How to Choose a Payroll Company or PEO in Florida

Payroll software, payroll services, and PEOs

Florida runs payroll through one tax agency, with no income tax to withhold, no local payroll taxes, and nothing deducted from employee wages for the state.

There are three kinds of companies to choose from, and what separates them is how much of the work they take on and whether they become a co-employer.

• Payroll software. You register with the Department of Revenue, then run the system yourself. More on payroll and HR software
• A payroll service. Files under your own EIN and handles the state returns for you. More on payroll services
• A PEO. Reports your Florida wages, carries workers’ compensation, and bundles benefits with HR administration. Requires co-employment. More on PEOs

Florida licenses PEOs through the Department of Business and Professional Regulation and gives them a choice about whose account reports your wages. Section 443.1216 lets a licensed employee leasing company make a one-time election between reporting under its own tax identification number and rate, and reporting under each client’s.

Payroll and PEO companies based in Florida

A company based here files an Employer’s Quarterly Report every quarter and works the same Department of Revenue systems you do.

Payroll and HR providers based in Florida 26 results

Organization	Type	Headquarters	Coverage	Description
	PEO	Boca Raton, Florida	50 states	Full-service PEO providing payroll, benefits administration, and workers’ compensation to small and mid-sized employers.
	Payroll service	Tampa, Florida	FL, GA, AL	Regional payroll bureau handling processing, tax filing, and time tracking for multi-state employers.
	Software	Orlando, Florida	50 states	Cloud payroll and HR platform covering onboarding, time tracking, and benefits enrollment.
	PEO	Jacksonville, Florida	31 states	PEO offering co-employment, group health benefits, and HR compliance support across the Southeast.
	PEO	Fort Lauderdale, Florida	16 states	PEO serving small employers with bundled payroll, benefits, and risk management.
	Payroll service	Sarasota, Florida	FL only	Payroll bureau focused on Florida employers, including quarterly RT-6 filing and new hire reporting.

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What Florida costs an employer in 2026

Reemployment tax applies to the first $7,000 of each employee’s wages in a calendar year. Wages above that are reported but not taxed.

New employers pay 2.7% for the first 10 quarters, and 11 in some cases. After that the Department of Revenue assigns a rate from the employer’s benefit charges and taxable payroll across three years.

The 2026 minimum rate is 0.1% and the maximum is 5.4%, so the whole range runs from $7 to $378 per employee per year. Employers in the Short-Time Compensation program can go above 5.4%.

Take a clerical employee earning $60,000 a year at a Florida employer on the new employer rate.

Social Security and Medicare are excluded because they are federal and identical in every state. Workers’ compensation is the variable that moves, and it is the one a provider can influence.

Reemployment tax

Reemployment tax is Florida’s name for state unemployment insurance. It is paid entirely by the employer and administered by the Department of Revenue.

An employer becomes liable after paying $1,500 or more in wages in a calendar quarter, or after having at least one employee for any part of a day in 20 different weeks in a calendar year, or on becoming liable for federal unemployment tax.

Agricultural employers become liable at five or more workers in 20 different weeks, or a cash payroll of $10,000 in a calendar quarter. A private home or college club becomes liable after paying $1,000 cash in a quarter for domestic services. A 501(c)(3) nonprofit becomes liable at four or more employees in 20 different weeks.

Registration runs through the Florida Business Tax Application, online or on Form DR-1. A new business reports its initial employment in the month following the quarter in which employment begins.

Wages are reported on Form RT-6, the Employer’s Quarterly Report, due April 30, July 31, October 31, and January 31. A report that is erroneous, incomplete, or insufficient draws a penalty of $50 or 10% of the tax due, whichever is greater, capped at $300 per report.

An account is automatically inactivated after eight consecutive quarters of reports showing zero gross wages. Reopening one takes an Employer Account Change Form, RTS-3.

Insurance agents, real estate agents, and barbers paid solely by commission are exempt. Paying them a salary, or a salary and commission, makes both taxable.

Minimum wage

Florida’s minimum wage is $14.00 an hour through September 29, 2026, and $15.00 from September 30, 2026. The increases come from Amendment 2, which voters approved on November 3, 2020, and which raised the rate by $1.00 each year until it reached $15.00.

The rate changes on September 30, so the posted notice has to be swapped mid-year. Annual inflation adjustments resume in 2027, published by the Department of Commerce.

Florida preempts local wage ordinances. Section 218.077(2) bars a political subdivision from establishing, mandating, or requiring an employer to pay a minimum wage other than the state or federal minimum. The Third District Court of Appeal applied that provision against a Miami Beach ordinance, and the Florida Supreme Court declined review. House Bill 433, signed April 11, 2024, extended the preemption to local control over the wages and benefits of a local government’s own vendors and contractors.

