Hiring your first employee in Wyoming

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

One joint business registration at WYUI.wyo.gov opens a single employer account, and the Department of Workforce Services says that account may cover both unemployment insurance tax filings and workers compensation premium filings. That registration is not optional even if your industry turns out not to need workers compensation coverage: the Department says any business that performs work in Wyoming, or that hires a Wyoming resident, must register so the Department can determine which of the two programmes you fall under. Nothing else is bundled. There is no withholding account to open at all, because Wyoming levies no income tax. The sales and use tax licence is a separate application to the Department of Revenue through WYIFS, foreign qualification is a separate paper filing with the Secretary of State, and new hire reporting goes to a third system at newhire-reporting.com. An out-of-state employer has one extra step at registration, an Out-of-State Employer Questionnaire submitted with proof of its current coverage, and may face a surety bond requirement described under workers compensation below.

Does Wyoming require income tax withholding?

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

Wyoming takes nothing out of a paycheck for state income tax, so there is no withholding account, no state W-4 and no state wage tax line on your payroll. There is also nothing at the city or county level: Title 39 of the Wyoming statutes does have a Chapter 12 headed Income Tax, but it contains exactly one section, W.S. 39-12-101, and all that section does is preempt the field for the state and bar every county, city, town and other political subdivision from imposing or levying income taxes, earnings taxes or any other form of tax based on wages or other income. The Legislature's own Legislative Service Office briefing on the Title 39 tax structure lists both individual and corporate income tax at a 0% rate with $0 of FY24 collections. One difference from Texas, Nevada and Tennessee is worth knowing if you are planning years ahead: those three have constitutional bars on taxing wage income, while Wyoming's constitution conditions an income tax rather than forbidding it, requiring under Article 15, Section 18 that any income tax give full credit for sales, use and ad valorem taxes the same taxpayer paid in Wyoming that year. You still withhold federal income tax, Social Security and Medicare as normal. Two traps follow. Employers moving a worker to Wyoming often leave the previous state's withholding switched on, which takes money the employee does not owe. And no withholding does not mean no payroll registration: the joint Department of Workforce Services account, workers compensation where your industry requires it, and new hire reporting all still apply from the first employee.

What unemployment insurance does Wyoming charge a new employer?

Wyoming does not publish one new employer rate, so the figure depends on your industry. Wyoming publishes no single new employer rate, which is why that field is blank rather than filled with a figure that would be wrong for most readers. Under W.S. 27-3-503(f) a new employer pays the average rate of contributions paid by its major industrial classification during the preceding calendar year, plus four adjustment factors computed under W.S. 27-3-505, and in no case less than 1% (0.01) before those factors. The Department recalculates every classification annually from the prior year's contributions, so your rate depends on your industry and on the year you start, and you keep it until you have built your own experience period, which the Department describes as three years. Rate notices are mailed by 31 December for the following calendar year. The ceiling is 8.5% (0.085), and that is also the penalty rate: the Department says an employer who fails to complete the joint business registration before submitting its first report is assigned the highest base rate possible, 8.5%. A separate 2% is added to the base rate of any employer that has not paid all contributions and filed all quarterly reports by 30 September preceding the rate year. Contributions are the employer's alone and W.S. 27-3-503(a) forbids deducting them from employee wages. The liability trigger is stricter than in most states and catches people out: there is no dollar threshold for a general employer, because W.S. 27-3-103(a)(i) makes an employing unit an employer as soon as a worker performs service as an employee for it, so one Wyoming employee and one dollar of wages is enough. Three groups have their own tests: agricultural labour at $20,000 of cash wages in a calendar quarter or ten workers on a day in each of twenty weeks, domestic service in a private home at $1,000 of cash wages in a quarter, and a charitable or educational organisation excluded from federal unemployment tax at four or more individuals for part of a day in twenty weeks. Once you qualify within a year you are subject for that entire calendar year. Tax is owed on the first $33,800 of each employee's wages in 2026, up from $32,400 in 2025, and the Department has already published $34,900 for 2027. Quarterly reports and payments are due 30 April, 31 July, 31 October and 31 January, and are delinquent the following day.

