Reporting New Hires to the Office of Child Support Enforcement
Federal law requires employers to report basic information on new and rehired employees to the state where the new employees work. The information is maintained in the National Directory of New Hires, which child support agencies use to locate a parent who owes child support and issue an income withholding order. Additional information is available on the federal website: https://www.acf.hhs.gov/css/employers/employer-responsibilities/new-hire-reporting.
OFM acts as the new hire reporting agent for General Government and Higher Education and provides new hire reports as required under RCW 26.23.040. New hire and rehire data are sent to DSHS Division of Child Support every pay period (twice a month).
New Hire Reporting for Out of State Employees
Each agency and institution with employees outside of Washington must register as a multistate employer to comply with federal law and continue centralized reporting.
For agencies and institutions with out-of-state employees, federal law allows two options of reporting your out-of-state new and rehired employees. They can be reported to the state directly where they work via that state’s portal or reporting requirements. Or employers can select one state where employees work and report all new hires to the selected state such as currently done in Washington
OFM has consulted with the State New Hire Program and the Federal Administration of Children & Families on this issue. To avoid agencies and institutions individually reporting new hire information to other states, and to continue the centralized reporting, agencies and institutions must register their Employer Identification Numbers (EIN) as Multistate Employers only if they have employees outside of Washington.
How to register as a Multistate Employer:
Multistate Employer Registration Form for New Hire Reporting: Employers who have employees working in two or more states may use this form to register to submit their new hire reports to one state or make changes to a previous registration. Washington counts as one of two states. Send the completed form to msedb@acf.hhs.gov. An updated Multistate form must be submitted annually.
Agencies and Institutions must designate Washington as the reporting statefor Question 4 - Enter the name of the state or U.S. territory your company designated to report new hire information to.
Employer Services Profile Form: Register for access to the Child Support Portal (https://ocsp.acf.hhs.gov/csp). Agencies and institutions have the option to register for access to the Portal so they can update their Multistate information online instead in an annual updated form. Must first submit the Multistate Employer Registration form.
CRITICAL NOTES:
DES Small Agency Financial Services customers must submit multistate registrations for their agencies. DES SAFS cannot submit on your behalf.
Can only register on the Employer Services Portal once EIN information has been entered using the Multistate Employer Registration Form.
An EIN can only be registered once under one name. Agencies and institutions with multiple personnel areas using the same EIN must register under the agency or institution name only.
Once registration is complete the only new hire reporting requirement for agencies and institutions will be the annual update to the Multistate information.
