ComplianceFederal rules quoted from the CFR, 51 official state links checked 9 September 2026
Labor Law Posters by State: The Official Free Source for All 51 Jurisdictions
You almost certainly do not need to buy a labor law poster. Every federally required poster is a free download from the agency that issues it, and every state publishes its own required posters free as well — eleven of them as a single consolidated sheet. What you actually need is two things: the federal set, which depends on your headcount and on whether you hold a federal contract, and your state's set, which comes from your state labour department and nobody else. The table below links the official page for all 51 jurisdictions, each one checked on 9 September 2026. The tool above it works out which federal posters your business actually needs.
Start here: nobody has to buy a poster
The labor law poster market exists because compliance is frightening and the rules are scattered. Search the phrase and you will find vendors selling laminated sheets on annual subscriptions, usually alongside a warning about fines running to tens of thousands of dollars.
The posters themselves are free. Every federal poster is a PDF on a federal agency website; every state's required posters are on that state's labour department website, also free. A subscription buys you printing, laminating and a reminder when something changes — which is a real service some employers reasonably choose. It is not a legal requirement, and knowing that is worth more than any poster.
The federal set
Four federal posters apply to essentially every private employer regardless of size. Two more switch on at headcount thresholds. Agricultural employers and federal contractors add their own.
The four that apply almost universally are the Fair Labor Standards Act minimum wage poster, the OSHA Job Safety and Health: It's the Law poster, the Employee Polygraph Protection Act notice, and the USERRA notice. The regulations are unusually specific about placement. 29 CFR 516.4 requires the FLSA notice be posted “in conspicuous places in every establishment where such employees are employed so as to permit them to observe readily a copy.” 29 CFR 1903.2(a)(1) requires the OSHA notice “in each establishment in a conspicuous place or places where notices to employees are customarily posted” and adds that each employer “shall take steps to insure that such notices are not altered, defaced, or covered by other material” — which is the rule most often broken by a noticeboard that has quietly filled up with rotas.
Two more switch on with size. At 15 employees the EEOC's Know Your Rights poster is required, because that is the coverage threshold EEOC states for Title VII, the ADA and GINA — “15 or more employees who worked for the employer for at least twenty calendar weeks”; the ADEA threshold is “20 or more employees” on the same twenty-week test. At 50 employees the FMLA poster is required, 29 CFR 825.104(a) defining a covered employer as one who “employs 50 or more employees for each working day during each of 20 or more calendar workweeks in the current or preceding calendar year.” Note that second clause: a business that has since shrunk below fifty can still be covered this year.
Sources: 29 CFR 516.4, 29 CFR 1903.2, 29 CFR 801.6, 29 CFR 825.104 and 29 CFR 825.300, read at source 9 September 2026 via the Electronic Code of Federal Regulations; the poster list and coverage descriptions from the U.S. Department of Labor; EEOC coverage thresholds from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
What it actually costs to get this wrong — and what you do not have to post
Two penalties are stated in the rules themselves, and both are smaller than the marketing suggests.
29 CFR 825.300(a)(1) provides that an employer that willfully violates the FMLA posting requirement “may be assessed a civil money penalty by the Wage and Hour Division not to exceed $216 for each separate offense.” EEOC states that Title VII “imposes a monetary penalty for covered employers who fail to post these notices. The penalty, currently $680, is adjusted annually for inflation as required by law.”
Those are the two figures in the federal poster rules. The much larger numbers you see quoted in poster advertising are generally penalties for the underlying violations — an actual OSHA citation, an actual discrimination finding — not for the missing sheet of paper. That does not make posting optional: a missing poster is evidence in a dispute, and in some contexts it tolls the clock on an employee's claim. It does mean the risk is not what the subscription renewal letter implies.
The poster you do not have to display
The NLRB issued a rule in 2011 requiring most private employers to post a notice of employee rights under the National Labor Relations Act. Two federal appeals courts struck it down, and on 6 January 2014 the Board announced it had “decided not to seek Supreme Court review of two U.S. Court of Appeals decisions invalidating the NLRB's Notice Posting Rule.” The rule has never returned. Private employers are not required to post an NLRA notice.
Federal contractors are a different matter: 29 CFR part 471 requires them to post a notice of employee rights under federal labour laws, subject to the exemptions in 29 CFR 471.3 — which excludes “subcontracts of $10,000 or less in value”, purchases below the simplified acquisition threshold, and work performed “exclusively outside the territorial United States.”
Which federal posters does your business need?
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Federal poster check
Your state's posters, from the state
Every jurisdiction publishes its own required posters, free, on its own labour department site. Eleven publish a single consolidated sheet that covers most or all of the state requirement; the rest list posters individually, which is slower but no more expensive.
Find your state's official poster page
All 51 jurisdictions
Each link goes to the official agency page for that jurisdiction. Every one was fetched and confirmed live on 9 September 2026.
Each link was checked against the live agency site on 9 September 2026 and confirmed to be an official state or district government page listing required workplace posters. The all-in-one column records what the agency's own page says. This page does not summarise any state's requirements — the agency page is the authority.
What we cannot tell you
We cannot tell you what your state requires this quarter. Fifty-one authorities set these rules, several revise a poster every January when a minimum wage changes, and any summary we wrote would be wrong somewhere within months. That is why this page links rather than summarises.
We cannot tell you about your city or county. A growing number of local governments — on paid sick leave, on fair scheduling, on wage theft — impose their own notice requirements, and a state page will not always mention them.
