Before the ad goes out you need an employer identification number from the IRS, a state employer registration for unemployment tax, workers' compensation cover where your state requires it, and a payroll method that withholds and deposits on time. Then the first week paperwork: the W-4 and Form I-9, plus the new hire report your state expects, in Florida within 20 days of the start date. None of it is difficult, and all of it takes longer than writing an ad, which is why it belongs before one. This is not tax or legal advice, and the figures were checked in October 2026.
Federal rules come first, with Florida as the worked example. Your state will differ on registration, unemployment rates, workers' compensation thresholds and its wage floor.
Decide employee or contractor before anything else
One call shapes every step after it, so make it first. The IRS groups the evidence into three categories: behavioral control, financial control, and the type of relationship. No single factor decides it. Look at the whole relationship and document the factors you relied on. Misclassification carries employment tax liability for the employer, so the file behind the decision matters more than the label on the contract.
In Field Assistance Bulletin 2025-1, dated May 1, 2025, the Wage and Hour Division said it would stop applying the 2024 rule's analysis in investigations and go back to Fact Sheet #13 and its 2019 opinion letter. That bulletin guides the agency's own investigators. The 2024 rule still matters in private lawsuits, and the two tests are not identical, so a classification decision needs both views.
The label does not survive a worker who keeps your hours and uses your tools. Control over the schedule and the tools is evidence of employment, and the IRS weighs it with the whole relationship. If you land on contractor, the reporting side is a different job, and the 1099-NEC threshold and the W-9 you collect first covers it.
The EIN and the entity
An EIN comes free from the IRS, and the online application issues it immediately if it is approved. The tool allows only 1 EIN per responsible party per day and closes outside its Eastern Time hours, so open it on a weekday morning. If you are forming an LLC or corporation, form the entity with the secretary of state first, because applying before the entity exists can delay the number.
Register for state unemployment tax
Florida employers register with the Department of Revenue, online through the Florida Business Tax Application or on paper Form DR-1. A new business must report its initial employment in the month after the quarter in which employment begins. Liability starts at $1,500 of quarterly payroll in a calendar year, or at one employee for part of a day in any 20 weeks, so one hire can put you inside the system.
Florida's new employer reemployment tax rate is 2.7% and it holds until you have reported 10 quarters, when an experience rate takes over. The tax applies to the first $7,000 of each employee's wages in a calendar year; for 2026 that is between $7 and $378 per employee at the minimum and maximum rates. Reports and payment are due within one month after each quarter ends. Registering for reemployment tax is separate from withholding, and Florida employers report new hires to the state.
Exhibit 1
The groundwork runs in one order, from the worker classification decision to the first payday
Workers' compensation where your state requires it
In Florida a non-construction employer needs workers' compensation coverage at four employees, counting owners who are corporate officers or LLC members. Construction is stricter, and one employee triggers coverage. A first office hire at a typical service firm does not by itself trigger the requirement, and since the count includes you if you are an officer or member, three staff plus a member-managed LLC puts you one hire from the line. Fix the count before the start date, and have your broker price the cover at the same time you set the wage.
What payroll has to withhold and deposit
For 2026 the social security rate is 6.2% each for employer and employee, on wages up to $184,500. Medicare tax is 1.45% each, with no wage base limit. Once an employee's wages pass $200,000 in the year you withhold an extra 0.9%, and only from the employee. $200,000 is the employer withholding trigger, and the taxpayer threshold depends on filing status.
FUTA for 2026 is 6.0% on the first $7,000 of each employee's wages, and a credit of up to 5.4% brings that down toward 0.6% for employers who pay state unemployment tax in full and on time. Treat 0.6% as the best case, since it needs the full credit and your state out of credit reduction. FUTA deposits are figured quarterly and are due by the last day of the month after the quarter ends, and you can carry the tax forward while the quarterly liability is $500 or less. FUTA reporting starts at $1,500 of wages in any calendar quarter, or employees in 20 or more weeks in the year.
The deposit schedule is assigned to you, not chosen. A business in its first year starts as a monthly schedule depositor, because the lookback period before it existed counts as zero. Under that schedule you deposit the taxes on wages paid in a month by the 15th day of the next month. A very large single-day tax bill forces a next-day deposit and moves you to the semiweekly schedule.
Payroll software, your accountant, or your own arithmetic
Three ways to run payroll exist. Software charges a base fee plus a per-person fee, and the vendors sell it as payroll taxes done for you. Your accountant can run it alongside the books. Doing it by hand is affordable for one person and collapses the first time someone takes unpaid leave in a quarter you have already closed.
Gusto lists its Simple plan at $49 a month plus $6 a month per person. QuickBooks lists its entry level payroll plan at $50 a month plus $7 per employee per month, with the base fee shown at half price for the first three months. Both charge a base fee plus a per-person fee, so the second hire changes the bill and the first one usually does not. Those are the list prices as published in October 2026, and both sit behind promotions that move. We put a first hire on software, because the deposit deadline arrives on a fixed date whether or not you remember it.
