How to Calculate SUTA Tax in Florida: Wage Base, Rate, and Filing

To calculate SUTA tax in Florida (called reemployment tax here), multiply the first $7,000 of each employee’s annual gross wages by your assigned tax rate, then add the results together for every employee on your payroll that quarter. New employers use a rate of 2.7%. Established employers use an experience-based rate that falls between 0.1% and 5.4% for 2026.¹ The math is simple once you have the two inputs right: the taxable wage base and your rate.

The Taxable Wage Base Is $7,000 Per Employee, Per Year

Florida taxes only the first $7,000 in gross wages you pay each employee during the calendar year.² Every dollar you pay that employee above $7,000 is exempt for the rest of the year. The cap is set in Florida Statutes Section 443.1217 and applies the same way in every industry.³

The cap resets every January 1. An employee who hit $7,000 in taxable wages in November starts fresh at zero the following January, and you begin taxing their wages again until they clear $7,000 for the new year.

One caveat: if the state ever owes money back to the federal government for advances against its trust fund, the statute allows the $7,000 cap to be temporarily suspended. That would raise the taxable wage base until the debt is cleared.

Finding Your Tax Rate

Your rate depends on how long you’ve been reporting. New employers pay a flat 2.7% (0.0270) for their first 10 quarters. After that, the Florida Department of Revenue assigns you an experience-based rate that reflects your account’s claims history and the health of the state trust fund. For 2026, experience rates run from 0.1% at the low end to 5.4% at the maximum.¹

You receive your rate each year on the Tax Rate Notice (Form RT-20). Use the rate on your most recent RT-20 for every quarter of that calendar year. If you think the rate is wrong, you have 20 days from the mailing date on the notice to file a protest.

Employers who fail to respond to audits or carry delinquencies over a year can be assigned the 5.4% maximum as a penalty, so keeping current on filings matters for the rate itself, not just for avoiding late fees.¹

Working the Calculation, Quarter by Quarter

The tax is computed quarterly, and you have to track each employee’s year-to-date wages so you know when to stop taxing them.

Start with a single employee. Say she earns $10,000 during the year. Only the first $7,000 is taxable. At the 2.7% new employer rate, her full-year reemployment tax is $7,000 × 0.027 = $189.³ At the 2026 minimum of 0.1%, she’d cost just $7 for the year. At the 5.4% maximum, she’d cost $378.

Now split her wages across quarters. She earns $3,000 in Q1 and $4,500 in Q2. In Q1, the full $3,000 is taxable, because her year-to-date wages haven’t crossed $7,000. In Q2, only $4,000 is taxable — the amount that brings her to the $7,000 cap — and the remaining $500 is exempt. From Q3 onward, none of her wages are taxable for the rest of the calendar year.

Scale that up. For each quarter, add the taxable wages for every employee (capped individually at $7,000 year-to-date) and multiply by your rate. If you have 15 employees whose combined taxable wages for Q1 come to $45,000 and your rate is 2.7%, your Q1 liability is $45,000 × 0.027 = $1,215.

A short checklist for each quarter:

Pull each employee’s gross wages for the quarter.
Add them to that employee’s year-to-date gross wages to find the new running total.
If the running total is at or below $7,000, the full quarter’s wages are taxable. If it crosses $7,000 during the quarter, only the portion up to $7,000 is taxable. If it was already at $7,000 before the quarter began, none of this quarter’s wages are taxable.
Sum the taxable wages across all employees.
Multiply by your rate from Form RT-20 (or 2.7% if you’re still in your first 10 quarters).

Reporting the Number You Calculated

You report the calculation on Form RT-6, the Employer’s Quarterly Report, which asks for total wages, taxable wages, and tax due. File every quarter, even if you had no employees or owe nothing.⁴ Reports are due the last day of the month following each quarter:

Q1 (January–March): due April 30
Q2 (April–June): due July 31
Q3 (July–September): due October 31
Q4 (October–December): due January 31

If a due date falls on a weekend or holiday, it moves to the next business day.⁴ Employers with 10 or more employees in any quarter of the prior state fiscal year (July 1 through June 30) must file and pay electronically through the Department of Revenue’s e-Services portal.⁵

Paying on Time Protects Your FUTA Credit

Paying Florida reemployment tax on time cuts your federal unemployment tax bill sharply. The standard FUTA rate is 6% on the first $7,000 of wages, but employers who pay their state unemployment tax in full and on time qualify for a credit of up to 5.4%. That drops the effective FUTA rate to 0.6%, or $42 per employee per year.⁶

To keep the full credit, pay your Florida reemployment tax on all FUTA-taxable wages by the federal Form 940 due date, and make sure Florida is not designated a credit reduction state. Florida is not currently one. Missing state deadlines can cost you part or all of the 5.4% credit, which effectively multiplies your total unemployment tax bill.

Two Situations That Change the Inputs

Nonprofits organized under Section 501(c)(3) can skip the rate-based calculation entirely. Instead of paying quarterly tax, they can elect to reimburse the Unemployment Compensation Trust Fund only for actual benefits paid to their former employees.⁷ A newly liable nonprofit must file that election within 30 days of becoming subject to the reemployment law; an existing employer switching to reimbursement must file at least 30 days before the start of a calendar year and stay with the choice for at least two calendar years.

If you’re buying a business, expect to inherit the seller’s experience rating along with the assets. Florida recalculates the successor’s rate using the predecessor’s employment record, which means a clean acquisition can put you well above the 2.7% new-employer default before you’ve paid a single wage. Ask the seller for their most recent Form RT-20 during due diligence so you know what rate feeds into your calculation.¹

1
Florida Department of Revenue. Reemployment Tax Rate Information
2
FloridaCommerce. Florida’s Reemployment Tax Rate Remains at Lowest Possible Rate
3
Florida Legislature. Florida Code 443.1217 – Wages
4
Florida Department of Revenue. Reemployment Tax Report and Payment Information
5
FloridaCommerce. Tax Information
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 3302 – Credits Against Tax
7
Florida Legislature. Florida Code 443.1312 – Reimbursements, Nonprofit Organizations