2026.

Item	2025	2026
Taxable wage base	$14,000	$15,100
New employer rate, non-construction	1.75%	1.75%
New employer rate, construction	5.50%	5.55%
Experience-rated range	0.00% to 6.65%	0.00% to 6.95%
Quarterly report	K-CNS-100	K-CNS-100

The wage base rose to $15,100 per employee effective January 1, 2026. A page still showing $14,000 understates the per-employee liability by roughly $19 a year at the new employer rate and considerably more for an experience-rated employer at the top of the range.

The new employer rate moved the other way a year earlier, falling to 1.75 percent for 2025 from 2.70 percent. On a $15,100 base, a new non-construction employer's maximum unemployment cost is now about $264 per employee per year.

Kansas also created a zero percent rating group for employers whose reserve ratio exceeds 100 percent, which means a long-established employer with a clean claims history can pay nothing at all. At the other end, the U.S. Department of Labor's January 2026 summary of state unemployment laws puts the top Kansas experience rate at 6.95 percent before surcharges.

Employers whose account balance has gone negative are rated on a separate schedule: 5.6 to 7.6 percent plus any solvency adjustment, according to the Kansas Department of Labor's employer handbook. Whatever your rating group, confirm your own assigned rate against the annual rate notice rather than a third-party summary.

Electronic filing is mandatory at 25 employees

Kansas requires employers with 25 or more employees to submit quarterly wage reports and unemployment tax returns electronically. Below that threshold electronic filing is optional but still the practical default. Quarterly deadlines follow the standard calendar: April 30, July 31, October 31, and January 31.

Workers compensation sits outside all of this, bought from a private carrier rather than a state fund. It is required for essentially all Kansas employers except certain agricultural operations and those whose gross annual payroll was $20,000 or less in the preceding calendar year and is expected to stay there.

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Minimum wage, the 46-hour rule, and payday rules

Minimum wage

Category	2026 rate
Standard minimum wage	$7.25
Tipped cash wage, with a $5.12 maximum tip credit	$2.13
Federal youth wage, first 90 days, under 20	$4.25

Kansas sits at the federal floor and has since 2010, when the state rate rose from an older and much lower figure to match $7.25. No Kansas city or county sets a different rate, because state law bars local governments from requiring pay above the minimum.

No bill to raise the state minimum has become law since then, so $7.25 remains the operative number, and any page quoting a higher Kansas minimum is describing a proposal rather than law.

The 46-hour overtime rule and who it actually covers

Kansas has a state overtime statute, K.S.A. 44-1204, setting the threshold at 46 hours per workweek. It is frequently cited as though it were the Kansas rule. It is not, for most employers.

Employer type	Overtime threshold	Governing law
Covered by the federal FLSA	40 hours per workweek	Fair Labor Standards Act
Not covered by the FLSA	46 hours per workweek	K.S.A. 44-1204
Coverage unclear	Use 40 hours	Fair Labor Standards Act, the safer assumption

FLSA coverage generally reaches employers engaged in interstate commerce or with annual revenue above $500,000, which describes the large majority of Kansas businesses with employees. The 46-hour threshold is a narrow carve-out for small, purely local operations. Applying it to a covered workforce means up to six hours of unpaid overtime per employee per week, which adds up quickly in back pay.

Two payday rules that catch out employers setting up their first Kansas payroll

Under K.S.A. 44-314, wages are due at least once per calendar month on paydays designated in advance, which is unremarkable. Subsection (h) is the part almost nobody quotes: the end of a pay period cannot fall more than 15 days before the payday covering it. A long administrative lag between period close and check date is not permitted. Separately, the final paycheck is due under K.S.A. 44-315 by the next regular payday for both quits and discharges. Willful failure to pay carries a penalty of one percent of the unpaid wages per day after the eighth day, excluding Sundays and holidays, capped at 100 percent of the unpaid wages. On a contested final check, the penalty can reach the size of the check itself.

New hire reporting

Kansas employers report new and rehired employees to the Kansas New Hire Directory within 20 days of hire, according to the Kansas Department of Labor. Under K.S.A. 75-5743, rehires count again once an employee has been separated for 60 or more consecutive days, which brings in seasonal staff, substitutes, and anyone returning from an extended layoff or unpaid leave.

