What Are Employer New Hire Reporting Requirements?

Federal law requires employers to report newly hired employees to a state directory of new hires. Child support agencies match these reports against their cases to locate parents and start income withholding. The rule is at 42 U.S.C. 653a, and the federal Office of Child Support Services (OCSS) within ACF publishes employer guidance.

Who must report. The term employer follows the Internal Revenue Code definition and includes governmental entities and labor organizations. A newly hired employee is someone who has not worked for the employer before, or who returns after being separated for at least 60 consecutive days. Federal agencies report to the National Directory of New Hires instead of a state directory.

What to report. Each report must include the employee's name, address and Social Security number, the date the employee first performed services for pay, and the employer's name, address and federal employer identification number. Reports are made on a W-4 form or an equivalent form, and many states accept electronic files. States may require more data elements.

Deadlines. States set their own deadline, but it cannot be later than 20 days after the hire date. Employers that report electronically may instead send two monthly transmissions, if needed, between 12 and 16 days apart. OCSS guidance notes that a report is still due for an employee who quits before the report deadline, because wages were earned. If a new employee has no Social Security number yet, the employer has 20 calendar days from the date the employee receives one.

Multistate employers. An employer with employees in two or more states can report each employee to the state where the employee works, or report each new hire to one state where it has employees. The second option requires registering with HHS as a multistate employer, naming the chosen state, and reporting electronically.

Penalties. States may set a civil money penalty of up to $25 per failure to report a newly hired employee, or up to $500 if the failure results from a conspiracy between the employer and the employee to skip the report or file a false one. States must enter employer reports into the directory within 5 business days of receipt.

How it connects to withholding. After a new hire record matches a child support case, the state can send an income withholding order to the employer. The FAQ on child support income withholding orders covers the employer's next step once a withholding order arrives. Recent program changes are covered in the Learn Laws® news items on the federal case registry and the child support deregulation proposal. HR teams that build onboarding checklists can pair this step with compliance training.