Hiring your first employee in Florida

What do you have to register for before your first payroll?

One application, the Florida Business Tax Application, opens both your sales and use tax account and your reemployment tax account at the Department of Revenue. Because Florida has no personal income tax there is no third payroll registration. The trap is assuming that covers everything: new hire reporting is also run by the Department of Revenue but through a completely separate system with its own login, and workers compensation is a different agency entirely.

Does Florida require income tax withholding?

No. Florida does not tax wage income, so there is no state withholding account to open and nothing to deduct from a paycheck for the state.

Florida imposes no personal income tax, so there is nothing to withhold for the state and no account to open. Federal income tax, Social Security and Medicare still apply exactly as they do everywhere else. The mistake out-of-state employers actually make is leaving their home state's withholding switched on for a worker who now lives and works in Florida, which quietly takes money the employee does not owe and creates a refund fight in the other state.

What unemployment insurance does Florida charge a new employer?

A new Florida employer pays 2.7% on the first $7,000 each employee earns, so roughly $189 per employee in the first year. Florida calls unemployment insurance reemployment tax, and the Department of Revenue collects it rather than the state workforce agency, so searching the jobs department for a payroll account is a dead end. You become liable most commonly at quarterly payroll of $1,500 or more, or one employee for any part of a day in 20 different weeks in a year. Only the first $7,000 you pay each employee is taxed. The 2.7% starting rate holds until you have reported for ten quarters.

Do you need workers compensation insurance in Florida?

Yes, once you reach 4 employees. Below that Florida does not require it, but read the counting rules before assuming you are under the line, because who counts is rarely obvious.

• construction industry: one or more employees
• non-construction: four or more employees
• agriculture: six or more regular employees, or twelve or more seasonal workers

Florida sets the trigger by industry rather than one flat headcount. A non-construction employer needs coverage at four employees, a construction employer at the very first one, and agriculture switches on at six regular workers. The trap is who counts: corporate officers and LLC members who work in the business count as employees, so a two-owner construction LLC is already over the line on day one. Officers can file for an exemption from covering themselves, but that is a separate filing and does not remove the duty to cover anyone else.

How quickly must you report a new hire in Florida?

Within 20 days of the employee's date of hire; for independent contractors paid $600 or more in a calendar year, within 20 days of the start date or first payment. Reports go to the Florida Department of Revenue, Child Support Program.

Florida gives you 20 days from the hire date to report every new or rehired employee. Florida is one of the states that also requires independent contractors to be reported once you pay one $600 or more in a calendar year, which catches businesses that assume the duty only covers people on payroll. Reporting goes through a different system and a different login from your tax accounts.

Does Florida have paid family leave or state disability insurance?

No. Florida runs no state paid family leave fund and no state disability insurance, so there is no payroll deduction of that kind and no extra account to open.

Florida runs no state disability insurance or paid family leave program, so there is no employee payroll deduction and no employer contribution for one. Federal FMLA job protection still applies if you are large enough for it, and any paid leave you offer Florida staff is your own policy rather than a state benefit.

Do you need a sales tax permit in Florida?

You register as a sales and use tax dealer through the Florida Business Tax Application, and Florida wants that done before you start making taxable sales rather than after the first one. No fee appears on the current form, its instructions, or the registration page, and the form has no payment section, but the Department never affirmatively says registration is free, so no amount is published here. Once you hold a certificate you owe a return every filing period even in a period with no sales, and a late return carries a $50 minimum penalty whether or not tax is due.

Does a marketplace like Amazon or Etsy handle the tax for you?

Since July 2021 a marketplace provider such as Amazon or Etsy must register, collect and remit Florida sales tax on the sales it facilitates, so those sales are not yours to report. The trap is assuming that covers your whole Florida exposure. If you also sell through your own website or any Florida location, those sales sit outside the marketplace and you still need your own dealer registration once they pass the state's remote sales test on their own.

If your sales drop, when can you stop collecting?

Florida's remote seller test looks back at the previous calendar year, so whether you must collect this year turns on last year's sales rather than what you are selling today. Neither the statute nor the Department publishes a rule for how long the duty trails after you fall below the line, which is why this is left unresolved rather than guessed. What is certain is that your registration does not lapse on its own: you keep owing returns, including zero returns, until you tell the Department to close the account, and a business that closes owes a final return within 15 days.

Does Florida charge a tax on revenue rather than profit?

Florida has no broad gross receipts tax on business revenue of the kind Washington and Ohio impose. The phrase does appear in Florida law, but only for two narrow industries: a tax on utility services such as electricity and natural gas sold to Florida consumers, and a separate one on dry cleaning. Unless you are a utility or a dry cleaner, neither reaches you.

Do you have to register your out-of-state company in Florida?

LLC: $100 filing fee plus a required $25 registered agent designation, $125 total. Corporation: a flat $70, which the fee schedule breaks out as $35 filing plus a $35 registered agent designation. A certificate of status and a certified copy are $8.75 each and optional.

Registering a company you already own elsewhere to do business in Florida is a different filing from forming a new Florida company, and it is priced differently. Both figures already include the mandatory registered agent designation, so you also need a person or service with a real Florida street address to accept legal papers. What people forget is the recurring cost: once you qualify, you are in Florida's annual report cycle due between January 1 and May 1, and the $400 late penalty on a missed report cannot be waived for any reason.

Where these figures come from

Every number on this page was read on Florida's own agency pages, its statute, or a current-year official form, and this record was last reviewed on 2026-09-08. Where a state's explainer page disagreed with its statute or its current form, we followed the statute or the form and said so in the relevant section, because a state's consumer-facing pages are often the last thing updated when a figure changes.

Anything we could not confirm on a primary source is left blank rather than estimated. A missing figure on this page means we could not verify it, not that it is zero.

This is general information, not legal or tax advice. Rules change and your circumstances matter. Confirm anything you are about to act on with the agency named beside it.