Employer guideRead at source September 28, 2026

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

South Dakota employers must report every new hire to the Department of Labor and Regulation’s New Hire Reporting Center within 20 days of the first day of work for wages, online, by phone, fax or mail. Rehires are reported when the employee has not been paid for the past 30 days, even without a new W-4. Independent contractors are not reportable, and an intentional failure is a petty offense, which the department describes as $25 per violation or up to $500 where employer and employee conspire.

South Dakota’s New Hire Reporting Center sits inside the Department of Labor and Regulation in Aberdeen. Its deadline is the familiar 20 days. Its rehire rule is not: South Dakota counts an employee as rehired after just 30 days without pay, half the 60-day threshold in the federal definition of a newly hired employee (42 U.S.C. 653a(a)(2)). For the federal rules and a state-by-state table, see our new hire reporting requirements by state.

South Dakota new hire reporting at a glance

The 30-day rehire rule

The reporting requirements page defines newly hired or rehired employees as those who have not been paid for the past 30 days. Anyone rehired after not working or being paid for 30 days is reported again, with the most recent date as the date of hire. The department spells out what that covers: employees returning from medical leave, lay-off or termination, even if a new W-4 form is not completed.

That catches employers whose systems look for a new W-4 or a new employee record. A retail associate who drops off the schedule for five weeks after the holidays and comes back in February is a new report in South Dakota. So is a substitute or a teacher who has not been paid for 30 days when school resumes, and a temp agency worker returning after 30 days or more. If payroll can flag a gap of 30 days without pay, it can generate these reports automatically.

No exceptions for age, family or short jobs

The department’s FAQ is blunt: there are no exceptions. All employees are reported, including family members, temporary employees, seasonal workers, students and rehires. The law has no age exceptions, so juvenile employees and an owner’s own children are reported. Day labor workers and Rent-A-Kid participants are reported even if they worked only an hour or two. Filing quarterly wage reports does not count as reporting new hires.

What South Dakota needs on the report

• Employee Social Security number
• Employee name as it appears on the Social Security card, even if the person’s name has changed
• Employee address
• Employee date of hire, meaning the date the employee first performed services for pay
• Employer Federal ID number, name and address

The date of hire has been required since January 16, 2013, according to the department’s laws and rules page. Use the same FEIN you use on quarterly wage reports; the department cites SDCL 61-1-3 for this. That has a specific consequence for professional employer organizations: a PEO must report its clients’ employees under the client FEIN, not its own, and the department says there are no exceptions even for PEOs that pick South Dakota as their multistate reporting state.

How to report in South Dakota

The how to report page offers two online methods behind the department login: an online form that keeps track of who you have already submitted, and file transfer, which is recommended for larger employers or those managing several companies and needs some programming. Call 605.626.2942 to set up file transfer or to recover a lost user ID.

Offline, you can print the New Hire Reporting Form, call 605.626.2942, fax 888-835-8659 (toll-free) or 605.626.2842 (local in Aberdeen), or mail New Hire Reporting Center, P.O. Box 4700, Aberdeen, SD 57402-4700. A copy of the W-4 is accepted if it is legible and shows the employee’s SSN, name as on the card, address and date of hire, plus the employer’s name, FEIN, address and phone number.

The 20-day deadline

SDCL 25-7A-3.3 requires the report no later than twenty days after the date the employer hires the employee, or, for employers transmitting magnetically or electronically, by two monthly transmissions not less than twelve nor more than sixteen days apart. The department counts from the first day of work for wages. For a new FEIN after a change in ownership, retained employees must be reported within 20 days of the change, with the transfer date as their new date of hire.

Independent contractors

A true independent contractor does not need to be reported. The department adds that it may need to decide whether a person is a contractor or an employee, and handles those questions individually; its Reemployment Assistance Tax representatives are at 605.626.2312.

Penalties

The statute makes an intentional failure to comply a petty offense. The department’s requirements page describes the consequence: a monetary penalty of $25 for each violation, and where employer and employee conspire to avoid reporting, up to $500 per newly hired employee.

What happens after you file

The Center passes reports to the Department of Social Services, which matches them against child support records to locate parents and set up or enforce orders. The same data is checked against current Reemployment Assistance and workers’ compensation claims to stop payments to people who are back at work. The department explains why quarterly wage reports are not a substitute: there can be a four-month lag before that data reaches the child support office, by which time a frequently moving worker may already be gone. It does not want separation reports; the Center only collects information when employees are hired. An employee who lives in one state and works in another is reported to the work state, which should be the same state that receives their quarterly wages.

Multistate employers

Employers with staff in two or more states can report everyone to one state, electronically, after notifying HHS through the Multistate Employer Registry. The department’s multi-state page reminds registrants to tick every state where they have employees, South Dakota included. Our national new hire reporting guide covers when that makes sense.

Hiring in South Dakota

See South Dakota labor laws and the South Dakota minimum wage for the rest of the state rules, and Form I-9 requirements for the federal check that runs alongside. Boostpoint runs social job ads for frontline roles; the median campaign in our 2026 Social Job Advertising Benchmark (891 Boostpoint-managed campaigns on Meta) cost $13.88 per applicant, a national figure.

Frequently asked questions