One rate therefore applies across the state, and an employer with staff in several counties tracks a single figure.

Tipped employees

The tip credit is $3.02 an hour and has been fixed at that amount since 2003. The direct cash wage is $10.98 through September 29, 2026 and $11.98 after that.

Because the credit is a fixed dollar amount, every increase in the minimum wage raises the tipped employer’s cash obligation by the same amount. Where tips plus the cash wage fall short of the full minimum in a workweek, the employer covers the difference.

Salaried employees and overtime

Florida has no state overtime law and sets no salary threshold of its own. The Fair Labor Standards Act governs, so overtime is owed after 40 hours in a workweek at 1.5 times the regular rate, and there is no daily overtime rule.

Paying someone a salary is one of three tests. A role is exempt from overtime only where it clears the salary basis test, a salary of at least $684 a week or $35,568 a year, and a duties test. An employee paid a salary who fails the duties test is non-exempt and owed overtime for every hour past 40.

The highly compensated employee exemption runs on total annual compensation of $107,432, which must include a salary of at least $684 a week.

Those figures come from the 2019 rule. A 2024 rule would have raised the weekly floor to $844 and then $1,128, and a federal court in Texas vacated it on November 15, 2024. The Fifth Circuit denied the appeals in May 2026, and the Department of Labor restored the 2019 thresholds by technical amendment published May 15, 2026.

The salary basis test requires the full salary for any week in which the employee performs work, regardless of hours. Docking an exempt employee for a partial-day absence can defeat the exemption.

At $15.00 an hour, a 40-hour week comes to $600. The exempt salary floor of $684 a week therefore sits above full-time pay at the Florida minimum wage.

Workers’ compensation

Florida sets coverage thresholds by industry. A construction employer needs coverage at one employee. A non-construction employer needs it at four or more employees working in Florida. An agricultural employer needs it at six regular employees, or 12 seasonal employees working more than 30 days in a season or more than 45 days in a calendar year.

Corporate officers and limited liability company members count toward the threshold. They can apply to the Division of Workers’ Compensation for an exemption. Sole proprietors and partners are not employees unless they elect coverage.

The list of trades treated as construction sits in Rule 69L-6.021, Florida Administrative Code. Coverage comes from a Florida-licensed insurance carrier or through approved self-insurance.

The Office of Insurance Regulation approved a statewide average rate decrease of 6.9% for new and renewal workers’ compensation policies effective January 1, 2026, on a filing from the National Council on Compensation Insurance. That is the ninth consecutive annual decrease.

The figure is a statewide average. An individual premium still turns on class code, payroll, and experience modification factor.

Subcontractors

A contractor must confirm that every subcontractor carries workers’ compensation before work starts. Where a subcontractor has no coverage, its workers become the contractor’s employees, and the contractor pays the benefits for any work-related injury, illness, or death.

The documentation a contractor has to collect is set out in Rule 69L-6.032, Florida Administrative Code.

Can you run Florida payroll yourself?

Yes, and Florida is among the simplest states for it. One tax agency, no income tax withholding, no local filings, and one quarterly return. Payroll software handles it for $6 to $25 per employee per month.

Find payroll software that fits your business

What software does not handle is the workers’ compensation decision, which is where most of a Florida employer’s insurable cost sits, and the subcontractor documentation a contractor has to collect before work starts.

Full-service software files the RT-6 for you. You stay legally responsible for the taxes either way.

A 6-person contractor in Tampa

A 6-person general contractor in Tampa runs two crews and hires a drywall subcontractor for a job.

Construction is the one-employee industry, so the company needed coverage from its first hire. Its two corporate officers count toward the employee number unless each files an exemption with the Division of Workers’ Compensation.

Reemployment tax at the new employer rate costs $189 a year for each of the six, or $1,134 across the company, and stops at the first $7,000 of each person’s wages.

The drywall subcontractor is the exposure. If the sub has no coverage when work starts, its crew becomes the contractor’s employees under Florida law, and the contractor pays the benefits on any injury. Rule 69L-6.032 lists the documents that have to be collected first.

Hourly staff are owed $14.00 an hour through September 29, 2026 and $15.00 after that.

PEO rules specific to Florida

Florida licenses employee leasing companies through the Board of Employee Leasing Companies at the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, under Chapter 468 Part XI of the Florida Statutes and Rule 61G7 of the Florida Administrative Code.

A company licensed in another state, or accredited by ESAC, still needs a Florida license to operate here. ESAC accreditation removes the quarterly and annual financial reports otherwise owed to the Department, and losing that accreditation has to be reported to the board in writing within five working days.