The wage offer
The federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, effective July 24, 2009. Florida's is $15.00 an hour as of September 30, 2026, and that rate runs through December 31, 2027 under the state's schedule. Where a state rate is higher the employer has to comply with both laws, so a wage offer written before September 30, 2026 needs a check against the new floor.
Covered non-exempt employees get at least time and one-half for hours over 40 in a workweek. If you pay a salary to avoid tracking hours, the exempt test applies. The salary threshold in force is $684 per week, the 2019 level the Department restored in a technical amendment published May 14, 2026. For highly compensated employees the total annual compensation figure is $107,432. A federal court vacated the 2024 rule that would have raised those figures, so the $43,888 and $58,656 numbers are not the standard.
Required postings
Every employer covered by the FLSA minimum wage provisions has to post the notice where employees can read it. The current poster was last revised in April 2023, and older versions no longer satisfy the requirement. The Wage and Hour Division posts electronic copies for download. Its list covers only the statutes that agency enforces, so ask your accountant which state notices belong on your wall.
The paperwork in the first days
The IRS lists three records steps for a new hire: verify identity and work authorization on Form I-9, get the employee's Social Security number for Form W-2, and keep a signed Form W-4 on file. Ask every new employee for a signed Form W-4 when they start work, and make the form effective with the first wage payment. The certificate in use is Form W-4 (2026), and a signed form stays in effect until the employee hands you a new one. An employee who claimed exemption from withholding has to submit a new form by February 16, 2027.
The current Form I-9 carries the edition date 01/20/25. Your employee completes and signs Section 1 no later than the first day of work, and you complete Section 2 within 3 business days of the hire date. Keep each form for three years after the date of hire, or one year after employment ends, whichever is later.
Report the new hire to the state where the person works within 20 days of the start date, and Florida runs its New Hire Reporting Center through the Department of Revenue's Child Support Program on the same window. Form I-9 is mandatory everywhere and E-Verify is voluntary for most employers federally. Florida requires E-Verify for private employers with 25 or more employees, so a first hire does not trigger it, while the state statute still asks every employer to verify a new employee's eligibility within 3 business days of the first day of paid work.
Exhibit 2
Three forms and one report carry the first week, and each carries its own deadline
Why this comes before the job ad
An offer with no payroll behind it is a promise the firm cannot keep on the first payday. The start date does not move because a reemployment registration is sitting in a queue, and the deposit for the first month is due by the 15th of the next one whether or not the EIN arrived when you wanted it. Groundwork also puts a number on the hire before it starts, which is the only point at which you can still change your mind. Writing the ad is quick, and the job ad method covers the words. What happens after day one is a management question, and delegating the first real responsibility is the next question, and it is a longer one.
What the first hire changes in the books
Salary becomes a recurring obligation with a fixed calendar attached, and the employer's share of payroll tax becomes an expense line beside the wage. Your cash cycle changes shape. Invoices arrive when the client chooses, wages arrive on a fixed date. The monthly bookkeeping rhythm is where the payroll register, the bank debit and the tax liability accounts get reconciled, and one employee is enough to make that worth doing properly. Owners paying themselves on estimated tax need to re-run the number once a payroll exists, which is the quarterly estimate problem with a second variable.
The filing cycle for the year ahead
Quarterly, Form 941 is due by the last day of the month after each quarter ends, and ten extra calendar days apply if every deposit was made on time. Form 940 reports FUTA once a year. Employee copies of Form W-2 are due to the employee by Jan. 31, and for 2026 wages the IRS prints February 1, 2027 as the filing date for Forms W-2 and W-3 with the Social Security Administration and for Form 940, with February 10, 2027 if all FUTA tax was deposited when due. When a deadline lands on a Saturday, Sunday or legal holiday the IRS lets you file on the next business day, so Jan. 31, 2027 being a Sunday pushes the fourth-quarter 2026 Form 941 to Monday, Feb. 1, 2027, and the 2027 quarters land on Friday, April 30, Monday, Aug. 2 and Monday, Nov. 1. Those weekdays are arithmetic from the printed dates, not a published IRS calendar.
Exhibit 3
Once payroll exists the firm files every quarter and reports once a year
Four mistakes to plan around
A small office is not automatically exempt from workers' compensation coverage. Check the count against your state and include yourself if you are an officer or member. A late first deposit comes from reading the quarterly return date as the payment date. An I-9 completed the following month is late twice, since Section 1 was due on the first day of work and Section 2 within 3 business days of the hire date. A salary under $684 per week treated as exempt converts a flat wage into back overtime.
Hand your accountant four things and the groundwork is verifiable: the EIN confirmation, the state employer account number, the workers' compensation policy or your written count showing you are below the threshold, and the signed W-4 and completed I-9 for each hire. If you would rather not own the payroll calendar, our bookkeeping work covers the monthly close and the quarterly filings around it.