Employer guideRead at source September 28, 2026

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

Minnesota employers must report each new or rehired employee to the Minnesota New Hire Reporting Center within 20 calendar days of the date of hiring, online at mn-newhire.com or by fax or mail. Private employers may report independent contractors but are not required to; state agencies and political subdivisions must. The penalty is $25 per intentionally unreported employee (or $500 where employer and employee conspire), and it applies only after the state has sent a written notice of noncompliance by certified mail and the employer violates again.

Minnesota new hire reporting at a glance

Minnesota follows the federal framework on our national new hire reporting guide closely, but its statute adds three details that matter to a volume hirer: a narrow exemption for very short, low-paid jobs, a written definition of the date that starts the clock, and a penalty that cannot be charged on a first miss.

What goes on a Minnesota report

The statute simply says a report must contain everything federal law requires (subd. 5). The Center lists the fields it expects:

• Required, employer: FEIN, name, and the address where income withholding orders should be sent.
• Required, employee or contractor: full name (first, middle, last), mailing address, Social Security number, and date of hire or rehire. State of hire is required only when you report as a registered multistate employer.
• Optional: employee date of birth and state of hire; employer phone, fax, email and contact name.

Use the FEIN that appears on your quarterly wage reports. The Center's compliance page warns that reporting new hires under one FEIN and wages under another can make an employer look non-compliant, and the federal agency sends states a quarterly list of employers that may be missing reports. If the Center writes to you about a gap, a mismatched FEIN is the first thing to check.

Filing with the Minnesota New Hire Reporting Center

• Online: register at mn-newhire.com and key in hires, with a printable confirmation for each session.
• File transfer: upload a file through the site or send it by SFTP. The SFTP hostname changed on July 1, 2024, so a payroll export set up before then may need its connection updated.
• Fax: toll-free (800) 692-4473.
• Mail: Minnesota New Hire Reporting Center, PO Box 467, Norwell, MA 02061. That Massachusetts address is the one the Center publishes; Stellarware operates the Center under contract with the state.

On paper you can send the Center's New Hire Reporting Form, a copy of the employee's W-4 with your name, FEIN and address written at the bottom, or a printed list in at least 10-point type with the employer details at the top. Subdivision 4 also allows a copy of a W-9, which is how a payor would report a contractor. The help desk answers Monday through Friday, 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM Central Time.

When the 20 days start in Minnesota

Minnesota writes its own definition of the trigger. The "date of hiring" is the earlier of the first day an employee is owed compensation or the first day the employee reports to work or performs services (subd. 1(b)). The Center's FAQ gives the plain version: the first day an employee performs services for pay. The report is due within 20 calendar days of that date (subd. 3). Employers sending files electronically may instead report in two monthly transmissions no less than 12 and no more than 16 days apart.

For frontline hiring the useful consequence is that an offer date or an orientation scheduled for next Monday does not start anything. A warehouse or care-home hire whose start slips a week has a later deadline, not an earlier one, as long as your records carry the real first day. The failure pattern runs the other way: a scheduled start date is entered, the person starts late or not at all, and nobody corrects the record the report is built from.

Independent contractors in Minnesota

Subdivision 9 splits payors in two. The state and every political subdivision, acting as an employer, must report anyone hired as an independent contractor, the same way it reports employees. Every other payor may report contractors it pays on a 1099-MISC but does not have to. The federal contact guide entry repeats that split and notes it does not extend to federal agencies.

If you choose to report, the Center's FAQ sets out the practical points: report only contractors you contract with directly (a staffing firm or subcontractor that engages them reports its own), use the IRS right-to-control test to decide who is a contractor, and collect a sole proprietor's name and Social Security number, which the current Form W-9 asks for. Contractors are reported within the same 20-day window.

Minnesota penalties: notice first, then $25

Minnesota's sanction starts with a warning. Under subdivision 6, the commissioner of children, youth, and families must first send a written notice of noncompliance by certified mail, explaining how to report and what the penalty is. Only an employer that has received that notice and later incurs a second violation is subject to a civil penalty of $25 for each intentionally unreported employee. Where noncompliance results from a conspiracy between employer and employee not to report or to file a false or incomplete report, the penalty is $500 per employee. An employer facing a penalty may request a contested case hearing within 20 days of service of the notice.

The wording matters: the penalty is tied to intentionally unreported employees after notice, not to every late report. That is not a reason to be casual, because the Center also monitors reporting patterns and contacts employers whose history looks irregular.

Rehires, seasonal crews and temps

Minnesota defines hiring to include bringing back anyone who was laid off, furloughed, separated, granted unpaid leave or terminated, once 60 days have passed between the separation and the return (subd. 1(f)). The Center adds that an employee who stays on the payroll through a break in service or pay and returns after 60 days is also reported, which catches seasonal workers and teachers. Substitute teachers are reported for their first day each school year, poll workers only once. Temporary separations such as unpaid medical leave or a layoff shorter than 60 days are not terminations for this purpose. Temporary agencies report a worker once, not per client assignment, unless there is a 60-day break. Our rehire policy guide covers the HR side of bringing people back.

Employees in Minnesota and other states

The statute covers anyone who resides or works in Minnesota, so an employee who lives in Wisconsin but works in Minnesota is reported to Minnesota. An employer that transmits electronically and has staff in two or more states can instead register with the federal Office of Child Support Services and send every report to one state. The Center's FAQ is firm that it is one or the other: report everyone to the designated state, or report each employee where they work. The new hire reporting requirements page walks through the registration mechanics.

Hiring in Minnesota

New hire reporting is one of several first-week obligations. See our Minnesota labor laws overview, the current Minnesota minimum wage, Form I-9 requirements and the new hire forms checklist. Boostpoint's part comes before any of this: we run social job ads on Facebook and Instagram for frontline roles. Across our 2026 Social Job Advertising Benchmark (891 Boostpoint-managed campaigns on Meta), the median campaign produced an applicant for $13.88 in advertising cost. The benchmark does not break results out by state.

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