Whose account reports your wages

By default, workers supplied to a client are considered employees of the employee leasing company and are reported under its tax identification number and contribution rate.

Section 443.1216(1)(a)2.a lets a licensed company make a separate one-time election to report and pay under the tax identification number and contribution rate of each client instead. This is called the client method.

• The election applies to every current and future client of that company.
• Once chosen, the reporting method cannot be changed.
• A newly licensed company has 30 days from the date the license is granted to notify the tax collection service provider. Missing that window means reporting under the company’s own number and rate.
• Under the client method, the company files a separate Employer’s Quarterly Report for each client and pays by approved electronic means.

The practical result is that the reporting method is fixed at the PEO level. It is a question to ask before signing, and it is not something a client negotiates.

Your experience rate, and what happens when you leave

Under the client method, each client’s own benefit charges and wage data while with the company determine that client’s rate, where the client has been with the company for at least eight calendar quarters before the election. A client whose employment record is chargeable for fewer than eight quarters pays the initial 2.7% rate.

The client keeps reporting its non-leased employees under its own rate.

The election binds each client for as long as the written agreement under section 468.525(3)(a) is in effect. Where the relationship ends, the client retains the wage and benefit history it built while with the company.

A transfer of workforce between employee leasing companies under common ownership, management, or control falls under section 443.131(3)(h).

A second quarterly report

An employee leasing company also files a quarterly report to the Labor Market Statistics Center covering each client establishment, in the format the Bureau of Labor Statistics specifies for its Multiple Worksite Report. It is due the last day of the month after the quarter, and the employment and wage totals have to match the reemployment tax report.

Registration, filing, and deadlines

Registration runs through the Department of Revenue on the Florida Business Tax Application, online or on Form DR-1. A federal EIN comes first.

Quarterly reports

Other requirements

• New hires and rehires are reported within 20 days of the hire date, by every employer regardless of size.
• A report that is erroneous, incomplete, or insufficient draws a penalty of $50 or 10% of the tax due, whichever is greater, capped at $300 per report.
• An account is inactivated after eight consecutive quarters of zero gross wages, and Form RTS-3 reopens it.
• Workers’ compensation coverage is required from the first employee in construction and from the fourth in other industries.
• The minimum wage poster has to be swapped on or before September 30, 2026.

Florida payroll reference

Rates and deadlines are current as of August 2026 and change annually. Verify against the linked source before filing.

Frequently asked questions

• How much should a payroll service cost?

  A payroll service generally runs $20 to $50 per employee per month, payroll software $6 to $25, and a PEO $40 to $150 or 3–12% of gross payroll. Florida has no local payroll filings and no state income tax return to price in, so quotes here compare more cleanly than in states with municipal taxes.

• What are the payroll laws in Florida?

  There is no state income tax to withhold. You pay reemployment tax on the first $7,000 of each employee’s wages, starting at 2.7% for a new employer. You carry workers’ compensation from your first employee in construction, your fourth outside it, and your sixth in agriculture. You report new hires within 20 days, pay at least $14.00 an hour through September 29, 2026 and $15.00 after that, and file Form RT-6 each quarter.

• What is the minimum you can pay a salaried employee in Florida?

  Florida sets no salary threshold, so the federal figure governs. An employee must earn at least $684 a week, or $35,568 a year, to qualify for the executive, administrative, or professional exemption, and the role must also pass a duties test. Below that salary, or failing the duties test, the employee is non-exempt and owed overtime past 40 hours in a workweek.

• How much does a PEO typically charge per employee?

  PEO pricing generally runs $40 to $150 per employee per month, or 3–12% of gross payroll. Which structure a provider quotes matters more than the headline number, because a percentage-of-payroll quote moves with every raise. In Florida the workers’ compensation component is usually the largest part of what a PEO is pricing.

• Does a PEO own the employees?

  No. A PEO becomes a co-employer. It becomes the employer of record for tax and insurance purposes while you direct the work, set pay, and decide who gets hired and fired. In Florida, section 443.1216(1)(a)2 treats workers supplied to a client as employees of the employee leasing company for reemployment tax purposes. That provision governs which account reports the wages.

• Does my PEO report reemployment tax under its number or mine?

  That depends on an election the PEO made, not on anything you choose. Leased workers are reported under the employee leasing company’s tax identification number and contribution rate by default. A licensed company may instead make a one-time election to report under each client’s number and rate, covering every current and future client, and it cannot change methods afterward. Under the client method you keep your wage and benefit history when the relationship ends. Ask which method applies before you sign.