PA New Hire Reporting: Requirements, 20-Day Deadline & Penalties

Pennsylvania new hire reporting requires every employer doing business in the state to report each new or qualifying rehired employee to the state’s Directory of New Hires within 20 days of that person’s first day of paid work. The program is run by the Department of Labor and Industry and feeds child support enforcement and benefit fraud detection. Fines run up to $25 per unreported worker for ordinary violations and up to $500 per worker when the state finds the failure was intentional.

Who Has to Report

If you withhold federal income tax from someone’s wages under 26 U.S.C. § 3401(d), Pennsylvania considers you an employer for new hire reporting. Government agencies and labor organizations are included.¹ The duty covers full-time, part-time, and seasonal workers, with no minimum hours or wages.

Independent contractors paid on a 1099 basis fall outside the rule because they aren’t employees under the federal definition. Misclassifying a worker as a contractor doesn’t get you out of reporting, though. Pennsylvania’s Department of Labor and Industry presumes a worker is an employee unless the employer shows otherwise, so report when the status is a close call.

Which Workers Count as New Hires

A first-time hire is obvious. The trap is rehires. Pennsylvania’s statute treats a returning worker as a newly hired employee in either of two situations:

The employee was laid off, furloughed, or on unpaid leave for more than 30 days and is now coming back.
The employee was formally terminated, no matter how brief the gap before rehire.

Pennsylvania’s 30-day trigger is stricter than the 60-day federal baseline.² It pulls in seasonal crews, substitute teachers, and other workers who cycle in and out.¹ A school district recalling substitutes each fall or a landscaping company bringing back its crew each spring almost certainly needs to file fresh reports.

What Information You Have to Provide

For each new hire, the report must include:¹

Employee’s full legal name
Home address (street, city, state, ZIP)
Social Security number
Date of hire (the first day of paid work)
State of hire
Date of birth (optional but recommended)

For the employer side:

Company name
Address where you receive child support income withholding orders
Federal Employer Identification Number (FEIN)
Contact person’s name, address, and phone number

Most of the employee information is already on the Form W-4 completed at onboarding. You can attach the date of hire and your employer contact details to a copy of the W-4 and submit that in place of a separate form. Double-check the FEIN. A transposed digit routes the report to the wrong account and can trigger a compliance inquiry.

The 20-Day Deadline

The clock starts on the date of hire, meaning the first day the employee performs services for pay.¹ From that day, you have two timing options:

Paper or one-off electronic submissions must be filed within 20 days of the date of hire.
Employers using batch electronic or magnetic transmissions may file twice per month instead, with the two transmissions spaced no fewer than 12 and no more than 16 days apart.²

The postmark or electronic timestamp is your filing date.

How to File

Pennsylvania prefers electronic filing through PA CareerLink. Three electronic paths are available, depending on volume:³

Web form: for 10 or fewer hires, enter each one manually through the CareerLink portal. No login required.⁴
File upload: for 10 or more hires, upload a batch file in Excel, text, or XML.
Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP): for payroll systems that generate automated feeds.

The state does not accept new hire data by email.³

Paper filers have two options:

Mail the completed form to New Hire Reporting Program, P.O. Box 69400, Harrisburg, PA 17106.³
Fax to 866-748-4473.

Mail and fax are open only to employers who don’t operate across state lines. A multi-state employer that chooses electronic reporting cannot fall back on paper for its Pennsylvania filings.⁴ Keep confirmation receipts, transmission logs, or mail tracking in case the state questions your filing history.

If You Have Employees in More Than One State

When your company employs people in Pennsylvania and at least one other state, you get a choice. You can report each new hire to the state where that person works, filing with Pennsylvania and every other applicable state. Or you can designate a single state and send every report there.¹

To take the single-state route, you have to register as a multi-state employer with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services through the Office of Child Support Enforcement, pick a state where you actually have employees, and transmit your reports electronically or magnetically.⁵ Paper and fax are off the table once you go this route.

Penalties for Late or Missing Reports

The first failure to report typically brings a written warning and no fine. After that, each subsequent violation carries a civil penalty of up to $25 per unreported employee.²

The fine rises to as much as $500 per violation when the state finds the failure was intentional, such as an employer and employee conspiring to avoid the report or filing false information. At that level, the state is treating the conduct as obstruction of child support enforcement rather than a paperwork miss.

1
Pennsylvania General Assembly. Title 23 Chapter 43 – Domestic Relations – New Hire Reporting
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 653a – State Directory of New Hires
3
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Report Newly Hired Employees
4
Pennsylvania CareerLink. Report New Hires
5
Administration for Children and Families. Multistate Employer Registration Form for New Hire Reporting