Compliance

Your first hire in a new state: the five registrations nobody mentions

Priya Raman · September 22, 2026

You found the right person, they said yes, and they live in Colorado. Your company has only ever paid people in Oregon. Before their first paycheck, you probably need to register with at least five agencies. Here they are, in the order we do them.

1. State income tax withholding

Most states with an income tax require you to register before you withhold a single dollar. Registration is online in almost every state, but the account number can take anywhere from a few minutes (Colorado) to three weeks (New York). Start the day the offer is signed.

2. State unemployment insurance

Separate agency, separate account, separate rate. New employers get a standard rate for their first year or two, usually between 1% and 3.4% of the first chunk of each employee's wages.

3. Paid family and medical leave

Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, California, Delaware, Maryland, Maine and Minnesota all run some form of paid leave program funded through payroll. Each has its own registration, and several have employer contributions on top of the employee deduction.

4. Local taxes

Some cities and counties have their own payroll taxes: Denver's Occupational Privilege Tax, Philadelphia's wage tax, every school district in Ohio and Pennsylvania. These are easy to miss because they depend on the exact address.

5. New-hire reporting

Every state requires you to report new hires, usually within 20 days. It feeds child support enforcement, and it's one of the most commonly missed filings we see.

Want the whole list?

We keep a state-by-state checklist with the agency, the form and the typical wait time for each registration. Download the checklist. Or let Fernly do it: on the Plus and Premium plans, we file every one of these registrations for you.