What do you need to know to hire in Texas?
No state income tax, a federal $7.25 wage floor, and a 6-day final-pay clock on a discharge. Each Texas guide below takes one layer of state rule.
· Texas, United States guide
Illustration · Austin, Texas
Texas takes no state income tax, so the paycheck math reads simple. The unemployment-insurance schedule, the 6-day final-pay rule, and the at-will exceptions are where the real work sits.
The federal floor is identical to every other state: FLSA, FICA, FUTA and FMLA set the baseline. Everything Texas adds on top is what these guides cover.
Most employers budget for the $9,000 unemployment wage base and miss the six-day deadline to pay out a discharged worker. This page is the map; each guide is the detail.
What do you need to know to hire in Texas?
Texas runs on the federal employment floor with almost nothing added on the pay side and a sharp set of rules on the separation side. There's no state income tax, no state minimum above the federal $7.25, and no state overtime beyond the 40-hour federal week.
Where Texas gets specific is unemployment insurance, final pay, and the narrow at-will exceptions. Each guide below takes one of those layers.
Sienna runs payroll for a 12-person team and just approved her first Texas 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. Texas layers its own unemployment tax, its own final-pay deadline, and its own at-will carve-outs on top.
Start from the United States overview for the federal baseline. This page is the Texas-specific layer, and the five guides below break it into the questions an employer actually asks before a first hire.
What does an employer actually pay in Texas?
The Texas-specific cost is unemployment insurance plus the federal pass-through. There's no state income tax to withhold and no state-mandated benefit beyond the federal floor.
Unemployment insurance runs on a $9,000 taxable wage base. A new employer starts at 2.7%, and experience-rated accounts land between 0.32% and 6.32%.
State income tax: none, Texas withholds nothing at the state level. Minimum wage: the federal $7.25 an hour, with $2.13 cash for tipped roles. Overtime: time and a half after 40 hours a week, no daily rule, no mandated meal break.
Unemployment insurance: a $9,000 wage base, 2.7% for a new employer, 0.32% to 6.32% once experience-rated. Final pay: within 6 days of a discharge, next payday on a resignation.
Sources: Texas Workforce Commission, 2026 tax rates and US DOL state minimum wage.
The figures above are the headline. The detail, from withholding setup to the SUTA filing cadence, the tip credit, and the exempt-salary threshold, sits in the Texas tax and unemployment guide and the wage and overtime guide.
The Texas guides, one layer at a time
Four Texas 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 Texas source set.
State income tax & unemployment insurance
Why there's no state income tax, the $9,000 SUTA wage base, new-employer and experience rates, and the quarterly filing rhythm.
Wage, overtime & meal break law
The federal $7.25 floor, the 40-hour overtime week, the tip credit, and why Texas mandates no meal break.
Paid family & sick leave
No state programme, what federal FMLA covers at 50+ employees, and the pregnancy accommodation rules that still apply.
Termination & at-will exceptions
The Sabine Pilot exception, the 6-day final-pay clock, and the federal WARN math on a mass layoff.
The Texas 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 Texas compare to its neighbours?
Texas is the cleanest at-will state 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. Louisiana shares the at-will baseline but runs its own civil-law quirks on contracts. Arkansas sets a state minimum wage above the federal $7.25 floor Texas uses. New Mexico and Oklahoma each levy a state income tax that Texas doesn't.
If you're hiring across the region, read each state's guides before you set payroll. The structure is the same everywhere; the SUTA base, the leave mandate, and the termination rules are not.
How does Teamed hire in Texas for you?
Teamed becomes your legal employer of record in Texas for $599 per employee per month, flat, with zero FX mark-up in any currency. Payroll, the unemployment registration, the 6-day final-pay clock, 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 Texas hires, from the first offer letter to a contested termination. An actual person, not a chatbot or a pooled queue, who knows the Sabine Pilot line and the 6-day Payday Law clock. 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 Texas 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 Texas hire, until it isn't.
Texas reads as the easy state: no income tax, strong at-will, a light wage code. The catch is the six-day final-pay clock and the federal charge that does not care the state is at-will. These guides exist so the first Texas hire never becomes the first Texas filing.
Texas looks like the simple state to hire in. No income tax, at-will, a federal wage floor and little above it.
The simple part ends at separation. Six days to the final cheque, and a federal claim that ignores at-will entirely.
Read the right guide before the first hire, not after the first dispute.
