Hiring your first employee in Florida is not one filing. It's a short sequence of them, and two of the items on that sequence depend on facts about your business that no checklist can guess for you.
The order is this: get a federal EIN if you don't already have one, register for Florida reemployment tax once you cross the threshold, find out whether your industry puts you at the one-employee workers' comp line or the four-employee line, report the hire to the state within 20 days, and complete the I-9 within the first three business days. Payroll mechanics come last and they belong with a CPA or a payroll provider, not with a web page.
Here's what's confirmed and what's still open.
Federal EIN — get it first, if you don't have one already
You need an Employer Identification Number before you can run payroll. Many LLCs and corporations already have one from formation, so check before you apply for a second.
If you don't have one, apply online at irs.gov. Online applications are issued immediately. Fax and mail take longer, and there's no reason to use them here.
This is confirmed directly from the IRS Employer ID Numbers page. It's the one item on this list with no ambiguity attached to it.
Florida reemployment tax — the rules are firm, your trigger date isn't
Florida calls its state unemployment insurance “reemployment tax.” Once you're liable, you register with the Department of Revenue using Form DR-1 at floridarevenue.com and file Form RT-6 quarterly after that.
A for-profit, non-agricultural, non-domestic employer becomes liable on meeting any one of these:
- Paid at least $1,500 in wages in a calendar quarter, or
- Had at least one employee for any part of a day in 20 different weeks in a calendar year, or
- Is already liable for federal unemployment tax in another state.
Those thresholds are confirmed. They come straight from the Florida DOR's own Employer Guide to Reemployment Tax and its Reemployment Tax Tutorial — the taxing authority stating its own rule.
What is not confirmed is when your business crosses them. That depends on your wage rate and your employee's hours, and neither is known here. One full-time employee at minimum wage clears $1,500 in a quarter within a few weeks — but that's arithmetic run on facts nobody has verified about your business, and it is not the same thing as a confirmed liability date. The exact trigger date is a question for a CPA or your payroll provider, working from your actual offer terms.
Workers' compensation — this is set by industry, not by headcount
This is the single most common point of confusion for first-time Florida employers, so read it slowly. Florida does not have one employee-count threshold for workers' comp. It has three, and which one applies to you depends on what industry your work falls into.
Coverage required at 1 or more employees. Corporate officers and LLC members count toward that number.
Coverage required at 4 or more employees. Same officer and member inclusion rule.
Coverage required at 6 or more regular employees, or 12 or more seasonal workers.
Those numbers are confirmed. The Florida Department of Financial Services, Division of Workers' Compensation coverage requirements page and Fla. Stat. § 440.02 agree with each other, which is the standard this guide uses for a firm claim.
What is not confirmed is which bucket your business lands in. That's a classification question, and it turns on the actual scope of the work performed, the class code assigned to it, your entity type, and whether you're a corporate officer or LLC member — none of which are established here. Two businesses that describe themselves the same way in conversation can be classified differently.
Do not make this determination yourself. The gap between “non-construction, so four employees” and “construction, so one employee” is the gap between compliant and uninsured on day one. Take the classification question to a licensed Florida workers' comp agent, or call the DFS Division of Workers' Compensation directly and ask them.
Report the new hire within 20 days — and check your contractors while you're at it
Every new hire must be reported to the Florida State Directory of New Hires within 20 days of the hire date. There is no small-employer exemption. Hiring one person puts you under the same rule as a company hiring four hundred.
There's a second piece of this that catches owner-operated businesses. The same reporting law extends to independent contractors paid $600 or more in a year. If you've been paying a subcontractor — a helper, a second van, a specialist you bring in on bigger jobs — you may already have a reporting obligation that predates this first W-2 hire and has never been met. Worth checking before you add a new one on top of it.
The requirement, the 20-day deadline, the absence of an exemption, and the $600 contractor extension are all confirmed, read directly from Fla. Stat. § 409.2576.