Nor is the poster the only rule that varies this way. If you employ under-18s, the state rules on hours and hazardous occupations sit alongside the federal ones — we set those out in child labor laws by state. If your question is really about being on the hook for time an employee is not working, that is on-call pay laws. And if you are trying to work out how hard your next hire will be, start with the unemployment rate by state.
We cannot tell you whether your specific noticeboard satisfies the rules, and no page can. If you have remote employees, multiple establishments, or a mix of covered and uncovered entities, that is a question for your employment counsel.
And we cannot tell you that any of this helps you hire. It does not. It is simply cheaper to know than to buy.
Frequently asked questions
Do I have to buy labor law posters?
No. Every federally required poster is a free download from the agency that issues it, and every state publishes its required posters free on its own labour department website. Paid poster subscriptions buy printing, laminating and an update service, which some employers reasonably choose, but no law requires you to buy anything. The table on this page links the official free source for all 51 jurisdictions.
Which labor law posters are required in every state?
The federal ones. Four apply to essentially every private employer regardless of size: the Fair Labor Standards Act minimum wage poster, the OSHA "Job Safety and Health: It's the Law" poster, the Employee Polygraph Protection Act notice and the USERRA notice. The EEOC "Know Your Rights" poster is required at 15 or more employees, and the FMLA poster at 50 or more. Agricultural employers and federal contractors have additional ones. Every state then adds its own set on top.
What is the fine for not posting labor law posters?
Smaller than poster advertising implies. 29 CFR 825.300(a)(1) provides that an employer that willfully violates the FMLA posting requirement may be assessed a civil money penalty "not to exceed $216 for each separate offense". EEOC states the Title VII penalty for a covered employer that fails to post is "currently $680", adjusted annually for inflation. The much larger figures quoted in poster marketing are generally penalties for the underlying violations rather than for the missing notice.
Do I have to post the NLRB employee rights notice?
Not unless you are a federal contractor. The NLRB's 2011 notice-posting rule was invalidated by two federal appeals courts, and on 6 January 2014 the Board announced it had "decided not to seek Supreme Court review of two U.S. Court of Appeals decisions invalidating the NLRB's Notice Posting Rule". The rule has not returned. Federal contractors post a separate NLRA notice under 29 CFR part 471, which exempts subcontracts of "$10,000 or less in value", purchases below the simplified acquisition threshold, and work performed "exclusively outside the territorial United States".
Where do the posters have to be displayed?
The regulations are specific. 29 CFR 516.4 requires the FLSA notice "in conspicuous places in every establishment where such employees are employed so as to permit them to observe readily a copy". 29 CFR 1903.2(a)(1) requires the OSHA notice "in each establishment in a conspicuous place or places where notices to employees are customarily posted" and requires employers to "take steps to insure that such notices are not altered, defaced, or covered by other material". 29 CFR 801.6 requires the polygraph notice "in a prominent and conspicuous place in every establishment of the employer where it can readily be observed by employees and applicants for employment".
Which states offer a free all-in-one labor law poster?
Eleven jurisdictions publish a free consolidated poster that covers most or all of their state requirement: Delaware, Idaho, Minnesota, Montana, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, Wisconsin and Wyoming. The rest list their required posters individually on the agency site, which takes longer to assemble but costs the same, which is nothing. A state consolidated poster never covers the federal posters, which you download separately.
Do remote employees need labor law posters?
The requirement follows the employee, and the agencies have moved toward accepting electronic posting where a workforce is genuinely remote. EEOC, for instance, encourages covered employers to post the notice digitally on their websites in a conspicuous location, and says electronic posting supplements rather than replaces physical posting where a physical workplace exists, though digital-only posting may suffice for employers without physical locations or with remote-only workforces. Where employees work in a physical establishment, post physically. Where you employ people in more than one state, you generally owe each state's posters for the employees in that state.
The posters are the easy part
Every notice on this page is a free download. What actually costs money is filling the roles those notices hang next to — and that is the part we measure.
Federal poster requirements quoted from the regulations themselves, read at source 9 September 2026 via the Electronic Code of Federal Regulations: 29 CFR 516.4 (FLSA posting), 29 CFR 1903.2(a)(1) (OSHA posting, including the requirement that notices not be altered, defaced or covered), 29 CFR 801.6 (Employee Polygraph Protection Act posting), 29 CFR 825.104(a) (FMLA covered-employer definition) and 29 CFR 825.300(a)(1) (FMLA general notice and the civil money penalty not to exceed $216 for each separate offense), and 29 CFR 471.2 and 471.3 (federal contractor NLRA notice and its exemptions). The list of federal posters is from the U.S. Department of Labor’s workplace posters page. EEOC coverage thresholds and the current $680 Title VII penalty for failing to post are from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, read at source 9 September 2026. The status of the NLRB notice-posting rule is quoted from the National Labor Relations Board’s own statement of 6 January 2014. Every one of the 51 jurisdiction links in the table was fetched and confirmed on 9 September 2026 to be a live official state or district government page listing required workplace posters; the “free all-in-one” column records what each agency’s own page says, and where a page does not say, the column says so rather than guessing. This page does not summarise the content of any state’s poster requirements, because those are set by 51 separate authorities and change on their own schedules — the agency page is the authority, and that is what we link to. City and county notice requirements are not covered. Nothing here is legal advice.