10 payroll providers for Kansas employers compared

Every provider below files Kansas withholding and unemployment. Because Kansas lacks the local tax layers that separate platforms in Ohio or Pennsylvania, the differentiators here are ordinary ones: total price, whether the plan tolerates a second state without a costly upgrade, and whether onboarding actually collects the K-4 rather than leaving it to you.

Provider	Best For	Starting Price	Pricing Model	Trial
OnPay	Single-plan pricing, no tiers	$49 + $6/ee	Base + PEPM	1 month
Gusto	First-time payroll buyers	$49 + $6/ee	Base + PEPM	Until 1st run
Patriot	Lowest cost, tight budgets	$37 + $5/ee	Base + PEPM	30 days
Square	Retail and restaurant teams	$35 + $6/ee	Base + PEPM	Until 1st run
SurePayroll	Very small and household teams	$29 + $7/ee	Base + PEPM	Varies
QuickBooks	Existing QuickBooks accounting	$50 + $7/ee	Base + PEPM	30 days
ADP RUN	Compliance depth at scale	Quote	Quote	Varies
Paychex Flex	Hands-on service model	Quote	Quote	Varies
Paylocity	Growing teams wanting HR depth	Quote	Quote	Demo
Rippling	Payroll tied to HR and IT	$40 + $8/ee	Modular PEPM	Demo

Pricing verified as of October 2026 from vendor pricing pages. PEPM and /ee both mean per employee per month. ADP RUN, Paychex Flex, and Paylocity publish no list pricing. Rippling's pricing page is a quote form, so its figure is the starting price on Rippling's small-business page: payroll plans from $8 per user per month plus a $40 monthly base fee. Rippling's blog prices the core platform and the payroll module at $8 per employee each, so a configured quote can run higher. KW-5 and KW-3 Filing indicates the platform submits the Kansas withholding deposit and the annual reconciliation rather than only calculating the tax. Onboarding Tools means the vendor publishes document collection and e-signature beyond basic tax forms; ask whether its new hire packet includes Form K-4. Multi-State Included marks plans that file a second state without a separate fee or an upgrade, per the vendor's own pages. Confirm all three with the vendor for your plan tier before signing.

OnPay

OnPay sells one payroll plan at $49 per month plus $6 per employee, so there is no tier to climb; HR tools and time tracking are paid add-ons. Multi-state is part of the base plan rather than an upgrade, which is the feature that earns its keep on the Kansas side of the Kansas City metropolitan area.

OnPay also maintains a Kansas payroll tax and registration guide, a reasonable proxy for whether a vendor keeps state tables current.

Pros

One payroll plan, so there is no tier to climb

Multi-state payroll included at no surcharge

Year-end W-2 and 1099 forms included in the base price

First month free

Cons

Custom onboarding workflows sit in the HR add-on at $15 plus $2 per worker

Time tracking is a $15 plus $4 per worker add-on

Live HR support costs an extra $65 a month

Interface is functional rather than polished

Gusto

Gusto is a common first payroll purchase for US small businesses, with automatic tax filing, published pricing, and onboarding built into the same account. Simple runs $49 per month plus $6 per employee after a base increase from $40 during 2025, and Gusto files the KW-5, the KW-3, and the Kansas new hire report.

The single-state limit on Simple deserves attention in Kansas specifically. The Kansas City metropolitan area crosses into Missouri, so one hire on the wrong side of State Line Road moves you to Plus at $80 plus $12 per employee.

Pros

Built-in onboarding and HR tools alongside payroll

Files KW-5, KW-3, and the Kansas new hire report automatically

Published pricing with month-to-month billing and no long-term contract

AutoPilot payroll and payroll approvals on every plan

Cons

Simple plan is single-state only, a real constraint in the Kansas City metro

Base price rose from $40 to $49 during 2025

Time tracking sits behind Plus or a paid add-on

Per-employee fees compound: $349 per month at 50 employees on Simple

Patriot Software

Patriot Full Service is the lowest-cost full-service payroll on this page at every headcount modeled below: $37 per month plus $5 per employee, with additional states at $12 per month each.

Patriot's Basic plan is $17 per month plus $4 per employee if you file taxes yourself. In Kansas that is a more realistic proposition than in most states, given that there are only two filings to make and no local returns at all.