Less certain: the current submission channel and portal mechanics. Most payroll providers file new hire reports automatically, which would take this off your desk entirely — but confirm that with your provider rather than assuming it. If you're filing yourself, confirm the current process at servicesforemployers.floridarevenue.com before the 20 days run.
Form I-9 — three business days, and only the 01/20/25 edition
Federal Form I-9 is required for every new hire. No size threshold, no exemption for a first employee.
The timing has two halves:
- The employee completes Section 1 no later than their first day of work.
- You complete Section 2 within three business days of the hire.
Retention: keep the I-9 for three years after the hire date, or one year after employment ends, whichever is later. Store it separately from the personnel file — this is standard practice for a reason, and it matters if you're ever audited.
Use the current form edition, dated 01/20/25, which expires 05/31/2027. The older 08/01/23 edition had a grace period, and that grace period ended August 1, 2026. As of today it is no longer valid for new hires at all. If you have a saved PDF or a printed stack from before last summer, throw it out and download the current one.
All of this is confirmed, read from the governing federal regulation at 8 C.F.R. § 274a.2 and the IRS Hiring Employees page.
E-Verify — you're under the threshold, but the I-9 still applies in full
Florida requires private employers with 25 or more employees to use E-Verify for new hires, with verification completed within three business days of the employee starting work for pay. Those employers also have to certify compliance on their first Florida reemployment tax return each year.
A business making its first hire is nowhere near 25 employees. You are not currently required to use E-Verify. That does not change anything in section 5 — the federal I-9 obligation applies to you in full, at one employee, regardless.
For context on what the rule costs employers who are covered and don't comply: $1,000 per day where E-Verify wasn't used three times within a 24-month period, plus exposure to license suspension. That's confirmed from Fla. Stat. § 448.095 and the Florida DOR's New Employee Eligibility and E-Verify FAQs, along with the 25-employee threshold and the certification mechanism.
One flag, because this is a genuinely volatile area of Florida law. A bill to extend E-Verify to all private employers regardless of size — HB 197 — passed the Florida House in January 2026 and died in the Senate in March 2026. Both of those are independently confirmed. So the 25-employee threshold is current as of today. It should not be treated as permanently settled. Re-check it after any future legislative session, particularly if you're planning to grow past a handful of employees.
Payroll taxes — the checklist, deliberately without the numbers
Here is what you owe on the federal side, at checklist level:
- Collect a signed Form W-4 from the employee at hire.
- Withhold and match Social Security and Medicare (FICA).
- Pay FUTA entirely from employer funds. This is never withheld from the employee's pay.
- File Form 941 quarterly and Form 940 annually.
- Issue W-2 to the employee and W-3 to the Social Security Administration.
On the Florida side: there is no state personal income tax, so there is no state withholding step at all. Florida's only state-level payroll obligation is the reemployment tax in section 2 — and that one is paid by the employer, not withheld from the employee's wages. That rests on Art. VII, § 5 of the Florida Constitution.
The checklist itself is confirmed — these are the IRS's own enumerated obligations, from Understanding Employment Taxes and the Hiring Employees page.
No rates, deposit schedules, or wage-base figures appear here on purpose. Those change, and applying them to a specific business is advisory work. Get the mechanics from a CPA or a payroll provider before your first payroll runs, not after the first 941 is late.
Minimum wage goes to $15.00 on September 30, 2026
Florida's minimum wage is currently $14.00 per hour ($10.98 for tipped employees). It rises to $15.00 per hour on September 30, 2026 — roughly a month from the date on this page.
If you're hiring this fall, that increase probably lands between the offer and the second or third pay period. Budget the higher number, and write the offer against it rather than against today's rate.
The current rate and the scheduled increase date are confirmed from the Florida Department of Commerce's 2025–2026 minimum wage notice. The exact tipped rate after the change should be confirmed against the Department of Commerce's next notice once it's issued.
