Your First Hire Across a State Line: What Changes When Someone Lives in New Jersey or Delaware

The day-one stack, state by state

Your company is in Conshohocken or Center City. Your best candidate lives in Cherry Hill or Wilmington, or will work from a client site in Newark, Delaware. The moment that person starts, you are an employer in a second state, and that state’s rules apply alongside Pennsylvania’s.

The first layer looks the same everywhere: workers’ compensation from your first employee, an unemployment registration, and a new hire report within 20 days. The differences start right after that. New Jersey’s anti-discrimination, sick leave, and salary history laws reach you at one employee. Delaware’s anti-discrimination law waits until 4. Paid family leave is where the three states truly part ways.

Which state’s income tax do you withhold for someone who lives in one state and works in another? For Pennsylvania and New Jersey, you withhold for the state where the employee lives, not the state where they work. The two states have a reciprocal income tax agreement, and it is in effect. A New Jersey resident who works in Pennsylvania gives the employer Form REV-419. A Pennsylvania resident who works in New Jersey gives the employer Form NJ-165. Keep the form on file. For a REV-419, Pennsylvania also asks you to send a copy to its Department of Revenue. The agreement does not cover Philadelphia’s wage tax or other Pennsylvania local taxes. Delaware has no reciprocal agreement with Pennsylvania, so settle a Delaware hire’s state withholding with your payroll provider or accountant before the first paycheck.

Registration and withholding in each state

Start with Pennsylvania, because you probably already have it. The PA Business One-Stop Shop explains that one online registration through myPATH opens both your Department of Revenue withholding account and your Labor and Industry unemployment account, and L&I asks you to register for unemployment within 30 days of the first day of covered services. Our Pennsylvania employer setup article walks through all six steps.

New Jersey works off one form too. The New Jersey Department of Labor says every business must first register using Form NJ-REG. The same form registers you for New Jersey income tax withholding, according to the state’s Division of Revenue and Enterprise Services. Once you employ one or more people and pay $1,000 or more in wages in a calendar year, you are an employer and must file quarterly reports, the WR-30 and the NJ-927. The Department of Labor publishes no deadline in days, so register when you make the offer.

New Jersey adds two payroll programs Pennsylvania does not have. Temporary Disability Insurance, or TDI, pays employees who cannot work because of their own illness or injury. Family Leave Insurance, or FLI, pays employees who take time to bond with a new child or care for a family member. For 2026, the Department of Labor sets the employer TDI rate at 0.10 to 0.75 percent on the first $44,800 of each employee’s wages. Employees pay 0.19 percent for TDI and 0.23 percent for FLI on the first $171,100, and there is no employer contribution to FLI. You must post the TDI and FLI posters and give written notice at hire.

Delaware’s unemployment registration has a hard deadline. The Delaware Division of Unemployment Insurance says you become liable once you employ one or more individuals for any part of a day, and you must file Form UC-1 no later than 20 days after your first day of business. Income tax withholding is a separate step. The Delaware Division of Revenue says every employer must register with it by filing the Combined Registration Application online through OneStop. Delaware law requires withholding from employers that keep an office or do business in Delaware, so ask your payroll provider whether your hire triggers it.

New hire reporting is the same everywhere. New Jersey’s child support agency says reports are due within 20 days of hire, Delaware sets the same window in 30 Del. C. 1156A, and Pennsylvania sets the same 20 days in 23 Pa.C.S. 4392 and takes reports through PA CareerLink.

Discrimination law arrives at different sizes

Federal anti-discrimination law comes late. The EEOC explains that Title VII, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and GINA apply at 15 or more employees, and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act at 20. The states get there first.

Pennsylvania’s law is the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act, or PHRA. The Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission says it applies to employers of 4 or more.

New Jersey does not wait. The New Jersey Law Against Discrimination, or NJLAD, applies to every New Jersey employer regardless of size. The statute’s definition of employer carries no numeric threshold. Your first New Jersey hire brings it with them.

Delaware lands where Pennsylvania does. The Delaware Discrimination in Employment Act, or DDEA, defines an employer as any person employing 4 or more employees within the state, and the Division of Industrial Affairs confirms that part-time employees count. A Pennsylvania company with 30 employees and 2 in Delaware has not reached the DDEA’s 4. At that same line, Delaware also requires you to give each new hire the Department of Labor’s sexual harassment information sheet.

Sick leave: three different answers

In New Jersey, yes, from the first employee. The New Jersey Department of Labor’s Earned Sick Leave Law FAQ says there is no minimum number of employees an employer must have. Employees earn 1 hour of sick leave for every 30 hours worked, up to 40 hours per benefit year, usable after a 120-day waiting period. The department says the law covers out-of-state employers with New Jersey workers. That line is aimed at you. Our article on New Jersey sick leave from employee one covers carryover, front-loading, and the notice.