Pros

Lowest total cost here at 10, 25, and 50 employees

Unlimited payroll runs with no per-run fees

Self-file Basic tier is genuinely viable in a state with no local filings

30-day free trial

Cons

$12 per month for each additional state

Basic plan leaves you filing the KW-5 and KW-3 yourself

Time tracking and HR are separate paid add-ons

Plain interface, and mobile clock-in in the My Patriot app needs the paid Time & Attendance add-on

Square Payroll

Square Payroll's full-service plan runs $35 per month plus $6 per person paid and covers federal and state tax calculations, payments, and filings. For a Wichita or Lawrence restaurant already running Square point of sale, timecard data flows into payroll with no integration work and tip handling is native.

Pros

Multi-state payroll included in the $35 base

Tip handling and timecards flow directly from Square POS and the Team App

State tax filing and new hire reports included in the full-service plan

Contractor-only plan at $6 per person with no base fee

Cons

Health insurance and 401(k) are add-ons

Paper W-2 and 1099 mailing costs $3 per form

Best value is tied to using the wider Square ecosystem

Self-onboarding collects tax and deposit details, with no document e-signature listed

SurePayroll

SurePayroll is owned by Paychex and built for very small employers 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. A separate Nanny and Household plan makes it a particularly good fit for a Kansas household employer paying a nanny or caregiver.

Pros

Flat $9.99 monthly multi-state fee rather than per-state pricing

Payroll can be scheduled to run automatically

Strong fit for household employers paying nannies or caregivers

Unlimited payroll runs on all plans

Cons

Per-employee fee of $7 sits above Patriot, OnPay, Gusto Simple, and Square

No digital onboarding workflows for collecting the K-4

Time clock integration and accounting sync are paid add-ons

Interface reads dated compared to newer platforms

QuickBooks Workforce Payroll

QuickBooks Workforce Payroll, formerly QuickBooks Payroll Core and renamed in May 2026, runs $50 per month plus $7 per employee after the per-employee increase of July 1, 2026.

The case for QuickBooks payroll has not changed: if your books live in QuickBooks Online, payroll reaches the general ledger without an export. In a state with no local tax layer to worry about, the accounting integration carries proportionally more of the decision than it would in Ohio or Pennsylvania.

Pros

Native general ledger sync with QuickBooks Online

Federal and state tax filing on every tier, including Workforce Payroll

Same-day direct deposit available on higher tiers

Published pricing with no sales call

Cons

Per-employee pricing increased on July 1, 2026

Workforce Payroll lacks time tracking and onboarding tools, which start on Workforce Premium

$12 a month for each additional state on Workforce Payroll and Workforce Premium

Weak value if you do not use QuickBooks accounting

ADP RUN

ADP describes the same tax compliance operation behind every RUN package: it calculates, files, deposits, and reconciles payroll taxes, responds to agency inquiries, and pays the resulting fines if it makes a filing error.

That service pays for itself in multi-jurisdiction states, but Kansas has no municipal returns to file and no separate paid leave or disability wage bases to track. The case for ADP here is a Kansas employer with genuine multi-state complexity, or one who expects to grow past the point where a small platform is comfortable.

The cost is opacity. ADP publishes no RUN rates, so every package from Essential to HR Pro is quoted individually. In ADP's favor, multi-jurisdiction payroll is included in all four packages, and no contract is required: ADP says services can be terminated at any time.

Pros

Calculates, files, deposits, and reconciles payroll taxes in every package

Multi-jurisdiction payroll included in all four packages

No contract, and service can be ended at any time

Pay-as-you-go workers compensation and health insurance as add-ons

Cons

No published pricing: every quote requires a sales conversation

W-2 and 1099 forms carry an additional fee

Compliance depth is underused in a state with no local taxes

State unemployment account management starts on Enhanced, not Essential

Paychex Flex

Paychex Flex sells a service relationship as much as software, with a payroll specialist included on the Complete package. Pricing is quote-only across the Basic, Foundations, Advanced, and Complete packages, and the standard service agreement can be ended on 30 days' notice.

In Kansas, the service model earns its keep less on tax complexity than on the wage payment rules, where a question about the 15-day pay period constraint or a contested final check benefits from someone to call.

