Arkansas Withholding Form AR4EC: Line-by-Line Instructions

Arkansas withholding Form AR4EC is the short state certificate you give your employer so the right amount of Arkansas income tax comes out of each paycheck. It is the state counterpart to the federal W-4, and your employer uses it to look up your withholding in the Arkansas tax tables.¹ Every new hire in Arkansas has to turn one in before the first paycheck, and the form stays with your employer rather than going to the state. You can download the current version from the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration (DFA) or get one from payroll.²

Filling out the federal W-4 does not update your AR4EC. The two forms use different calculations, so the exemption counts can differ, and you need to complete both at a new job.

Filling Out the Form Line by Line

The current AR4EC (revised February 2025) has five numbered lines, a filing-status checkbox, and a signature block.³

Name, Address, and SSN

Print your full legal name, Social Security number, and home address at the top. This information has to match what will appear on your Arkansas tax return, because your employer uses it to report your withheld tax to the state.

Line 1: Personal Exemption

Pick one of the three options:

Line 1a: yourself only. Enter 1.
Line 1b: yourself and your spouse, if you file jointly and your spouse is not claiming an exemption on a separate AR4EC. Enter 2.
Line 1c: Head of Household, claiming yourself. Enter 2.

Head of Household filers get two exemptions on this line even though only one person is being claimed. The second exemption reflects the more favorable tax treatment that filing status receives.³

Line 2: Dependents

Enter the number of children or other dependents you support. Each one counts as a single exemption. To qualify, a dependent has to get more than half of their financial support from you, cannot be claimed by their spouse on a separate return, and must be a U.S. citizen or resident. They also need to either live in your home all year or be a qualifying relative by blood or marriage, such as a child, parent, sibling, grandchild, or in-law.³

Line 3: Total Exemptions

Add Line 1 and Line 2 and put the total here. If you are claiming nothing, enter zero. This is the number your employer plugs into the withholding tables.

Line 4: Additional Withholding

Line 4 lets you ask for a flat extra dollar amount pulled from every paycheck on top of what the tables call for. It is optional and it is the most useful line on the form for anyone whose situation does not fit cleanly into the exemption count. Reasons to use it include holding more than one job, earning freelance income on the side, or having a working spouse. Without an adjustment, those households usually end up owing at tax time.³

Line 5: Low-Income Tax Rates

Check the Line 5 box if your total income from all sources falls inside one of the reduced-rate ranges Arkansas publishes. For 2025 the ranges are:

Single: $14,265 to $17,000
Married Filing Jointly, one or fewer dependents: $24,057 to $28,300
Married Filing Jointly, two or more dependents: $28,953 to $35,100
Head of Household, one or fewer dependents: $20,282 to $24,600
Head of Household, two or more dependents: $24,176 to $28,200

If your income is below the bottom of your range, you may owe no Arkansas tax at all. In that case, file Form AR4ECSP instead, which tells your employer to skip state withholding entirely.³

Filing Status and Signature

Check the box for Single, Married Filing Jointly, or Head of Household. Those are the only three choices. Sign and date the form. Your signature certifies that you have not claimed more exemptions than you are entitled to, and the form is not valid without both a signature and a date.

If You Have a Second Job or a Working Spouse

The exemption system on the AR4EC assumes one job per household. When both spouses work or one person holds two jobs, the standard exemption count usually withholds too little. The DFA instructions call this out and suggest two fixes: claim fewer exemptions than you are strictly entitled to, or use Line 4 to add a specific dollar amount per paycheck.³

If you and your spouse both work and file jointly, only one of you should claim the spouse exemption on Line 1b. The other spouse uses Line 1a and claims only themselves. You can split dependents between two AR4ECs as long as the combined count across both forms does not exceed the number of dependents you actually support. Double-counting across two forms is the most common way dual-income households end up short at the end of the year.

When to File a New AR4EC

Submit a new form whenever your situation changes in a way that affects your exemptions. Marriage, divorce, a new child, or a spouse starting or stopping work are the usual triggers. The DFA recommends that employers prompt employees to review their withholding once a year.⁴

One change carries a hard deadline. If the number of exemptions you are entitled to goes down, you have 10 days to file a new AR4EC. That applies when you divorce or legally separate from a spouse whose exemption you were claiming, or when you drop below providing more than half the support of a dependent. Increases, like a new child, do not have the same deadline but are worth updating promptly so you are not over-withheld.³

What Happens If You Get It Wrong

Skip the form entirely and your employer is required to withhold at the highest rate: Single with zero exemptions.⁴ You get the extra money back as a refund the following spring, but you have given the state an interest-free loan all year.

Claim too many exemptions and you have the opposite problem. Not enough tax comes out during the year, and you owe the balance at filing. Arkansas charges an underpayment penalty if you owe at least $1,000 and the amount due is more than 10% of your total tax for the year. The simplest way most employees stay clear is the prior-year safe harbor: if your withholding for the year equals or exceeds your total tax from the previous year, no penalty applies.⁵

1
Justia Law. Arkansas Code 26-51-907 – Withholding Tables
2
Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration. Withholding Tax Forms and Instructions
3
Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration. AR4EC Employee’s Withholding Exemption Certificate Instructions
4
Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration. State of Arkansas Withholding Tax Employer’s Instructions
5
Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration. Subject 603 – Underpayment of Estimated Tax