Do you need workers compensation insurance in Wyoming?

Not for most private employers. Wyoming is one of the few states where workers compensation is elective rather than mandatory. That is not the same as having no exposure, and the trade-off is the important part.

It is still mandatory for these:

• mining, sector 21, utilities, sector 22, construction, sector 23, and manufacturing, sectors 31 to 33, in full
• accommodation and food services, sector 72, in full, so every hotel, restaurant, bar and caterer is covered
• arts, entertainment and recreation, sector 71, in full, subject to a narrow exclusion the Department may grant under W.S. 27-14-108(o) where the employer's main revenue comes from crop production, animal production, timber tracts, forest nurseries or support activities for agriculture and forestry
• health care and social assistance: ambulatory health care 621, hospitals 622, nursing and residential care 623, individual and family services 6241, community food, housing and emergency relief 6242, and vocational rehabilitation 6243
• transportation and warehousing: air 481, truck 484, urban transit 485, pipeline 486, postal service 491, couriers and messengers 492, and warehousing and storage 493
• logging, industry group 1133, which is the only part of agriculture, sector 11, that is covered
• parts of wholesale trade: nondurable goods industry groups 4245 to 4249, being farm product raw materials, chemicals, petroleum, alcoholic beverages and miscellaneous nondurable goods
• parts of retail trade: motor vehicle and parts dealers 441, other building materials 44418, meat retailers 44524, fish and seafood retailers 44525, other specialty food stores 44529, and gasoline stations and fuel dealers 457
• newspaper, periodical, book and directory publishers, industry group 5131, the only part of the information sector that is covered
• lessors of real estate 5311 and automotive equipment rental and leasing 5321
• investigation, guard and armored car services 5616, services to buildings and dwellings 5617, and waste management and remediation 562
• fine arts schools 61161, sports and recreation instruction 61162 and automobile driving schools 611692
• repair and maintenance 811, dry cleaning and laundry services 8123 and pet care except veterinary services 81291
• public administration: police 92212, correctional institutions 92214, parole and probation offices 92215, fire protection 92216, administration of public health 92312, human resource 92313 and veterans affairs 92314 programmes, and environmental quality programmes 924, plus the named categories of government workers and volunteers listed in W.S. 27-14-108(d) and (e)
• professional athletes, whose team owner must obtain coverage under W.S. 27-14-108(q)

Two unusual things are true at once here, and most summaries get one of them wrong. First, Wyoming is a monopolistic state fund state: there is no private policy that satisfies the requirement, and W.S. 27-14-207(a) says an employer subject to the Act shall not commence business or engage in work in the state without applying for coverage and receiving a statement of coverage from the Division. Second, the requirement is triggered by your industry, not by your headcount, so the employee threshold field is genuinely blank rather than set to one. W.S. 27-14-108(a)(ii) lists the covered work by North American Industry Classification System code and says that, regardless of individual occupation, all workers employed in those sectors, subsectors, industry groups and industries are in extrahazardous employment. If you are on that list, one employee is enough and the coverage must exist before work begins. If you are not, you are not required to carry it, and the Department's own page says so plainly: coverage is required for an extra-hazardous industry, and if your business is optional you may still choose coverage. The word extrahazardous badly undersells the scope, so read the list rather than the label. Sector 71 and sector 72 are covered in full, which pulls in every restaurant, bar, hotel, gym and entertainment venue, and most of health care is covered too. What is absent matters just as much for an employer expanding into Wyoming: professional, scientific and technical services (sector 54), finance and insurance (52), management of companies (55), most of information (51) and most administrative services are not on the list, so a software company, law firm, accounting practice, agency or bank that hires a single remote worker in Wyoming is not required to carry Wyoming workers compensation. Not required is not the same as no exposure. W.S. 27-14-104(a) makes the Act the exclusive remedy only as against an employer making the contributions the Act requires, and 27-14-104(c) says the Act does not limit an employee's right of action against an employer that has not qualified for coverage, or that has qualified but is more than thirty days late paying premium on the injured employee's earnings. So an uncovered Wyoming employer can be sued in tort by an injured worker, which is the same trade-off Texas employers make. Owners are outside the system unless they buy in: W.S. 27-14-102(a)(vii) excludes sole proprietors, partners, LLC members and corporate officers from the definition of employee unless coverage is elected under 27-14-108(k), and also excludes independent contractors, a spouse or dependent living in the employer's household, casual labour, employees of a private household and licensed real estate brokers and salespeople. The out-of-state cost that surprises people is the bond. Under W.S. 27-1-106 a nonresident employer that expects to pay more than $4,000 of Wyoming wages in any month must file a surety bond or other approved security, starting at $8,000 and rising by $2,000 for each additional $1,000 of expected monthly wages up to $20,000 a month, then by $1,000 for each further $1,000. W.S. 27-14-302(b) requires that nonresident employer to register and either pay an advance premium deposit or file the bond before starting work, and 27-14-302(e) waives the requirement if you provide a certificate of coverage from your home state under 27-14-306(b); the Department lists reciprocal agreements with Montana, North Dakota, Nevada and Washington. Failing to comply with W.S. 27-1-106 is a misdemeanour carrying a fine of up to $1,000 per offence. On price, there is no single rate to quote: W.S. 27-14-201 has the Division divide employments into classes and set each class rate actuarially, readjusted annually after a public rate hearing and with the governor's written approval, with any one classification's base rate increase capped at 50% of the prior year.

