Hiring your first employee in Kansas

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

Kansas gives you one application on the tax side and a separate one on the labour side. The Kansas Business Tax Application, form CR-16 or the same application filed online through the KDOR Customer Service Center, opens your income tax withholding account and your retailers' sales or compensating use tax account in a single pass, so those two really are one filing. What comes back is one Kansas tax account number per tax type: your federal EIN with a three digit prefix, 036 for wage withholding and 004 for retailers' sales tax, which is why the numbers look nearly identical and get transposed. Unemployment is a different agency and a different portal. You file form K-CNS 010, the Status Report, with the Kansas Department of Labor within 15 days of paying your first employee, then file and pay at KansasLabor.gov rather than at KDOR. Workers compensation is not a registration at all, it is an insurance policy you buy, a pool you join, or self-insurance you qualify for. Budget for two registrations and one insurance purchase.

Does Kansas require income tax withholding?

Yes. You register with the Kansas Department of Revenue, once you have employees working in kansas. the withholding tax guide tells an employer in another state to register and withhold when it has employees working in kansas for any period of time, and sets no minimum number of days or dollars; kdor suggests mailing or faxing the application 3 to 4 weeks before your first withholding payment is due, and offers same day registration in person.

There is no de minimis here, and that is the trap for an out-of-state employer. KW-100 says in as many words that if you are an employer in another state you must register and withhold Kansas income tax when you have employees working in Kansas for any period of time, and the guide sets out no reciprocity exemption that would let a neighbouring state's resident opt out. The second surprise catches companies that believe they have no Kansas payroll at all: Kansas requires withholding on management and consulting fees paid in the ordinary course of a for profit business to a nonresident who performs those services in Kansas, so contractor spend can create a withholding account. Note also that Kansas runs its own allowance certificate, form K-4, alongside the federal W-4; if an employee never files a K-4 you must withhold at the single rate with no allowances. The current edition is KW-100 (Rev. 10-24), reissued after the 2024 special session changed the individual rates mid year, so a Kansas withholding table printed before July 2024 is wrong.

What unemployment insurance does Kansas charge a new employer?

A new Kansas employer pays 1.75% on the first $15,100 each employee earns, so roughly $264 per employee in the first year. For 2026 a new Kansas employer pays 1.75 percent on the first $15,100 of each worker's wages, and a construction industry employer pays 5.55 percent on the same base. Those two rates sit in the statute rather than in the annual schedule, so they did not move when Kansas went to credit schedule C for 2026, under which experience rated employers run from 0 percent to 6.95 percent. The wage base is the number that will go stale. 2026 is the first year Kansas stopped fixing it in dollars: it sat at $14,000 from 2016 through 2025, and K.S.A. 44-703(o)(2) now sets it at a percentage of the statewide average annual wage for the previous year, rounded to the nearest $100. The percentage steps up on a published ladder, 25 percent for 2026 and 2027, 30 percent for 2028, 35 percent for 2029, and 40 percent for 2030 and 2031, so the base moves every single year from here and last year's figure will always be too low. On liability, you are covered once you have one or more employees for any part of a day in 20 different weeks of a calendar year, or a gross payroll of $1,500 or more in any calendar quarter, and you must file the Status Report K-CNS 010 within 15 days of paying your first employee. One option worth knowing: an employer that has operated in another state for at least three years in the same industry can elect its out-of-state reserve ratio rate instead of the 1.75 percent, but never below 1 percent, and the election must be in writing within 30 days of the notice of Kansas liability.

Do you need workers compensation insurance in Kansas?

It depends on your payroll, not your headcount. Kansas sets no employee number at all, so a one-person business can owe coverage while a larger one with lower wages does not.

Coverage is required of:

• any non-agricultural employer whose total gross annual payroll is more than $20,000, from its first employee, with no headcount test at any level
• an employer counting payroll must include wages paid to workers outside Kansas as well as inside it
• corporate employers, which must count wages paid to family members too, because the exclusion of family wages does not apply to a corporation

Kansas is one of the states where the workers compensation trigger is not a headcount at all, which is why both the threshold and the optional flag are withheld here rather than guessed. K.S.A. 44-505(a)(2) exempts an employer whose total gross annual payroll for the preceding calendar year was not more than $20,000 and who reasonably estimates it will not exceed $20,000 in the current year, and KDOL states the rule as an employer with more than $20,000 in gross annual payroll must secure coverage. So a business with one employee at $25,000 owes coverage and a business with four employees at $18,000 does not, and no single employee number describes that. Two details make the payroll count bigger than people expect: KDOL says all wages paid to all workers count, inside and outside Kansas, and the usual exclusion for wages paid to family members does not apply to a corporate employer. Beyond the payroll test the exclusions are narrow: certain agricultural pursuits, realtors who qualify as independent contractors, firefighters in a relief association that has waived coverage, sole proprietors, partners and LLC members themselves, and certain owner operator drivers carrying their own occupational accident cover. Coverage can be a policy, a group-funded pool, or approved self-insurance. Getting it wrong is expensive: the civil penalty for failing to secure coverage when required is twice the annual premium or $25,000, whichever is greater. There is a second, separate duty that is easy to miss: report a work accident within 28 days if the injury keeps the person off work for more than one day, shift or turn, or face a $250 fine for each failure.

