How to start payroll in Florida in 2026

Open the accounts before the first wage

Payroll in Florida sits on two public accounts plus the records you keep yourself. The federal account is an Employer Identification Number from the IRS, then enrollment in the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System so deposits have a place to land. The state account is a reemployment tax account with the Florida Department of Revenue. Florida uses that account for the employer tax that funds reemployment assistance. It is not an income-tax withholding account, because Florida has no personal income tax to withhold.

Apply for the EIN before you pay wages. You will print it on the quarterly federal return and on Forms W-2. EFTPS enrollment can take several days, so do it before the first deposit is due rather than on the due date. The Florida business tax application, often filed as Form DR-1 through the Department of Revenue, is the usual way to open the reemployment account. Household employers and some agricultural employers follow different thresholds. This guide is about a typical private employer with employees in Florida, not about those special cases.

If you already run payroll in another state and you hire someone who works in Florida, open the Florida reemployment account before that person’s wages are paid. A single employee working in the state is enough to create a filing duty. The multi-state note walks through moves and remote hires.

What comes out of a Florida paycheck

For federal income tax, collect Form W-4 before the first pay date and use IRS Publication 15-T for the year of the payment. The redesigned W-4 does not use withholding allowances. Do not reuse an old allowance worksheet. If the employee wants extra tax withheld, that is a dollar amount on the form, not a guessed number of allowances.

Social Security tax for 2026 is 6.2% from the employee and 6.2% from you, on wages up to $184,500. Medicare tax is 1.45% from each side on all wages. When you have paid an employee more than $200,000 in the calendar year, withhold an additional 0.9% Medicare tax from further wages. You do not match that 0.9%. The withholding guide shows the arithmetic on a sample month.

Stop there for state income tax. Do not invent a Florida withholding table. Do not add a line called “state tax” unless you are withholding for a different state where the person actually owes it, which is a multi-state question, not a Florida one.

You still owe the employer side of Social Security and Medicare, plus FUTA and Florida reemployment tax. Those employer taxes are not deductions from net pay unless a rare, written, lawful deduction says otherwise. They are your cost, calculated on the same wages.

The minimum wage changed on 30 September 2026

Florida’s constitutional schedule reached $15.00 an hour on 30 September 2026. The state’s minimum-wage notice says that rate stays in place through 31 December 2027. The cash wage for tipped employees moved with it. The tip credit used in that notice is $3.02, so the direct cash wage for a tipped employee is $11.98. Tips plus the cash wage have to reach at least $15.00 for the hours worked. If they do not, the employer makes up the difference.

Pay the rate for the day the hour was worked, not the day you print the check. A pay period that includes 30 September 2026 has to be split: hours through the 29th at the old rate, hours from the 30th at $15.00. Employers closing their books later in 2026 should keep that split in the payroll register. The federal minimum wage is still $7.25. When the two differ, pay the higher one. Confirm the posted notice on the FloridaCommerce / Florida Department of Commerce minimum-wage page before you rely on a photocopy from last year.

Minimum wage is not the only wage rule. Overtime for hours over 40 in a workweek still comes from the Fair Labor Standards Act unless a specific exemption applies. Florida does not add a general daily overtime statute on top of that for most private employers. Exemptions are fact-specific. This page does not classify anyone.

Reemployment tax is the state payroll tax

Florida reemployment tax is paid by the employer. It is deposited for reemployment assistance benefits. Only the first $7,000 of wages you pay each employee in the calendar year is taxable. Wages above that are reported as excess and are not taxed again by Florida that year. If the person also worked for another employer, you do not get credit for the other employer’s $7,000, except in successor and some out-of-state transfer cases described in the Department of Revenue’s employer guide.

A new employer is assigned 2.7% until the account has reported for 10 quarters. After that, the rate is experience-based. For wages paid in 2026, the Department of Revenue describes a floor of 0.1% ($7 on $7,000) and a ceiling of 5.4% ($378 on $7,000), with a higher ceiling possible for employers in the Short Time Compensation program. Your rate notice controls. A guide cannot.