There is no opt-out filing, because for an employer outside the listed industries there is nothing to opt out of. What you must still do is register. The Department of Workforce Services says any business that performs work in Wyoming or hires a Wyoming resident must create an employer account at WYUI.wyo.gov and complete the joint business registration, and the Department then determines whether your business is required, optional or non-liable. An out-of-state business files an Out-of-State Employer Questionnaire with the registration materials and proof of its current coverage. Election runs the other way and locks in: under W.S. 27-14-108(j) an employer that elects coverage must cover all of its employees and cannot withdraw for two years, and an election for owners, corporate officers, LLC members or partners under W.S. 27-14-108(k) must be made in writing on initial registration or thirty days before a calendar quarter begins and cannot be withdrawn for eight calendar quarters.

How quickly must you report a new hire in Wyoming?

Within 20 days of hiring a new employee, or, if you transmit reports magnetically or electronically, in two monthly transmissions not less than 12 nor more than 16 days apart. Reports go to the Wyoming Department of Workforce Services, Wyoming New Hire Reporting Center.

The duty sits in W.S. 27-1-115(b) and the deadline is twenty days, with the usual electronic alternative of two transmissions a month spaced twelve to sixteen days apart. Reports carry the employee's name, address and Social Security number, the date services for remuneration were first performed, and the employer's name, address and federal employer identification number, and Wyoming will take them on a W-4 or on an equivalent form it approves. Filing is at newhire-reporting.com/WY-Newhire, which is a different system from your Department of Workforce Services employer account even though the same department receives the data. Two Wyoming-specific points. Wyoming's definition of employee for this purpose is an individual eighteen years of age or older, so unlike most states it does not require you to report a minor, though the statute lets the Department add under-eighteens if the federal government threatens sanctions. And independent contractors are only required to be reported by governmental agencies; every other employer may report them if it chooses. A rehire counts as a new hire once the worker has been separated from you for at least sixty days, which catches seasonal staff and anyone returning from a long unpaid gap. If you have employees in Wyoming and at least one other state and you file electronically or magnetically, you may elect to report all of them to a single state under W.S. 27-1-115(c). The statute sets no specific monetary penalty for a missed report, which is why no figure appears here; that is not a licence to skip it, since the data feeds child support enforcement and the state's unemployment and workers compensation programmes.

Does Wyoming have paid family leave or state disability insurance?

No. Wyoming 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.