There is no opt out for an employer that is over the payroll line. What Kansas has is an opt in, and it must be filed electronically in KDOL's OSCAR system by regulation. Employers with a gross annual payroll of $20,000 or less and certain agricultural employers may elect coverage they do not owe; so may sole proprietors, partners and LLC members, corporate employees who own 10 percent or more of the stock, and nonprofits wanting to cover volunteer directors, officers or trustees. Election questions go to [email protected].

How quickly must you report a new hire in Kansas?

Within 20 business days of the hiring, rehiring or return to work of the newly hired employee, or within 20 business days of the date that employee first receives wages or other compensation. Reports go to the Kansas New Hire Directory, administered by the Kansas Department of Labor.

Read the statute rather than the overview here. K.S.A. 75-5743 says 20 business days, while KDOL's own overview paragraph on the same page shortens it to within 20 days of the hire and the UI Employer Handbook says the same. Twenty business days is close to a calendar month, so the statutory deadline is the more generous of the two and the page is the conservative reading; either way, filing by 20 calendar days is safe. The duty runs to all employers and labor organizations doing business in Kansas, and covers rehires: an employee who has been separated for at least 60 consecutive days is a newly hired employee again, which KDOL applies to layoffs, furloughs, unpaid leave, seasonal staff, teachers and substitutes. Someone who filled in a W-4 and worked a few hours before quitting still has to be reported. A temp agency reports a worker once, not once per assignment, unless there has been a break in service that required a fresh W-4. The preferred form is K-CNS 436, but a copy of the W-4 is accepted provided the employer name, address and FEIN are filled into boxes 8 and 10, and the FEIN must be the same one you use for your quarterly wage reports. A multistate employer that reports electronically may elect to send all its reports to one state under title IV-D. The statute is written around newly hired employees and does not extend the duty to independent contractors.

Does Kansas have paid family leave or state disability insurance?

No. Kansas 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.

Kansas runs no state disability insurance fund and no paid family and medical leave insurance, so there is no payroll deduction of that kind, no premium, and no account to open. KDOL's workplace laws FAQ is blunt about the underlying leave position too: the law does not require an employer to offer vacation or sick leave, and unused accrued vacation is payable on separation only where the employer's own policy or practice says it is. One thing that generates false positives when people search: Kansas does have a paid parental leave policy of eight weeks for a primary caregiver and four for a secondary caregiver, but that is an internal State of Kansas employment policy for state government employees under Department of Administration Bulletin 21-01, not a private employer mandate. A Kansas paid family leave act has been introduced as a bill in the past and is not law. Confidence is S rather than P because this is a negative established from the agency's own coverage of what Kansas does require, not from a single page stating that no programme exists.

Do you need a sales tax permit in Kansas?

This is a confirmed free permit rather than an unknown: KDOR states there is no fee for a sales tax or use tax number. The certificate does not expire, it runs until cancelled or revoked, and a separate certificate is issued for each place of business and must be displayed conspicuously there. Two Kansas specifics matter for an out-of-state seller. First, which tax you register for depends on where you are: a seller with a Kansas location registers for retailers' sales tax, while a remote seller outside Kansas registers for retailers' compensating use tax instead, and getting the wrong one means the wrong return. Second, the crossing rule is unusually generous and is worth reading twice. KDOR's own worked example says that if your first transaction is $105,000, the duty to collect does not begin until the next transaction; if you have $99,950 of sales and then a $100,000 sale, the duty still does not begin until after that sale. Kansas is destination sourced with several hundred local rates on top of the state rate, so use KDOR's address rate locator rather than a single statewide figure. Registering can be done same day in person, or through the Streamlined Sales Tax registration system as an alternative to going direct.

Security deposits. No fee, but a bond is possible. Pub KS-1510 says in terms that there is no fee for a sales tax or use tax number, however the Department of Revenue may require you to post a bond to guarantee payment of the tax you collect. The amount is set by the Director of Taxation and the general rule is six months' estimated tax liability. You may post it as a cash bond held without interest, an escrow bond such as a certificate of deposit pledged to the department, or a surety bond bought from an insurer. Bonds are not requested for consumers' compensating use tax accounts. A separate and far more predictable bond hits construction: a nonresident contractor or subcontractor must register for each Kansas contract over $10,000 and post 8 percent of the total contract price or $1,000, whichever is greater, dropping to 4 percent under a Project Exemption. That registration requirement is waived if the nonresident contractor is already qualified as a foreign entity with the Kansas Secretary of State, which is a rare case of foreign qualification saving you a filing rather than adding one.

