Publication 911: Electronic reporting of quarterly wage and withholding tax information based on federal formats

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For calendar quarters beginning on or after January 1, 2021, there will be a new Online Services application for employers, payers and/or agents preparing reports for employers/payers to upload wage reporting bulk files.

The new application will no longer process wage upload files that contain errors, including employer or employee data errors, formatting errors, and nonfatal errors. The errors contained in the file will be displayed within the Web application. All errors must be corrected before uploading the file for the file to be accepted. After submitting a file an e-mail will be sent for all successful and failed uploaded files. The file format in this publication is not changing.

This publication, which supersedes the 6/20 version, describes specifications, formats, and layouts for reporting quarterly employee wage reporting and withholding tax information using the Tax Department’s Online Services). Employers/payers must report wage and withholding information using the specifications in this publication.

While some information on wage reporting and withholding is included in this publication, specific definitions and requirements are in Publication NYS-50, Employer's Guide to Unemployment Insurance, Wage Reporting, and Withholding Tax.

If you have questions regarding technical specifications, call 518-457-7105.

Compatibility

Formats previously submitted and successfully processed can continue to be submitted without change.

Filing requirements

New York State requires employers to electronically file their quarterly wage reporting and withholding tax information. Wage reporting upload is one option available to electronically file your information using the Tax Department’s Online Services. Using this option limits the potential for data entry errors, simplifies filing for the employer and streamlines processing.

Effective January 1, 2019 employers/payers must report total UI remuneration, gross federal wages or distribution subject to withholding, and total New York State, New York City and Yonkers tax withheld each calendar quarter for each employee/payee paid during the quarter you are reporting for.

Note: The amounts you report are only the amounts paid or withheld within the quarter you are reporting.

For tax years 2018 and prior, employers/payers must report total UI Remuneration paid to each employee each calendar quarter. On the fourth quarter return (or the return covering the period in which an employer permanently ceases to pay wages), employers/payers must also report the cumulative total of gross federal wages or distribution subject to withholding and total New York State, New York City and Yonkers tax withheld.

The Tax Department will not accept amended information using federal specifications. Amended information must be submitted on either Form NYS-45-X or Form NYS-45-ATT according to the instructions, or via the upload according to the specifications described in Publication 69, Electronic reporting of quarterly combined wage and withholding tax information.

Record retention

Employers/payers must retain a copy of the uploaded files, or be able to reconstruct the data, for at least four years after the due date of the report.

Penalties

Failing to electronically file your quarterly wage reporting and withholding tax information may subject the employer/payer to penalties and delays in processing.

Submission of test media

Employers, payers, and/or agents preparing reports for employers/payers, and filers electing to file via the upload, are required to submit a test file using the format specified in this publication. Test submissions should be submitted in the same format that will be used to submit actual return information.

Transmitters will submit a test upload file using the Web application and receive immediate results on the success or failure of the file. Transmitters will no longer need to wait up to 30 days to be notified of the success or failure of a test file.

Upon submission, the transmitter will be notified within the Web application if the file is successful. If there are fatal errors contained in the file, the errors will be displayed within the Web application. All errors must be corrected before uploading the test file for the file to be successful.

Transmitters who plan on submitting information for more than a single employer should include at least two employers with at least 20 employee records for each of the included employers.

Submission requirements

Employers/payers submitting data via the upload must not send the same data on paper. Agents reporting for one or more employers/payers must advise those employers not to submit separate reports to the Tax Department. Only one file is permitted.

The due dates for the employee wage reporting and withholding data are:

Quarterly due dates
Quarter	Due date*
January 1 to March 31	April 30
April 1 to June 30	July 31
July 1 to September 30	October 31
October 1 to December 31	January 31

* When the actual due date falls on a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday, New York State Tax Law permits you to file on the next business day.

Technical specifications

All data records must have a fixed length of 512 bytes. Deviations from the prescribed format are not acceptable.

Multi-volume media are not acceptable. Data can be compressed and/or zipped as needed. A properly composed file begins with a Code RA record and ends with a Code RF record.

Transmitters for multiple employers must use consolidated files, rather than a separate file for each employer or client of the transmitter. Submissions that include multiple employers must be sorted in ascending EIN order.

Print files are not acceptable.

Data must be recorded in uppercase letters only.

Technical specifications

File composition

A properly composed file contains the following records in sequence.

Record RA, Transmitter record
Record RE, Employer/payer record
Record RS (36), State employee/payee records
Record RU, Total record
Record RF, Final record (occurs only once after all employer/payer records)

Repeat records RE and RU for each employer in the file.

Note: only RS records containing a value of 36 in the State Code field (locations 3 and 4) will be processed for New York State purposes.

The employer identifying number in New York State is primarily the federal EIN with two exceptions:

temporary nine-character numbers beginning with TF are used until the federal EIN is assigned; and
decentralized employers may apply for a location suffix to their federal EIN.

Wage reports

Beginning with tax year 2019, if the employee/payee does not have any gross wages covered by unemployment insurance in New York State, gross federal wages or distribution subject to withholding and New York State, New York City and Yonkers tax withheld in the calendar quarter you are reporting the employee/payee should not be reported.

If the employee/payee did not have any gross wages covered by unemployment insurance or if the employee is not covered by unemployment insurance in New York State in the quarter you are reporting, the UI remuneration paid this quarter field should be zero filled. However, if the employee/payee had gross federal wages or distribution subject to withholding and New York State, New York City and Yonkers tax withheld in that quarter you are required to report those amounts for each employee/payee paid during the quarter.