Wyoming runs no state disability insurance fund and no state paid family or medical leave programme, so there is no employee payroll deduction and no employer contribution for one. It also has no state paid sick leave mandate, which is a different thing that several states do impose on top of a fund. Title 27 of the Wyoming statutes, which is the entire state labour and employment code, runs from general provisions through unemployment compensation, wages, hours, fair employment practices and workers compensation, and contains no chapter creating any such programme. Any paid leave you give Wyoming staff is your own policy, and federal FMLA protection, if you are large enough to be covered, is unpaid. If you already run payroll in a state like California, New York, New Jersey, Washington or Colorado, do not carry that deduction across to a Wyoming employee. This is recorded at S rather than P because it rests on reading the whole labour code and finding nothing, rather than on an agency page that states the negative outright; the Department of Workforce Services Labor Standards page does not enumerate the laws it enforces.

Do you need a sales tax permit in Wyoming?

The licence fee is $60 for each new vendor and it is set in statute at W.S. 39-15-106(a) rather than on a fee page that can drift. Two things about it are easy to get wrong. A separate licence is required for each place of business, so a second Wyoming location means a second $60 application. But there is no renewal fee at all: W.S. 39-15-106(e) says licences are valid without further payment of fees until revoked by the Department, so unlike most states this is a one-off cost. Reinstating a forfeited licence costs $60 again. The fee also does not apply to a remote vendor that has no requirement to register in Wyoming, or to one registering through one of the technology models under the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement, so a remote seller coming in through the Streamlined central registration system may pay nothing. Applying is a two-step process through the Wyoming Internet Filing System: you first get a WYIFS account approved, then use the same platform to apply for the licence. On filing, the default is monthly, with the return and payment due the last day of the month following the month of sales; if the total tax you remit in a month is under $150 the Department may authorise a quarterly or annual return instead, due the last day of the month following the quarter or year. If you close or sell the business you owe a final return and payment within thirty days, and W.S. 39-15-106(f) also requires you to notify the Department and return the licence for cancellation. A vendor that reports no gross sales for three consecutive years is sent a show cause notice and can have its licence revoked.

Security deposits. There is no general security deposit or bond for the vendor licence. The one bond a business can walk into is narrower and much larger: under W.S. 39-15-306(b) a nonresident prime contractor must file with the Department of Revenue a surety bond or legal security equal to 3% of the payments due under the contract, plus any increased rate in force under W.S. 39-15-104(b), and anyone party to or performing work on the contract can be enjoined from starting or continuing until an approved bond is on file. A contractor working repeatedly in Wyoming may instead file a single blanket bond of $1,000,000 covering all its Wyoming contracts.

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

W.S. 39-15-502(a) makes the marketplace facilitator the vendor for every sale it facilitates on its marketplace and puts all the obligations of the sales tax chapter on it, and 39-15-502(b) requires it to collect and remit on its own sales and on sales it facilitates for marketplace sellers into Wyoming whether or not the seller holds a sales tax permit or would otherwise have had to collect. The facilitator's own duty is subject to the $100,000 remote seller threshold in W.S. 39-15-501(a). Enforcement is aimed at the facilitator too: under 39-15-502(e) the Department audits the facilitator for facilitated sales and does not audit marketplace sellers except where the facilitator claims relief. That relief is capped at 5% of the total tax due where the facilitator failed to collect because the seller gave it incorrect or insufficient information, and in that case the seller or the purchaser owes the tax instead; no relief is available for a seller affiliated with the facilitator, meaning more than 5% common ownership. The obvious limit is that none of this covers your direct sales. The moment you also sell through your own site or another channel, those sales are yours to collect on and count against the $100,000 threshold. One point Wyoming has not answered in the statute and does not address in the Division's published material is whether sales made through a collecting marketplace count toward your own $100,000, and because that is unresolved a seller near the line should ask the Excise Tax Division rather than assume either way.

If your sales drop, when can you stop collecting?

