What do you need to know to hire in Pennsylvania?
A flat 3.07% state income tax, the federal $7.25 wage floor, and local earned-income taxes on top. Each Pennsylvania guide below takes one layer of state rule.
· Pennsylvania, United States guide
Illustration · Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania charges a flat 3.07% state income tax and uses the federal $7.25 wage floor, so the headline math reads clean. The local earned-income taxes and the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh sick-leave ordinances are where the real work sits.
The federal floor is identical to every other state: FLSA, FICA, FUTA and FMLA set the baseline. Everything Pennsylvania adds on top is what these guides cover.
Most employers budget for the flat state rate and the $10,000 unemployment wage base, then miss the municipal earned-income tax that rides alongside. This page is the map; each guide is the detail.
What do you need to know to hire in Pennsylvania?
Pennsylvania runs on the federal employment floor with a flat 3.07% state income tax, the federal $7.25 minimum, and no state overtime beyond the 40-hour federal week.
Where Pennsylvania gets specific is the local earned-income taxes, the city sick-leave ordinances, and the final-pay rule. Each guide below takes one of those layers.
Sienna runs payroll for a 12-person team and just approved her first Pennsylvania hire. The federal stack she already knows still applies: Social Security at 6.2% each side to $184,500, FUTA, and FMLA once the company passes 50 employees. Pennsylvania layers a flat state income tax, a local earned-income tax, and the city sick-leave rules on top.
Start from the United States overview for the federal baseline. This page is the Pennsylvania-specific layer, and the guides below break it into the questions an employer actually asks before a first hire.
What does an employer actually pay in Pennsylvania?
The Pennsylvania-specific cost is the flat 3.07% income-tax withholding, the local earned-income tax, and unemployment insurance, plus the federal pass-through.
Unemployment insurance runs on a $10,000 taxable wage base, and a new employer starts at 3.822%. The income tax is a single flat 3.07% on all wages, with no brackets.
State income tax: a flat 3.07%, withheld on every dollar of wages, with no brackets and no standard deduction. Minimum wage: the federal $7.25 an hour, with $2.83 cash for tipped roles. Overtime: time and a half after 40 hours a week, no daily rule, and no mandated adult meal break.
Unemployment insurance: a $10,000 wage base, 3.822% for a new non-construction employer, plus a small employee withholding. Final pay: due on the next regular payday for both a discharge and a resignation. Local tax: a municipal earned-income tax rides on top, set by where the employee lives and works.
Sources: PA Department of Revenue, personal income tax rates and US DOL state minimum wage.
The figures above are the headline. The detail, from the flat-rate withholding setup to the SUTA filing cadence, the local earned-income tax, and the tip credit, sits in the Pennsylvania tax and unemployment guide and the wage and overtime guide.
The Pennsylvania guides, one layer at a time
Four Pennsylvania guides are live, one per layer of state rule. Each answers the questions an employer asks before the first hire, with the statutory numbers pulled from the same Pennsylvania source set.
State income tax & unemployment insurance
The flat 3.07% income tax, the local earned-income tax, the $10,000 SUTA wage base, new-employer rates, and the quarterly filing rhythm.
Wage, overtime & meal break law
The federal $7.25 floor, the 40-hour overtime week, the $2.83 tipped cash wage, and why Pennsylvania mandates no adult meal break.
Paid family & sick leave
No state programme, the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh paid-sick-leave ordinances, and what federal FMLA covers at 50+ employees.
Termination & at-will exceptions
The public-policy exception, the next-payday final-pay rule, and the federal WARN math on a mass layoff.
The Pennsylvania worker-classification guide, the state's test for employee versus contractor, is the next one we're building. Need it sooner? Tell us and we'll move it up the queue.
How does Pennsylvania compare to its neighbours?
Pennsylvania charges one of the lowest flat income-tax rates in the region, but each neighbour breaks the pattern somewhere. The federal floor is identical; the state layer is not.
Cross a state line and the math changes. New York runs progressive brackets far above Pennsylvania's flat 3.07% and adds a state paid-family-leave programme. New Jersey sets a state minimum wage well above the federal $7.25 floor Pennsylvania uses, with its own paid-leave fund. Maryland layers county income taxes on top of a graduated state rate.
If you're hiring across the region, read each state's guides before you set payroll. The structure is the same everywhere; the income-tax shape, the leave mandate, and the local taxes are not.
How does Teamed hire in Pennsylvania for you?
Teamed becomes your legal employer of record in Pennsylvania for $599 per employee per month, flat, with zero FX mark-up in any currency. Payroll, the flat-rate state withholding, the local earned-income tax, and the federal stack run on one platform.
There's no setup fee and no exit fee, and statutory employer cost passes through at cost, itemised on every invoice.
Real HR and legal experts handle your Pennsylvania hires, from the first offer letter to a contested termination. An actual person, not a chatbot or a pooled queue, who knows the flat 3.07% withholding, the local earned-income tax, and the Philadelphia sick-leave ordinance. There's no setup fee and no exit fee, the platform tracks every federal trigger in real time, and statutory employer cost passes through at cost, itemised on every invoice.
Contractor onboarding, EOR payroll, and entity setup live on one platform. A Pennsylvania contractor who converts to W-2 keeps their record, and that same employee can graduate from EOR to your own US entity without re-onboarding. Run the Crossover Calculator to see the month the model flips. EOR is the right model for a first Pennsylvania hire, until it isn't.
Pennsylvania reads as the easy state: one flat income-tax rate, the federal wage floor, a light overtime code. The catch is the local earned-income tax and the city sick-leave ordinances that the flat rate hides. These guides exist so the first Pennsylvania hire never becomes the first Pennsylvania filing.
Pennsylvania looks like the simple state to hire in. One flat 3.07% income tax, the federal wage floor, little above it.
The simple part ends at the local line. Municipal earned-income taxes, and city sick-leave rules the flat rate never mentions.
Read the right guide before the first hire, not after the first filing.