For tax year 2018 and prior, if the employee/payee does not have any gross wages covered by unemployment insurance in New York State during quarters one, two, or three, then that employee/payee should not be reported for those quarters. The fourth quarter submission requires reporting of the total gross federal wages or distribution subject to withholding and total New York State, New York City and Yonkers tax withheld for all employees/payees for all quarters during the year. If the employee/payee did not have any gross wages covered by unemployment insurance in the fourth quarter, or if the employee is not covered by unemployment insurance in New York State, the UI remuneration paid this quarter field should be zero-filled.

Employers who are liable under the Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA) must include a separate employee record for any employee receiving payments of severance pay and the first six months of sick pay. This additional employee record must be identified by entering a letter O for other types of wages at position 243 of the RS record. Specific details related to these types of other wages are available in Publication NYS-50.

All gross federal wages subject to withholding and total New York State, New York City and Yonkers tax withheld must be reported in the RS employee record containing regular wages (that is, with the letter W in position 243).

Money amounts

All money fields are strictly numeric.
Include dollars and cents with the decimal point assumed. Do not use any punctuation in any field.
Right-justify and zero-fill all money fields.
In a money field that is not applicable, enter zeros.
Negative money amounts are not acceptable.
High-order signed fields are not acceptable.
In general, state quarterly UI remuneration must include wages that are subject to Article 18 of the Labor Law. These wages are the basis for claims for unemployment insurance benefits in New York State.
In general, gross federal wages subject to withholding is the amount of wages that are subject to withholding tax.
Total tax withheld is the sum of taxes withheld for New York State, New York City, and the city of Yonkers.

Employee/payee name formats

Left-justify the name, in uppercase only, and list the first name first. Separate all segments of the name, including each initial, by blanks.
Connect parts of a compound surname by a hyphen.
Do not use a blank to separate single letter prefixes (such as O or D) from the rest of the surname; they may be separated by an apostrophe or be contiguous with the rest of the name.
Do not use commas to separate names.
Connect last name suffixes (such as Jr, Sr, or MD) to the last name with a hyphen.

File formats

For information regarding content of any of the fields, refer to Publication NYS-50.

Record name: Code RA, Submitter record
Field	Location	Length	Comment
Record identifier	1-2	2	Constant RA
Submitter’s employer identification number (EIN)	3-13	11	Transmitter's federal EIN or NYS tax identification number; left-justify and fill with blanks; no hyphens or spaces in number
Blank	14-216	203
Submitter name	217-273	57	Organization transmitting the file; left-justify and fill with blanks
Location address	274-295	22
Delivery address	296-317	22	Street address of transmitter; left justify and fill with blanks
City	318-339	22	Left justify and fill with blanks
State abbreviation	340-341	2	Use standard two-letter postal abbreviation
ZIP code	342-346	5	Left justify and fill with blanks
Blank	347-395	49
Contact name	396-422	27
Contact phone number	423-437	15
Contact phone extension	438-442	5
Blank	443-445	3
Contact email/Internet address	446-485	40
Blank	486-488	3
Contact fax number	489-512	24

Record name: Code RE, Employer record
Field	Location	Length	Comment
Record identifier	1-2	2	Constant RE
Blank	3-7	5
Employer identification number (EIN)	8-18	11	Employer's federal EIN or NYS tax identification number; left-justify and fill with blanks; no hyphens or spaces in number
Blank	19-39	21
Employer name	40-118	79	Left-justify and fill with blanks
Delivery address	119-140	22	Street address of employer; left justify and fill with blanks
City	141-162	22	Left-justify and fill with blanks
State abbreviation	163-164	2	Use standard two-letter postal abbreviation
ZIP code	165-169	5	Left-justify and fill with blanks
ZIP code extension	170-173	4
Quarter and year being reported	174-178	5	Format should be QYYYY with Q values of 1, 2, 3, 4, and YYYY values being the tax year. Update each quarter.
Blank	179-512	334

Record name: RS, Employee record
Field	Location	Length	Comment
Record identifier	1-2	2	Constant RS
State code	3-4	2	Constant 36
Blank	5-9	5
Social Security number (SSN)	10-18	9	Omit hyphens
Employee first name	19-33	15	Left-justify and fill with blanks
Employee middle initial	34-48	15	Left-justify and fill with blanks
Employee last name	49-68	20	Left-justify and fill with blanks
Suffix	69-72	4	Left-justify and fill with blanks
Blank	73-202	130
State quarterly UI remuneration	203-213	11	Wages subject to UI in New York State; right justify, zero fill, dollars and cents, implied decimal
Blank	214-242	29
Wage type	243	1	Wages type identifier. Applies only to quarterly wages. Enter letter W for regular wages and letter O for other wages (see NYS-50 for more information)
Blank	244-275	32
Gross federal wages or distribution subject to withholding	276-286	11	Wages, tips, and other compensation subject to New York State withholding tax; right justify, zero fill, dollars and cents, implied decimal
Total NYS, NYC & Yonkers tax withheld	287-297	11	NYS, NYC and Yonkers income tax withheld (lump sum); right justify, zero fill, dollars and cents, implied decimal
Blank	298-512	215

Record name: Code RU, Total record
Field	Location	Length	Comment
Record identifier	1-2	2	Constant RU
Number of RS records	3-9	7	Enter the total number of RS records for this employer, right-justify and zero-fill
Blank	10-512	503

Record name: Code RF, Final record
Location	Field	Length	Description and remarks
Record identifier	1-2	2	Constant RF. This record is only included to indicate end of file
Blank	3-512	510

Updated: December 14, 2022