In Pennsylvania, there is no statewide sick leave rule. The Department of Labor and Industry says no Pennsylvania labor law requires an employer to pay an employee not to work. Philadelphia is the exception in this region: under the city’s ordinance, sick time becomes paid at 10 employees, and below that it is unpaid but protected. A chain doing business under a name used by 15 or more locations must pay sick time at any size. A suburban office feels the rule only through employees who work in the city.

In Delaware, there is no statewide sick leave law. Title 19 of the Delaware Code, which covers labor, has no sick leave chapter. If you have more than 3 employees, Delaware law only requires you to share your sick leave and vacation policies with employees, in writing or on a posted notice. Delaware Paid Leave is a different thing and is covered below. The cleanest approach is one sick leave policy that meets New Jersey’s accrual rate and cap, applied to everyone.

Salary history: three bans, different sources

All three jurisdictions in your hiring footprint bar you from asking about a candidate’s pay history, but each ban comes from a different level of government.

Philadelphia’s ban is a city ordinance. The Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations enforces the Wage Equity Ordinance, which applies to all employers hiring in the city.

New Jersey’s ban is statewide. Under N.J.S.A. 34:6B-20, any employer, with no headcount threshold, may not screen applicants on prior salary or require salary history to meet a criterion. The statute allows a candidate’s voluntary, unprompted disclosure and post-offer written authorization to verify pay history, among other exceptions. Penalties run up to $1,000 for a first violation, $5,000 for a second, and $10,000 after that.

Delaware’s ban is also statewide. Under 19 Del. C. 709B, you may not screen on compensation history or seek it from the applicant or a current or former employer. The statute has no headcount threshold. Treat it as applying from your first Delaware hire. The fix is the same everywhere: remove the salary history question from your application and interview guide, and ask candidates what they expect to earn instead.

Paid family leave: where the states really diverge

This is the section to read twice. The three states take three different approaches, and New Jersey’s has two parts that are easy to confuse.

New Jersey’s first part is Family Leave Insurance, or FLI. It is a state insurance benefit funded by the employee’s 0.23 percent contribution, and the Department of Labor says the 2026 maximum weekly benefit is $1,119. Since July 17, 2026, an employee who receives FLI or TDI benefits also has the right to return to the same or an equivalent job. The Department of Labor says this applies at any employer size, with no work-history requirement.

The second part is the New Jersey Family Leave Act, or NJFLA, a separate job-protection law that also changed this summer. The Department of Labor announced that as of July 17, 2026, the NJFLA applies to employers with 15 or more employees worldwide, down from 30. Covered employees get 12 weeks of job-protected leave in a 24-month period to bond with a new child or care for a family member with a serious health condition, and they qualify after 3 months of service and 250 hours. The statute counts employees on each working day in 20 or more calendar workweeks in the current or preceding calendar year. A Pennsylvania company with 15 employees anywhere and one in New Jersey should read our article on the NJFLA at 15 employees now.

Delaware combines the money and the job into one program, Delaware Paid Leave, and sizes it by tier. Employers with fewer than 10 Delaware employees are exempt but may opt in. From 10 to 24, you cover parental leave only and contribute 0.32 percent of wages. At 25 or more, you cover parental, medical, and family caregiving leave and contribute 0.80 percent. The Department of Labor says the benefit replaces 80 percent of wages up to $900 a week, and you may deduct up to half the contribution from the employee. Our article on Delaware Paid Leave tiers explains the quarterly count and the notice duties.

Pennsylvania is the quiet one. It has no state paid family leave program. For a Pennsylvania-only employer, the job-protection layer is the federal Family and Medical Leave Act, which the Department of Labor’s Fact Sheet 28 says applies at 50 or more employees in 20 or more workweeks.

Where the Philadelphia wage tax reaches

One more wrinkle shows up in cross-border hiring, and it has nothing to do with New Jersey or Delaware law. Philadelphia sits outside Pennsylvania’s Act 32 local tax system and runs its own wage tax through the Philadelphia Department of Revenue. The tax applies to anyone who lives in the city and to anyone who works in the city, no matter where they live. If your office is in Center City and you hire someone from Cherry Hill or Wilmington who commutes in, you withhold Philadelphia wage tax on that non-resident.

It cuts the other way too. If your office is in King of Prussia and you hire someone who lives in Philadelphia, the city’s tax follows that resident to your suburban payroll, and you must register with the City and withhold. Our guide to the Philadelphia wage tax for employers covers registration and rates, and the Act 32 guide covers local withholding for everyone else on your Pennsylvania payroll.

What to do before the offer letter goes out

Registrations in a new state take days, not hours. Work this list before you send the offer, not after the start date.

Checklist