Pros

A payroll specialist and advisors included on the Complete package

Prepares federal, state, and local payroll tax returns

Service agreement can be ended with 30 days of notice

Broad HR, benefits, and retirement services under one vendor

Cons

Quote-only pricing with no published rates at any tier

Time and attendance is an add-on on every package

Premium support with a payroll specialist comes only on Complete

Phone and email support is an add-on on the Basic package

Paylocity

Paylocity sits between small-business payroll and full human capital management suites, aimed at companies that have outgrown basic payroll: its clients average more than 150 employees, per its annual report. It publishes pages on Kansas employment law and withholding updates, and it prepares and files state withholding returns. Pricing is quote-based and implementation is a project rather than a signup.

Pros

Full HR suite with payroll, benefits, and workforce management

Prepares and files state and local withholding returns and reconciliations

IRS Registered Reporting Agent in all 50 states

Separate small business, midsize, and enterprise segments

Cons

Quote-only pricing with no published rates

Implementation fees are charged on top of the subscription

More platform than a small Kansas business needs

Consultant-guided implementation rather than a self-serve signup

Rippling

Rippling puts payroll, HR, and IT provisioning on one employee record. Its pricing page is a quote form, but its small-business page starts payroll plans at $8 per user per month plus a $40 monthly base fee.

Its blog prices the core platform at $8 per employee and the payroll module, sold separately, at another $8 billed annually or $10 billed monthly, so a configured quote can run higher. The final cost also depends on which other products you add.

Pros

Single employee record spanning HR, payroll, and IT provisioning

Handles multi-state registration in the same workflow

Onboarding staged automatically from role, location, and start date

Modular, so HR, payroll, and IT tools can be added as the company grows

Cons

Modular pricing: the final cost depends on which products you add

Pricing page is a quote form, and published rates sit on its small-business page and blog

Every module requires the core Rippling Platform

Overbuilt for a small Kansas business with no IT complexity

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What each provider actually costs a Kansas employer

The table below models published rates at three headcounts, with a column for what a second state costs, because that is the variable most likely to change the answer for a Kansas employer near the Missouri line.

Provider	10 employees	25 employees	50 employees	Second State	Notes
SurePayroll	$99	$204	$379	$9.99 flat	Add-on HR features
Square	$95	$185	$335	Included	Best with Square POS
Patriot	$87	$162	$287	$12 monthly	Cheapest full service
Paychex Flex	Quote	Quote	Quote	Quote	No published rates
OnPay	$109	$199	$349	Included	One plan, no tiers
Gusto Simple	$109	$199	$349	Tier upgrade	Simple is single state
QuickBooks	$120	$225	$400	$12 monthly	Syncs to QuickBooks GL
ADP RUN	Quote	Quote	Quote	Included	Quote-only pricing

Monthly base plus per-employee fees at standard published rates, verified October 2026. Excludes promotional discounts, benefits premiums, workers compensation premiums, and year-end form fees where charged separately. ADP RUN and Paychex Flex publish no rates, so their rows show quote only. Paylocity and Rippling are left out: Paylocity quotes every account, and Rippling's total depends on which modules you add. The Second State column matters more in Kansas than in most states because the Kansas City metropolitan area crosses into Missouri, so a single hire on the other side of the line can change which plan tier you need.

Square and Patriot are the cheapest published options at every headcount. Because Kansas has no local filings to complicate the picture, the ranking here is closer to a pure price comparison than it would be in a state with municipal returns, and the cheapest capable option is a more defensible choice than usual.

The variable that reorders the table is the second state: Gusto Simple forces a tier upgrade that roughly doubles the bill, while SurePayroll charges a flat $9.99, Patriot and QuickBooks charge $12 a month for each extra state, and OnPay, Square, and ADP include it.

In Kansas the software decision is smaller than it looks, so do not overspend on it

In states with fragmented local taxes, paying a premium for a platform with deep filing coverage is straightforwardly worth it. Kansas does not present that problem. Two filings, one agency each, no municipal returns, no separate paid leave wage base. That means the honest advice is to buy the cheapest platform that files the KW-5 and KW-3 reliably, handles your second state if you have one, and collects the K-4 during onboarding. The money that would go toward compliance depth you do not need is better spent on the parts of the employment lifecycle Kansas actually complicates, which involve paperwork rather than math.

