How to Fill Out the Georgia WG-15: Quarterly Employer Wage Report

Georgia’s WG-15 quarterly wage report — formally the Employer’s Quarterly Tax and Wage Report — is filed through the Georgia Department of Labor’s online Employer Portal at dol.state.ga.us. You report every dollar of wages paid during the quarter, but unemployment insurance tax applies only to the first $9,500 each employee earns during the calendar year.¹ Reports are due by the last day of the month following each quarter’s close, and a late filing costs $20 or 0.05 percent of total wages per month, whichever is greater.²

What to Have in Front of You

Before you log in, pull together four things: your business identifiers, employee data, quarterly payroll totals, and your current tax rate.

Your eight-digit Employer Account Number (EAN) assigned by the GDOL when you registered for unemployment insurance.
Your nine-digit Federal Employer Identification Number (FEIN).
Each employee’s full legal name and Social Security Number, exactly as they appear on the Social Security card. If you suspect a mismatch, the SSA offers a free verification tool (SSNVS) through Business Services Online.³
Gross wages paid to each employee during the quarter, before deductions. Georgia counts salaries, commissions, bonuses, holiday and vacation pay, and the value of board and lodging as wages.⁴
Your assigned tax rate for the year. For 2026, experienced-employer rates range from 0.04 percent to 8.1 percent. Employers without enough history for an experience rating pay 2.64 percent through December 31, 2026, under Senate Bill 160. The GDOL mails your rate notice at the start of the calendar year.

Georgia law requires every employing unit to keep true and accurate records of the people employed and wages paid at each location, available for inspection by the Commissioner at any time.⁵

2026 Quarterly Due Dates

Reports are due on or before the last day of the month after each calendar quarter ends.⁶

Q1 (January–March): April 30, 2026
Q2 (April–June): July 31, 2026
Q3 (July–September): October 31, 2026
Q4 (October–December): January 31, 2027

If a due date falls on a weekend or legal holiday, the next business day is the deadline. Contributions become delinquent if not paid by the deadline, and they cannot be deducted from employees’ wages.⁷ Domestic-only employers file once a year, by January 31, rather than quarterly.

Completing the Report

The WG-15 has two parts. The summary section calculates the tax you owe. The individual wage section lists each worker’s earnings.

The Summary Section

Three numbers drive the tax calculation:

Total gross wages: everything paid to every employee during the quarter.
Excess wages: any portion of an employee’s wages above the $9,500 annual cap. If an employee earned $8,000 in Q1 and $4,000 in Q2, only $1,500 of the Q2 wages is taxable and the other $2,500 is excess.
Taxable wages: total gross wages minus excess wages. Multiply this figure by your assigned tax rate to get the tax due.

By mid-year, higher-paid employees will have crossed the $9,500 threshold and your taxable wages will shrink quarter over quarter. Track year-to-date earnings per employee carefully. Underreporting excess wages means overpaying tax; overreporting means a delinquency notice.

The Individual Wage Section

Pair each employee’s Social Security Number with their gross wages for the quarter. The regulation requires the full first and last name, a valid SSN, and the quarterly wage amount for every individual.⁸ The GDOL uses this data to determine benefit eligibility when workers file unemployment claims, so the entries matter to your employees as well as to you. The sum of individual wages in this section must match the total gross wages in the summary. If the two don’t reconcile, the department will flag the account for review.

Who to Include

Only employees appear on the WG-15. Independent contractors do not. Misclassifying an employee as a contractor produces unreported wages, back taxes, and penalties, so the line matters.

The IRS looks at three areas to decide worker status: behavioral control (whether you direct how the work is done), financial control (payment method, expense reimbursement, who provides the tools), and the type of relationship (written contracts, benefits, permanence). No single factor decides it — the whole relationship is weighed.⁹ If you set someone’s hours, provide their equipment, and pay them on a regular schedule, that person is almost certainly an employee regardless of what a contract says.

Filing and Paying

The GDOL Employer Portal is the standard method. Log in, select the current quarter, and either key in the data or upload a file formatted to the department’s specifications. You can pay by ACH debit or credit in the same session. Save the confirmation number and payment receipt as proof of on-time filing.¹

Paper filing is available on a limited basis. Employers who cannot file electronically should contact the GDOL to arrange it. Paper forms go to the Georgia Department of Labor Tax Section, P.O. Box 740234, Atlanta, GA 30374-0234. There is no immediate receipt with paper, so it adds processing time and risk.

Penalties if You File Late

One day late is late. Under O.C.G.A. § 34-8-165, a delinquent report costs $20 or 0.05 percent of total wages reported, whichever is greater, for each month or fraction of a month it remains unfiled.² That penalty accrues separately from the tax itself, so a report three months late generates three rounds of penalties on top of the tax owed.

Unpaid contributions are delinquent as of the original due date and may draw additional interest and collection activity under O.C.G.A. § 34-8-150.⁷ Delinquent accounts also affect your experience rating, which can push your tax rate higher in later years. Filing on time and amending later, if needed, is always cheaper.

Records to Keep

The IRS requires employers to retain all employment tax records for at least four years after filing the fourth-quarter return for that year.¹⁰ Georgia’s statute lets the Commissioner inspect employer records at any time, so keep organized files well past the filing date.⁵ At a minimum, hold on to your quarterly confirmation receipts, the payroll registers showing each employee’s gross pay, the year-to-date totals you used to compute excess wages, and any correspondence from the GDOL about your rate or account status.

How Filing Affects Your Federal Unemployment Tax

Filing and paying on time with Georgia also protects your federal position. FUTA imposes a 6.0 percent tax on the first $7,000 of each employee’s annual wages. Employers who pay their state unemployment taxes on time receive a credit of up to 5.4 percent, cutting the effective FUTA rate to 0.6 percent, or a maximum of $42 per employee per year.¹¹ States with outstanding federal loan balances can lose part of that credit. Keeping your Georgia account current preserves the full credit when you file federal Form 940.

1
Georgia Department of Labor. File Tax and Wage Reports and Make Payments
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Justia. Georgia Code 34-8-165 – Tax and Wage Reports
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Social Security Administration. Social Security Number Verification Services for Organizations
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Georgia Secretary of State. Georgia Rules and Regulations – Subject 300-2-3 Tax Rates and Covered Employment
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Justia. Georgia Code 34-8-121 – Information or Records Shall Be Private and Confidential
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Georgia Secretary of State. Georgia Rules and Regulations – Subject 300-2-2 Reports
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Justia. Georgia Code 34-8-150 – Payment of Contributions by Employers
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Georgia Department of Labor. Ga. Comp. R. and Regs. R. 300-2-2-.02 – Employer Tax and Wage Reports
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Internal Revenue Service. Independent Contractor (Self-Employed) or Employee?
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Internal Revenue Service. Employment Tax Recordkeeping
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U.S. Department of Labor. FUTA Credit Reductions – Unemployment Insurance