File the Employer’s Quarterly Report even when the tax due is zero, for example because every employee already passed $7,000 or you had no wages. The report has a tax summary and a wage listing with names, Social Security numbers, and gross wages. Wages are reported when paid, not when earned. Due dates follow the quarter. A late report can draw a penalty even if no tax was due. Read the current RT-6 instructions rather than a saved copy from a prior year.

FUTA is separate. The federal unemployment tax is 6.0% of the first $7,000 you pay each employee, before the credit of up to 5.4% for state unemployment tax paid in full and on time. When the full credit applies, the net FUTA is 0.6%, or $42 on $7,000. A credit reduction, if one applied to Florida in a given year, would raise the net. Check the Form 940 instructions for the year you are filing. Florida’s $7,000 wage base matches the FUTA base, which is tidy, but the taxes are still two different payments to two different agencies.

Paper that belongs with the first hire

Form W-4 sets federal income-tax withholding. Form I-9 confirms employment eligibility: section 1 on or before the first day of work, section 2 within three business days. Keep I-9s apart from personnel files that people browse casually. Private employers in Florida with 25 or more employees are required to use E-Verify for new hires. Smaller private employers are outside that headcount rule but may enroll. Confirm the current threshold in the statute when you cross 25 employees. E-Verify is an eligibility step. It does not calculate tax.

Report the hire to the Florida New Hire Reporting Center. The directory’s standing instruction is to report within 20 days of the hire date. The report is how the state child-support system finds new wages. It is not optional paperwork for “later.”

Workers’ compensation sits beside payroll even though the premium is not a withholding tax. Florida’s coverage thresholds depend on industry and headcount. Non-construction employers are commonly in the rule at four employees, and construction employers at one. Those thresholds are published by the Division of Workers’ Compensation. Match your headcount to the current rule before you decide you are outside it. A payroll system should still be ready to exclude or include the premium correctly if you pay it.

Direct deposit needs a written authorization. It is a convenience, not a filing. Give employees a pay statement even if you are unsure a state form is mandatory. You will need hours, rates, gross pay, taxes, and net pay for the Fair Labor Standards Act, for reemployment wage listings, and for the employee who asks why the net changed.

How a quarter actually closes

Federal deposits follow your IRS deposit schedule, monthly or semi-weekly, based on the lookback period in Publication 15. The deposit is not the same act as filing Form 941. Form 941 for a quarter is due on the last day of the following month: 30 April, 31 July, 31 October, and 31 January. If you deposited on time for the whole quarter, the IRS gives ten extra days to file the return. That extension does not move the deposits.

The Florida quarterly report is due on its own calendar. Put both dates on the same wall. A month with no wages can still need a zero report. At year end, furnish Forms W-2 to employees and file them with the Social Security Administration, generally by 31 January, and file Form 940 for FUTA. The calendar page lists the 2026 federal dates in order.

A list for the first Florida payroll

1. Confirm the person is an employee for this work, not a contractor you hope is a contractor. Misclassification is its own problem and is outside a rate table.
2. Get the EIN and enroll in EFTPS.
3. Open the Florida reemployment tax account and keep the account number with the rate notice.
4. Collect Form W-4 and complete Form I-9. Use E-Verify if the 25-employee rule, or a contract, requires it.
5. Set the pay frequency, the workweek for overtime, and a time record. Apply $15.00, or $11.98 plus a lawful tip credit, for hours worked on or after 30 September 2026.
6. Calculate federal income tax from the W-4 and Publication 15-T. Calculate Social Security and Medicare. Do not withhold Florida income tax.
7. Accrue employer Social Security, Medicare, FUTA, and reemployment tax. Do not take those from net pay.
8. Pay the employee. Deposit federal taxes on your schedule. File the quarterly federal and Florida reports even if a tax line is zero.
9. Send the new-hire report within the directory’s deadline.
10. Keep the register, the W-4, the rate notice, and proof of deposits. Four years is the federal record horizon people plan around. Keep state records at least as long as the reemployment instructions say.

If a figure on this page disagrees with a notice you received, the notice wins for your account. Send the disagreement to [email protected] with the page title so we can check the public source. Related reading: New York, where withholding is much heavier, and Texas, which also has no state income tax but a different unemployment wage base.