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

Yes, and it is one of the stronger seller protections in the country. K.S.A. 79-5601 et seq., in force from 1 July 2021, makes a marketplace facilitator collect and remit on everything it facilitates once it exceeds $100,000 of Kansas sales in the current or immediately preceding calendar year, counting both its own sales and those it facilitates for others. K.S.A. 79-5603 then says the facilitator must collect regardless of whether the marketplace seller has registered or would have had to collect on its own, that the facilitator remains liable to the state even if the two of you agree otherwise, and, most usefully, that the department shall audit only the facilitator for facilitated sales and shall not assess the seller on them. So Amazon or Etsy genuinely carries the Kansas exposure on what it facilitates. Two exceptions bring it back to you. KDOR can grant a facilitator a waiver, applied for on form ST-2, where substantially all of its sellers already collect, and in that case the tax becomes collectible from the seller. And a facilitator and a seller may agree to shift collection to the seller, but only where the seller has annual United States gross sales over $1 billion, is registered under K.S.A. 79-3608, and notifies the department, so this is not a route a normal business will be pushed down. The law reaches transient guest tax and short term lodging platforms for stays under 29 days, and from 1 April 2022 the facilitator also collects prepaid wireless 911 fees. Advertising-only listing platforms and pure payment processors are excluded from the definition. None of this covers your own website or any other channel: those sales are yours to collect and remit.

If your sales drop, when can you stop collecting?

Kansas does not use the word trailing, but the effect is a rolling one year tail. K.S.A. 79-3702(h)(1)(G)(i)(b) makes you a retailer doing business in Kansas if you had more than $100,000 of cumulative gross receipts from Kansas customers during the current or immediately preceding calendar year, and K.S.A. 79-5602 uses the same current-or-preceding wording for marketplace facilitators. So a year in which you exceed the threshold commits you to the following calendar year as well, even if your Kansas sales go to zero on 1 January, and you are only free in the first calendar year where neither that year nor the one before it exceeded $100,000. The statute sets out no termination procedure and no notice you have to give, which is exactly how businesses end up with non-filer notices: close the account with KDOR rather than quietly stopping your returns.

Does Kansas charge a tax on revenue rather than profit?

Kansas levies no gross receipts tax of the Washington B&O, Ohio CAT or Nevada Commerce Tax kind, and the tax that used to sit in this slot is genuinely gone rather than dormant: K.S.A. 79-5401(g) says the Kansas franchise tax does not apply to any tax year commencing after 31 December 2010. So there is no annual capital or equity based charge on an entity registered in Kansas. What replaces it as the recurring cost of being on file is small and easy to forget: the biennial business entity information report to the Secretary of State, $90 filed online or $110 on paper, due 15 April of your even or odd year for a for profit entity. Miss it and you get a three month delinquency window in which you can still file but cannot file anything else, and after that the entity forfeits and is locked out of every other filing until it catches up and is reinstated. The two other Kansas specific costs worth planning for are not gross receipts taxes but behave like surprise levies for out-of-state businesses: the nonresident contractor bond of 8 percent of any Kansas contract over $10,000, and Kansas withholding on management and consulting fees paid to a nonresident performing those services in Kansas.

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

$115, and unusually it is the same $115 for every entity type. Form FA, the Application for Registration for a Foreign (non-Kansas) Business, is a single form covering LLCs, LLPs, LPs and corporations, and its fee schedule reads all businesses $115, so Kansas does not charge a corporation more than an LLC and does not scale the corporate fee with authorized shares. The edition current on the review date is Rev. 3/2/26. Foreign entities cannot file this online: the Secretary of State says foreign business entities must file by submitting a foreign application by paper. Two extras can attach to the $115. If the date you say you began doing business in Kansas is far enough in the past that biennial information reports would have been due, every missed report going back up to ten years must be filed with the application, each at its own fee of $110 on paper. And for everything except a not-for-profit corporation, a one-time penalty fee of $85 applies if any of those reports is filed after the forfeiture date, which falls three months after the end of the reporting period. So a business that has quietly been operating in Kansas for a few years before registering pays considerably more than the headline figure.

You need a resident agent with a real Kansas street address where the agent can be regularly present, and a PO box will not do. The application is signed under penalty of perjury that the entity is in good standing at home on the day of filing. K.S.A. 17-7932 is worth reading before you assume you have to register at all: selling through independent contractors, soliciting or taking orders that require acceptance outside Kansas, maintaining bank accounts, defending a lawsuit, an isolated transaction completed within 30 days, and transacting business in interstate commerce are all listed as not doing business in Kansas. The enforcement lever is different from most states. Rather than barring an unregistered entity from the courts, K.S.A. 17-7937 gives the district court jurisdiction to enjoin a foreign entity, or its agent, from doing any business in Kansas if it has failed to register, and the attorney general may bring that action. Qualifying opens no tax accounts, so KDOR withholding and sales tax registration, the KDOL unemployment status report and workers compensation cover are all still ahead of you. One narrow upside: a nonresident contractor that is already qualified with the Secretary of State is excused from the separate KDOR nonresident contractor registration and bond on each Kansas contract over $10,000.

Where these figures come from

Every number on this page was read on Kansas'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.