Employer guideRead at source September 28, 2026

Florida New Hire Reporting: Deadline, Contractors and How to File (2026)

Florida employers must report each new or rehired employee to the Florida New Hire Reporting Center, run by the Department of Revenue's Child Support Program, within 20 days of the hire date, online or by fax or mail. Since October 1, 2021, businesses must also report independent contractors paid $600 or more in a calendar year, within 20 days of the first payment or the contract date, whichever is earlier. Florida's statute sets no penalty for failing to report.

Florida new hire reporting at a glance

Florida's employee rules match the federal baseline on our national new hire reporting guide. The difference is contractors. A 2021 change to section 409.2576 turned Florida into a contractor-reporting state with its own threshold and its own start trigger, and older payroll references may not reflect it.

What to include on a Florida report

Section 409.2576(3)(a) requires each employee's name, address, date of hire and Social Security number, plus the employer's name, address and FEIN; date of birth may be added if available. The Department's form marks these as required and will not process a report without them:

• Employer or business: FEIN (the one on your quarterly wage reports), name, and full address.
• Employee or contractor: first and last name, full address, Social Security number or ITIN, and date of hire.
• Optional on the form: Florida reemployment tax account (RT-6) number, whether health insurance is available to the employee, and contact details.

State of hire is required only when you report as a registered multistate employer, according to the federal contact guide, and the guide notes that electronic filers may be asked for additional fields.

Filing with the Florida New Hire Reporting Center

• Online: register on the Child Support Services for Employers site, then use Report New Hires to enter individuals or upload a file with several. The same account handles terminations and lump-sum reporting.
• FTP for larger electronic files, with a published Excel layout.
• Fax: (850) 656-0528 or toll-free (888) 854-4762.
• Mail: Florida New Hire Reporting Center, PO Box 6500, Tallahassee, FL 32314-6500.

On paper you can use form CS-EF315, one per person, or send a legible W-4 or W-9 with your name, FEIN and address at the top. For several people at once, a list with the required data in at least 10-point type is accepted. The Department notes that leading payroll services already report new hires electronically for thousands of employers.

The employer site is also where the rest of your child support obligations live. It merged the old Florida New Hire Reporting Center site with the Child Support Employer Services site, so the same login lets you report terminations and separations, report bonuses or lump-sum payments, and request copies of income withholding notices for employees and contractors. If your payroll team already handles garnishments there, new hire reporting can run from the same account rather than a separate process.

The 20-day deadline and Florida's date of hire

Employers report within 20 days of the hire date, or, if they file electronically, by two monthly transmissions not less than 12 nor more than 16 days apart (s. 409.2576(4)(a)). Florida defines the date of hire in its own words: "the first day of work for which the employee is owed income" (s. 409.2576(2)(a)). That lands in the same place as the federal definition, the first day of paid work.

In practice that means hospitality and home-health employers in Florida, where start dates move with the season and the schedule, should build the report from the day someone actually clocked in. A hire date typed into the applicant tracking system at offer is usually earlier than the real one, and a report built from it will list the wrong date.

Independent contractors: the 2021 change

Since October 1, 2021, section 409.2576(3)(b) has required a "service recipient", meaning anyone in a trade or business who pays an individual for services, to report individuals who are not employees but are paid $600 or more in a calendar year for services in the course of that business. The report carries:

• the individual's name, address, and Social Security number or other taxpayer identification number;
• the date services for payment were first rendered; and
• the service recipient's name, address and employer identification number.

The timing differs from employees. The 20 days run from the earlier of the first payment that requires a federal information return or the date the contract is signed (s. 409.2576(4)(b)). If you sign a delivery contractor on the 3rd and pay them on the 25th, the report is due by the 23rd. Build the step into contractor onboarding, not into the accounts payable run.

Is there a penalty in Florida?

Section 409.2576 does not contain a civil penalty for failing to report, and the Department's employer pages we read do not publish one. Federal law lets states set one; Florida has not in this statute. That is not the same as no consequence. The report exists so the Department can send an income withholding notice within 2 business days of entering a record (s. 409.2576(7)), and a late report delays support owed to a child.

Rehired and returning employees

Florida's statute applies to each "newly hired or rehired employee" but does not set its own separation threshold, and the Department's pages we read do not publish one. The federal definition therefore governs: an employee is newly hired again after being separated from you for at least 60 consecutive days. For seasonal businesses with returning staff each winter, that means most returners are reported again. Our rehire policy guide covers the HR side.

Florida and multistate employers

Employers that report electronically and have employees in Florida may designate a single state for all reports, provided they have employees there and notify the federal Secretary of Health and Human Services in writing (s. 409.2576(3)(a)). The new hire reporting requirements page explains the registration.

Hiring in Florida

For the rest of your first-week checklist, see Florida labor laws, the Florida minimum wage, E-Verify requirements by state and Form I-9 requirements. Boostpoint runs social job ads on Facebook and Instagram for frontline employers. Across our 2026 Social Job Advertising Benchmark (891 Boostpoint-managed campaigns on Meta), the median cost per applicant was $13.88 in advertising spend; the benchmark has no state-level split.

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