Choosing a payroll provider for Kansas

Choosing a payroll provider for Kansas comes down to five questions. Put each one to the vendor during a trial or demo, before you sign anything.

Are the withholding rates in the account 5.20 and 5.58?

This is the first thing to check and it takes thirty seconds. The retired three-bracket schedule of 3.1, 5.25, and 5.7 percent still appears on some vendor and calculator pages, so ask to see the Kansas rate table inside the product during a trial or demo. A platform carrying rates superseded in 2024 will withhold incorrectly on every paycheck, and it also tells you how quickly that vendor absorbs statutory changes generally.

Does onboarding collect Form K-4, or does that fall to you?

Kansas wants the K-4 completed at hire, alongside the federal W-4. Some platforms include state withholding certificates in a digital onboarding flow; others collect only the federal form and leave the state one as a manual step nobody owns. Ask specifically whether the K-4 is in the new hire packet the software sends, and whether it captures a signature, because an unsigned certificate sitting in an inbox is not a collected form.

What does a hire across the Missouri line cost on this plan?

Since Kansas has no reciprocity deal and the Kansas City metropolitan area spans the border, this is a live question for employers anywhere near Kansas City rather than a hypothetical. Providers on this page handle a second state four ways: included, a flat monthly fee, a per-state charge, or a forced tier upgrade that roughly doubles the bill. Establish the answer before you sign rather than at the moment you make the hire.

Does it file the KW-5 on your assigned frequency, and file at zero?

The Kansas Department of Revenue assigns a deposit frequency ranging from annual to quad-monthly based on your withholding volume, and the KW-5 is due even for a period with no withholding. Confirm the platform files on the frequency actually assigned to your account rather than a default, and that it still files a zero return during a quiet period, since a missed zero filing generates a notice as readily as a missed payment.

Can it enforce your pay period and payday structure?

K.S.A. 44-314(h) requires that a pay period end no more than 15 days before the payday covering it, which quietly rules out the long administrative lag some employers default to when setting up their first calendar. Confirm your intended schedule satisfies that constraint before configuring it, and check that final pay can be issued on the next regular payday, since the willful non-payment penalty reaches up to the full amount of the unpaid wages.

Before you choose

FirstHR covers the document layer that feeds payroll, while payroll processing, tax filing, and benefits administration come from the providers above. Since the whole argument of this page is that Kansas payroll computation is comparatively simple, the right move is to pick a capable platform at the lowest sensible price and move on.

That document layer means onboarding workflows that put Form K-4, the federal W-4, and Form I-9 on each new hire's first-day task list, plus e-signature on offer letters and acknowledgments, employee records, and document management that keeps completed forms in the employee file. It costs a flat $98 a month for up to 10 people or $198 for 11 to 50.

The Kansas obligations that most often go wrong are records problems rather than calculation problems, namely collecting a signed K-4 at hire, filing the new hire report within 20 days, and re-reporting rehires separated for 60 or more days. Put those three on your hiring checklist, whichever platform you choose.

Key Takeaways

Kansas uses two income tax brackets, not three. Senate Bill 1 from the 2024 special session replaced the 3.1, 5.25, and 5.7 percent schedule with 5.20 percent up to $23,000 of taxable income for single filers and 5.58 percent above it, and some published guides and calculators still show the retired figures.

The unemployment wage base rose to $15,100 for 2026 from $14,000, while new employers pay 5.55 percent in construction and 1.75 percent elsewhere, the rate since 2025, when it was cut from 2.70 percent. A clean-history employer can reach a zero percent rating group, and unemployment is employer-funded with nothing withheld from employees.

Form K-4 is mandatory and should be completed as soon as an employee is hired. Kansas does not accept the federal W-4 alone for state withholding, which makes this an onboarding deadline rather than a first-payroll-run task, and it is the most common gap for employers expanding into the state.

The 46-hour overtime threshold applies only to employers outside the FLSA. Most Kansas employers are covered by federal law and owe overtime after 40 hours, so treating 46 as the general state rule creates up to six hours of unpaid overtime per employee per week.

Two wage payment rules deserve a calendar check. A pay period cannot end more than 15 days before its payday under K.S.A. 44-314(h), and willful failure to pay a final check carries a penalty of one percent per day after the eighth day, capped at the full amount of the unpaid wages.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the Kansas payroll taxes an employer has to handle?