Tampa and Hillsborough County — nothing found tied specifically to hiring
Two official sources were checked for anything the City of Tampa or Hillsborough County requires because you're becoming an employer: the City of Tampa's Business Tax page and Hillsborough County's Startup Business Checklist and Guide. Neither surfaced a hiring-specific local requirement.
That is a “none found as of today” finding, and it should be read that way — not as “none exists.” Proving a negative from public-facing web pages has real limits, and this is the least certain item on this page.
One adjacent thing that does exist locally: Hillsborough County operates a Wage Recovery program under County Code Chapter 51, handling unpaid-wage claims over $60 through county intake with a path to a hearing. On its face this reads as a claims process available to workers rather than an affirmative step an employer has to take when hiring. But the full ordinance text hasn't been read end to end, so a separate notice or recordkeeping duty buried inside it can't be ruled out.
If you want this closed rather than probable, two phone calls do it: the City of Tampa Business Tax Division and Hillsborough County Regulatory Compliance, asking each of them plainly whether anything is required specifically because you're hiring a first employee.
What's still open
Everything above is either confirmed or flagged. These are the items that are genuinely unresolved, and most of them are unresolved because they depend on facts about your specific business:
- 1
When you cross the reemployment tax threshold. Depends on wage rate and hours. Needs your actual offer terms.
- 2
Your workers' comp classification. Construction or non-construction, and therefore whether your threshold is one employee or four. This is the highest-stakes open item on the page. It needs a licensed Florida agent or DFS directly.
- 3
New hire reporting mechanics. Whether your payroll provider files it for you, or whether you're filing at the state portal yourself. Confirm rather than assume.
- 4
Whether Tampa or Hillsborough County requires anything at all tied to hiring. Two official sources found nothing. That isn't the same as nothing existing. Two phone calls close it.
- 5
The Hillsborough Wage Recovery ordinance. Full Chapter 51 text not read. Employer-side notice or recordkeeping duties can't be ruled out yet.
- 6
The tipped minimum wage after September 30, 2026. The $15.00 base rate is confirmed. The corresponding tipped rate needs the Department of Commerce's next notice.
Why not just call the SBDC or ask your bookkeeper
A free SBDC session will walk you through most of section 1 through section 7 in general terms and then hand you a list of agencies to call yourself. That's a real service and it costs nothing. What it won't do is make the calls, resolve your workers' comp classification, or hand you anything in writing with your business's name on it.
A bookkeeper is the right person for section 7 once you're registered and running payroll. A bookkeeper will not tell you whether your work classifies as construction under Florida's workers' comp statute, and won't call Hillsborough County Regulatory Compliance to close out item 4.
What's actually missing when someone hires their first employee isn't information — most of it is on this page. It's a decision on the two items that depend on facts nobody has looked at yet, and a dated sequence you can hold onto.
Your next step
Before you write the offer letter, do these two things:
One. Call the Florida DFS Division of Workers' Compensation, or a licensed Florida workers' comp agent, and get your classification confirmed. Have your entity type, your officer or LLC-member status, and a plain description of the work the employee will actually be doing. You want to leave that call knowing whether your threshold is one employee or four. Do not answer this one from a website, including this one.
Two. Call the City of Tampa Business Tax Division and Hillsborough County Regulatory Compliance and ask each of them directly whether anything is required specifically because you're hiring a first employee. Write down who you spoke to and what they said.
If you'd rather not make those calls yourself: send us your entity type, the scope of work the hire will be doing, and the wage and hours you're planning. We make the calls, close every open item above, and send back a written hiring packet — your workers' comp classification confirmed, your reemployment tax trigger date, the local requirement question answered on the record, and a dated filing sequence in the order you have to do it. It's yours to keep, and it has your business's name on it, not a generic checklist's.
This page reflects Florida and local requirements as verified on August 27, 2026. Florida employment law changes at every legislative session — the E-Verify threshold in section 6 is under active pressure. Re-check before relying on any item here more than a few months from now.