Employer guideRead at source September 28, 2026

Louisiana New Hire Reporting: Deadline, What to Report and How to File (2026)

Louisiana employers must report each new or rehired employee to the Louisiana Directory of New Hires no later than 20 days after the hiring or rehiring, online at LA-newhire.com or by fax or mail, and state law requires the employee's occupation on top of the federal items. Independent contractors are not required. An employer that fails to report may be fined a civil penalty of up to $25, or up to $500 where employer and employee conspire (La. R.S. 46:236.14).

Louisiana new hire reporting at a glance

Louisiana's statute, first passed as Act 97 of 1997, follows the federal outline on our national new hire reporting guide with one addition that makes it stand out: the employee's occupation is a required element of every report. The state has also changed its reporting contractor and contact details, so a saved fax number or mailing address may be out of date.

What to report in Louisiana

R.S. 46:236.14(E)(3) requires, for each report, the employee's name, address, Social Security number and occupation, the date services for pay were first performed, and the employer's name, address and FEIN. The state's form marks the state employer ID number and occupation as "required if available."

The DCFS New Hire Registry page asks for more than the statute lists:

• Employee: full name including suffix, Social Security number, residential address, date of hire, date of birth, occupation, salary and pay frequency, state where hired, and a health insurance availability indicator.
• Employer: name, federal and state employer identification numbers, address, payroll or worksite address if different, and a contact name and phone number.

The Directory's own reporting fundamentals page treats date of birth, salary, salary frequency and insurance availability as optional. The safe build is the statutory set plus occupation and state employer ID, with the DCFS extras included where your payroll system already holds them.

How to file with the Louisiana Directory of New Hires

• Online: the employer portal at LA-newhire.com, with an interactive form, file uploads and automated confirmations. DCFS asks employers to update saved bookmarks to this address.
• SFTP: the new host is sftp.LA-newhire.com; layouts are at LA-newhire.com/ftp.
• Fax: 888-223-1462.
• Mail: Louisiana Directory of New Hires, P.O. Box 122, Norwell, MA 02061.

Under the statute, reports go on a W-4 or an equivalent form of the employer's choosing (R.S. 46:236.14(E)(4)). The Directory accepts its New Hire/Rehire Form, a legible W-4 with your name, FEIN and address written on it, or a printed list in at least 10-point type. Older Louisiana contact details, including a Baton Rouge post office box and a 225 fax number, still appear in the federal contact guide; use the numbers above, which match the state's pages and current form.

Counting the 20 days

The statute says the report is due "no later than twenty days after the hiring or rehiring of the employee" (R.S. 46:236.14(E)(1)). Employers that transmit magnetically or electronically make two monthly transmissions not less than 12 nor more than 16 days apart. The Directory frames the start as "the worker's first day on the job," and its form labels the date of hire as the "first day employee works for pay."

For refinery turnarounds, shipyards and plant maintenance crews, where a whole team may be hired for one start date that then moves, the report should follow the first worked day for each person. The Directory also asks employers to report someone who works a single day and leaves before the report is filed.

Louisiana adds a warning worth repeating: submitting quarterly wage reports to the Louisiana Department of Labor does not satisfy the new hire obligation.

Independent contractors

Louisiana does not require contractor reports. R.S. 46:236.14 defines the employee to be reported by the federal income tax withholding definition, and the federal contact guide records Louisiana as "No" for contractor reporting. A worker misclassified as a contractor, however, is still an employee who needed a report.

Louisiana's penalty

R.S. 46:236.14(F) says an employer that fails to report "may be fined a civil penalty which shall not exceed twenty-five dollars." If the failure results from a conspiracy between employer and employee to withhold the report or supply a false or incomplete one, the civil penalty may reach $500. The Directory also receives a quarterly federal report of employers that may be missing new hires and mails them notices, and it contacts employers whose reporting has lapsed or looks irregular.

What the state does with the report

The statute sets the state's clock as well. DCFS must enter your report into the state directory of new hires no later than five days after receiving it, and pass it to the National Directory of New Hires within three business days of entry (R.S. 46:236.14(G)). The directory then compares reported Social Security numbers with the state case registry and sends matches to child support enforcement (subsection (H)). The legislature's stated reason is that obligors who change jobs often, or work in seasonal or cyclical industries, are gone before a withholding notice arrives.

Rehires and returning seasonal crews

Louisiana's statute is broad in its wording: an employer must report "the rehiring or return to work of any employee who was laid off, furloughed, separated, granted a leave without pay, or terminated from employment" (R.S. 46:236.14(D)(1)(b)), with no minimum absence written into that sentence. The DCFS page applies the federal 60-day line: report a rehired employee who returns after being separated for at least 60 consecutive days. The Directory adds that employees kept on payroll through a gap in pay who return after 60 days are reported too, and that temporary layoffs shorter than 60 days and unpaid leave do not count as terminations. Substitute teachers are reported for the first day each school year, poll workers once. Our rehire policy guide covers the HR side.

Multistate employers

An employer with employees in two or more states that reports electronically may choose one state to report to. Louisiana's statute says the employer notifies the department in writing of the state it chose; the federal registration process is explained on our new hire reporting requirements page.

Hiring in Louisiana

For the rest of your onboarding obligations, see Louisiana labor laws, the Louisiana minimum wage, E-Verify requirements by state and Form I-9 requirements. Our own work is social recruiting ads on Facebook and Instagram for frontline employers. In our 2026 Social Job Advertising Benchmark (891 Boostpoint-managed campaigns on Meta), the median advertising cost per applicant across the report was $13.88; the data is not broken out by state.

Frequently asked questions