Three: state income tax withholding on two brackets at 5.20 and 5.58 percent, remitted on Form KW-5 and reconciled on Form KW-3; unemployment insurance on the first $15,100 of wages at 1.75 percent for new non-construction employers; and workers compensation from a private carrier. There is no local income tax and no state disability or paid family leave contribution.

What is the Kansas income tax rate?

Two brackets: 5.20 percent on taxable income up to $23,000 for single filers and $46,000 for married filing jointly, and 5.58 percent above those thresholds. Senate Bill 1 from the 2024 special session replaced the earlier three-bracket schedule of 3.1, 5.25, and 5.7 percent, effective for tax year 2024 onward. Rate tables still showing 3.1 percent as the bottom rate are out of date.

Does Kansas require its own withholding form?

Yes. Every employee who is to have Kansas tax withheld completes Form K-4 at hire; without one, the employer withholds at the single rate with no allowances. Kansas maintains a separate form because its allowance rules differ from the federal ones: a married employee with an earning spouse marks the single rate, dependents cannot be double-counted, and employees can add a Kansas-only additional withholding amount. The federal W-4 alone is not sufficient.

Is there a city or local income tax in Kansas?

Not on wages. No Kansas city, county, or school district taxes earned income, which is a meaningful contrast with Missouri directly across the Kansas City metropolitan area. Kansas law does allow a local tax on earnings from money, notes, and other debt instruments, but it reaches interest-type income rather than wages, and nothing is withheld from pay.

What is the Kansas unemployment insurance wage base?

$15,100 per employee for 2026, up from $14,000 in 2025. New employers pay 1.75 percent outside construction, down from 2.70 percent before 2025, and 5.55 percent in construction. Experience-rated employers range from a zero percent group for those with a reserve ratio above 100 percent up to 6.95 percent before surcharges. Reporting is quarterly on Form K-CNS-100, and electronic filing is required at 25 or more employees.

What is the Kansas 46-hour overtime rule?

A state overtime threshold under K.S.A. 44-1204 that applies only to employers not covered by the federal FLSA, generally small local businesses under roughly $500,000 in revenue and not engaged in interstate commerce. Most Kansas employers are FLSA-covered and owe overtime after 40 hours. Where coverage is unclear, paying overtime after 40 hours is the safer course.

How often must Kansas employers pay employees?

At least once per calendar month on paydays designated in advance, under K.S.A. 44-314. Subsection (h) adds a constraint most summaries omit: a pay period cannot end more than 15 days before the payday that covers it, unless a variance is authorized by state or federal law.

When is a final paycheck due in Kansas?

By the next regularly scheduled payday, for both quits and discharges, under K.S.A. 44-315. Willful failure to pay carries a penalty of one percent of the unpaid wages for each day the failure continues after the eighth day, excluding Sundays and legal holidays, or an amount equal to 100 percent of the unpaid wages, whichever is less.

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

Twenty days from the hire date, per the Kansas Department of Labor. The report goes to the Kansas New Hire Directory, and a rehire counts again after a separation of 60 or more consecutive days under K.S.A. 75-5743. A Kansas new hire also needs the federal W-4, Form K-4, and Form I-9.

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Kansas

Kansas Payroll: Employer Tax and Software Guide

Kansas Payroll: The Employer Guide

The three layers of Kansas payroll

The two-bracket rate older guides get wrong

Form K-4 and why the federal W-4 is not enough

Unemployment insurance and the new wage base

Minimum wage, the 46-hour rule, and payday rules

Minimum wage

The 46-hour overtime rule and who it actually covers

New hire reporting

10 payroll providers for Kansas employers compared

OnPay

Gusto

Patriot Software

Square Payroll

SurePayroll

QuickBooks Workforce Payroll

ADP RUN

Paychex Flex

Paylocity

Rippling

What each provider actually costs a Kansas employer

Choosing a payroll provider for Kansas

Before you choose

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the Kansas payroll taxes an employer has to handle?

What is the Kansas income tax rate?

Does Kansas require its own withholding form?

Is there a city or local income tax in Kansas?

What is the Kansas unemployment insurance wage base?

What is the Kansas 46-hour overtime rule?

How often must Kansas employers pay employees?

When is a final paycheck due in Kansas?

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

Make HR the easy part of running your business

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