The duty to collect does not switch off the moment sales dip, because W.S. 39-15-501(a) tests your gross revenue delivered into Wyoming for the current calendar year or the immediately preceding calendar year. Cross $100,000 in one year and you collect for the rest of that year and for the whole of the next one, and you only stop once neither the current nor the prior year is over the line. Note also what changed in 2024: Wyoming had a second prong at 200 separate transactions, and House Bill 197, Enrolled Act 38 of the 2024 budget session, repealed W.S. 39-15-501(a)(ii) effective 1 July 2024. So a low-value, high-volume seller who used to be caught by transaction count alone is no longer caught unless it exceeds $100,000. Any source still quoting 200 transactions for Wyoming is out of date. The registration does not lapse on its own even when the collection duty ends: you keep the licence and the filing duty until you notify the Department and return the licence under W.S. 39-15-106(f), and a business that is closed or sold owes a final return within thirty days.

Does Wyoming charge a tax on revenue rather than profit?

Wyoming levies no gross receipts tax, and unlike Washington, Ohio, Nevada, Oregon and Delaware it has not put one in place of a corporate income tax. It has no corporate income tax and no personal income tax either: the Legislative Service Office's June 2025 briefing on the Title 39 tax structure lists both at a 0% rate with $0 of FY24 collections. There is one recurring state-level charge on an out-of-state business that people mistake for a gross receipts tax, and it is worth knowing precisely because it is measured on the wrong thing to be one. The Secretary of State's annual report licence tax is $60, or two tenths of one mill on the dollar ($0.0002) of the company's assets located and employed in Wyoming, whichever is greater, and it applies to both LLCs and profit corporations. Because it is charged on Wyoming assets rather than Wyoming revenue, a service business whose only Wyoming presence is a remote employee and a laptop stays at the $60 floor no matter how much it bills, while a business that puts equipment, vehicles or inventory in the state scales up. Wyoming funds itself instead from severance taxes on minerals, property tax and the 4% state sales tax.

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

Both entity types pay $150 for the Certificate of Authority on the fee schedule effective 1 July 2026. A foreign nonprofit corporation pays $50. The recurring cost is the annual report licence tax, which for both LLCs and profit corporations is $60 or two tenths of one mill on the dollar ($0.0002) of the company's assets located and employed in Wyoming, whichever is greater, and $25 a year for a nonprofit. A later amendment or any other filing is $60 for an LLC or profit corporation. If your out-of-state name is unavailable in Wyoming you must also file a Use of Fictitious Name form with the application; the Secretary of State does not publish a separate fee for it on the schedule, so no figure is given here.

The question to settle first is whether you need to register at all. W.S. 17-16-1501(a) says a foreign corporation may not transact business in Wyoming until it obtains a certificate of authority, and W.S. 17-16-1533 applies the same article to a limited liability company organised elsewhere. Subsection (b) is the list to read, because it names the activities that do not count: maintaining or defending a lawsuit, holding director or shareholder meetings, maintaining bank accounts, selling through independent contractors, soliciting or obtaining orders that require acceptance outside Wyoming before they become contracts, creating or collecting debts, owning real or personal property without more, an isolated transaction completed within thirty days, and transacting business in interstate commerce. Employing a person who works in Wyoming is not on that list, and the statute says the list is not exhaustive, so an employer with staff in the state should assume it needs to register. The penalty for skipping it is one of the harsher ones in the country: under W.S. 17-16-1502(d) you owe every fee and licence tax you would have paid for the years you transacted business unregistered, plus 18% interest, plus a flat $5,000 penalty, plus reasonable audit expenses and attorney fees, and the Secretary of State may refuse to issue the certificate until it is all paid. You also cannot maintain a proceeding in any Wyoming court until you register, though you may still defend one and your corporate acts stay valid. Three practical points. The application must arrive with an original certificate of existence or good standing from your home state dated no more than sixty days before filing, or it is rejected. Wyoming statutes do not allow expedited filing, and the Secretary of State quotes up to fifteen business days from receipt, so build that into any start date. And the annual report is due every year on the first day of your anniversary month, with dissolution if it is not paid within sixty days of the due date. Certificates of good standing are free online at wyobiz.wyo.gov. Registering with the Secretary of State is separate from your Department of Workforce Services employer account and from the Department of Revenue sales tax licence, and Wyoming has no general state business licence on top of these.

Where these figures come from

Every number on this page was read on Wyoming'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.