North Dakota Unemployment Tax Requirements for Employers

North Dakota unemployment tax for employers is a quarterly payroll tax administered by Job Service North Dakota, applied to the first $46,600 each employee earns in 2026 at a rate between 0.07% and 9.67% depending on your industry and claims history.¹ The money funds benefits for workers who lose jobs through no fault of their own.²

Who Has to Pay

Liability doesn’t start the moment you hire someone. Chapter 52-01 of the North Dakota Century Code sets dollar and workweek thresholds that differ by employer type.³

Commercial employers become liable after paying $1,500 or more in gross wages in any calendar quarter, or employing at least one person for any part of a day in 20 different weeks during a calendar year. The weeks don’t have to be consecutive.³
Agricultural employers become liable at $20,000 or more in cash wages in any quarter, or 10 or more workers in 20 different weeks.³
Household employers become liable once they pay $1,000 or more in cash wages in any single calendar quarter.³

The test looks at both the current and preceding calendar year. If you crossed the threshold last year, you remain liable this year even if payroll has dropped.

Register Within 20 Days

You have 20 days from your first North Dakota hire to register with Job Service North Dakota.⁴ The form is SFN 41216, Report to Determine Liability, filed through the UI EASY online portal.⁵ The same 20-day clock applies if you acquire an existing business.

Have your Federal Employer Identification Number, your legal business name as filed with the Secretary of State, your physical operating address, and identifying details for every owner, partner, or corporate officer ready before you start.

The 2026 Wage Base and Rate Ranges

For 2026, tax applies only to the first $46,600 of each employee’s annual earnings.¹ Everything an employee earns above that threshold during the calendar year is exempt from state unemployment tax. The base resets each January 1 for every employee, and it rose $1,500 from the 2025 figure of $45,100.

Your rate within the 0.07% to 9.67% range depends on how you’re classified. New non-construction employers pay 1.00% in 2026. New construction employers pay 9.67%, reflecting the industry’s historically higher layoff frequency.¹ Established employers get an individually calculated rate based on their own history.

How Your Rate Gets Set Over Time

Each November, Job Service North Dakota calculates your rate for the coming calendar year.⁶ The first question is whether your cumulative lifetime tax contributions exceed the total benefits ever charged to your account. If yes, you’re a positive-balance employer. If no, you’re negative. The two groups sit on entirely different rate tables.

For 2026, positive-balance employers pay between 0.07% and 1.10%. Negative-balance employers pay between 6.07% and 9.67%.¹ Within each table, your spot depends on a reserve ratio: six years of taxes paid minus benefits charged, divided by three-year average taxable payroll. A higher ratio puts you lower on the table.

The practical consequence is simple. Keeping turnover low and avoiding contested separations drives your rate down over the years. Frequent benefit charges push it up, and a negative-balance employer can end up paying more than nine times what a well-rated positive employer pays on the same payroll.

Filing and Paying Each Quarter

Every liable employer files an Employer’s Contribution and Wage Report each quarter through UI EASY.⁷ You enter wages paid to each covered employee, the system calculates the tax using your assigned rate and the wage base, and payment is made by electronic funds transfer from your business bank account.

Due dates are April 30, July 31, October 31, and January 31.⁸ When a deadline falls on a weekend or holiday, it moves to the next business day. Save the confirmation receipt the system generates.

What Late Filing Costs

Miss a quarterly deadline and you’ll owe both a penalty and interest. The penalty is 5% of contributions due for each month, or partial month, the report is late. The minimum is $25 for your first delinquent report in a calendar year and $100 for any later delinquent report in the same year. The maximum on any single report is $500.⁹

Interest runs separately at 1.5% per month on unpaid contributions from the original due date, which annualizes to 18%.⁹ Job Service North Dakota may waive the late-filing penalty if circumstances were beyond your control. Interest is not waivable.

Protecting Your Account From Avoidable Charges

When a former employee files for unemployment, the benefits they draw are charged against your account, and Job Service North Dakota sends you a quarterly notice of those charges.⁴ Those charges feed directly into the reserve-ratio math that sets next year’s rate.

When the agency contacts you to verify a separation, return the notice with full details if the employee left for any reason other than lack of work. That preserves your right to appeal.⁴ Not responding is a common and expensive mistake: benefits can be charged against your account even when you had legitimate grounds to contest the claim.

Voluntary contributions are a second lever. North Dakota lets employers make additional payments that count toward their reserve balance, and an employer sitting just below a bracket breakpoint can sometimes drop into a lower rate for less than the resulting tax savings. Job Service North Dakota publishes a reduced rate application packet for employers who want to run the numbers.

Buying or Selling a Business

If you buy an existing business, you can apply to inherit the seller’s experience record. That’s attractive when the seller has a strong history and a low rate, but the whole record transfers: future benefit claims from the seller’s former workers will be charged to you.⁴

When common ownership, management, or control links the old and new entities, the transfer is mandatory. The rule exists to stop employers from shedding a bad rate by spinning up a new entity to grab the new-employer rate. An employer caught doing that gets assigned the highest possible rate for four years, and non-employers who advise on these schemes face civil penalties up to $25,000.⁹

The Reimbursement Option

Government entities, tribal organizations, and 501(c)(3) nonprofits can skip the tax-rated system and reimburse the trust fund dollar for dollar for benefits actually paid to their former workers.⁴ It’s often cheaper for employers with very few claims, but one large layoff can produce a bill well above what the tax-rated method would have cost. Some charge-waiver protections available to tax-rated employers don’t apply here.

How State Tax Interacts With FUTA

You also owe federal unemployment tax. The FUTA rate is 6.0% on the first $7,000 of each employee’s annual wages.¹⁰ Pay your state unemployment taxes in full and on time, and you earn a credit of up to 5.4%, dropping the effective federal rate to 0.6%.¹¹

North Dakota is not a FUTA credit reduction state for 2026, so employers who stay current on state contributions pay the 0.6% federal rate.¹² Falling behind on state payments can also cost you the federal credit, multiplying the damage on those first $7,000 of each employee’s wages.

1
Job Service North Dakota. 2026 Unemployment Insurance Tax Rate Schedules
2
Job Service North Dakota. Who We Are
3
North Dakota Legislative Branch. North Dakota Code 52-01 – Definitions and General Provisions
4
Job Service North Dakota. Employer’s Guide
5
Job Service North Dakota. Employer’s Handbook on the Unemployment Insurance Program
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Job Service North Dakota. Employer’s Handbook on the Unemployment Insurance Program
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Job Service North Dakota. File Reports
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Job Service North Dakota. UI EASY
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North Dakota Legislative Branch. North Dakota Code 52-04 – Contributions
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Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 3301 – Rate of Tax
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Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 3302 – Credits Against Tax
12
Internal Revenue Service. FUTA Credit Reduction