Kansas Payroll Taxes and Withholding Guide (2026)

What Makes Kansas Payroll Different

Federal payroll tax is the same in every state. What changes from one state to the next is the second layer: state income tax withholding, employer unemployment taxes, any local wage taxes, and any state social-insurance premiums. Kansas's second layer is clean. There is a graduated state income tax, and that is essentially it: no local wage tax, no state disability or paid family leave deduction, no employee unemployment line, and no reciprocity paperwork.

The income tax itself is withheld with an allowance-based percentage method: the employer subtracts the Form K-4 withholding allowance, then applies a single or married rate chart set at 5.2% and 5.58%. What is unusual about Kansas is the two-tier allowance, a large $9,160 personal exemption but a small $2,320 dependent allowance, and the rule that the Joint rate is available only when a spouse has no income. The federal baseline behind all of this is explained in the how payroll taxes work guide.

Employee Withholding Overview in Kansas

A Kansas employee sees federal taxes and a graduated state income tax. There is no employee unemployment line, no state disability or paid-leave line, and no local wage line.

The federal lines work identically to any other state. For Social Security, the 2026 wage base is $184,500, after which Social Security stops for the year. Medicare has no cap. What is unique to Kansas is a graduated state income tax reduced by the Form K-4 allowance, and nothing else on the state side. There is no local wage tax and no employee unemployment contribution.

How Is Kansas State Income Tax Withheld?

Kansas uses the percentage method in the Kansas Department of Revenue publication KW-100, Kansas Withholding Tax Guide. The employer annualizes wages, subtracts the Form K-4 withholding allowance, then applies the graduated rate chart for the employee's single or married allowance rate and divides across pay periods, rounding to the nearest whole dollar. The single-status chart below applies to the annual wage after allowances. The first band is a zero-tax band that builds in the Kansas standard deduction, so the standard deduction is not subtracted separately.

Married employees using the Joint rate use a wider chart on the same annual wage after allowances: $0 up to $8,240, then 5.2% to $54,240, then $2,392.00 plus 5.58% above $54,240. These rates were set by Senate Bill 1 of the 2024 special session and apply to both 2025 and 2026; the Kansas paycheck calculator reproduces the Kansas Department of Revenue's own worked example to the published dollar. Your final Kansas income tax is settled on Form K-40. The federal Form W-4 sets federal withholding, covered in the W-4 withholding explained guide, while Form K-4 sets the Kansas allowance rate and exemption.

The Two-Tier Kansas Allowance

This is the layer that defines Kansas withholding. Rather than a single flat per-allowance figure, Kansas subtracts a withholding allowance amount built from the Form K-4 personal exemption, and it comes in two sizes.

Because the personal exemption ($9,160) is nearly four times the dependent allowance ($2,320), the marital status and personal exemption move a Kansas check far more than the number of dependents. A single filer who claims the $9,160 exemption pays about $511 a year less than someone with no K-4 on file, while adding a dependent lowers the check by only about $129 a year. The Kansas paycheck calculator shows the exemption amount used at your income.

Kansas Withholding (Form K-4)

Form K-4, the Employee's Withholding Allowance Certificate, is Kansas's own withholding certificate, separate from the federal W-4. It sets the Kansas allowance rate (Single or Joint) and the total number of allowances used in the percentage method.

Allowance Rate and Allowances

The K-4 allowance rate is Single or Joint. You mark Joint only if you are married and your spouse has no income; if you are single, or married and your spouse also earns, you mark Single. The K-4 Personal Allowance Worksheet then counts allowances: one for yourself, one for a spouse who does not work, two if you file head of household, and one for each dependent. Each personal or spouse allowance is worth $9,160 and each dependent allowance is worth $2,320.

Two-earner married couples should note the Joint chart is wide because its brackets are far larger than the single ones; if both spouses used Joint, each employer would withhold as if that salary were the household's only income. That is why Kansas restricts the Joint rate to a spouse with no income. To see how the rate and exemption change take-home pay, use the Kansas paycheck calculator.

Kansas Has No Income Tax Reciprocity

Some states sign reciprocal agreements so that a commuter who lives in one state and works in another pays income tax only to the home state. Kansas has no such agreements with any state.

That means a resident of Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, or Colorado who works in Kansas has Kansas income tax withheld from their pay and files a Kansas nonresident return (Form K-40 with Schedule S). They then claim a credit for the tax paid to Kansas on their home-state return, so the same wages are not taxed twice. The Kansas City metro straddles the Missouri line, so this comes up constantly for workers who live on one side and work on the other. There is no reciprocity certificate to stop Kansas withholding, unlike states such as neighboring Missouri's arrangements with some of its neighbors.

Employer Payroll Obligations in Kansas

Kansas employers carry the federal employer taxes plus State Unemployment Insurance through the Kansas Department of Labor. The federal side, covered in the employer payroll tax obligations guide, includes the matching 6.2% Social Security and 1.45% Medicare plus Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA).

The Kansas unemployment taxable wage base is $15,100 per employee for 2026, so the employer unemployment tax stops once an employee's year-to-date wages pass $15,100. New non-construction employers pay a 2.7% rate (construction employers pay a higher rate) before moving to an experience-rated rate; these are employer costs and are never deducted from employee pay. Kansas withholding tax is reported on the KW-5 deposit report and reconciled annually on Form KW-3. Model the combined cost-to-hire with the employer payroll tax calculator.

Kansas Has No Employee Unemployment Deduction

A handful of states, including Pennsylvania and New Jersey, take a small unemployment contribution directly from employee wages. Kansas is not one of them. The entire cost of Kansas unemployment insurance falls on employers through the Kansas Department of Labor, so there is no employee unemployment line on a Kansas pay stub.

Kansas also has no state disability insurance and no paid-family-and-medical-leave payroll deduction, so there is no state social-insurance line at all. This matters most for workers who move to Kansas from a state that does deduct one of those (California SDI, Washington PFML, New Jersey UI/DI) and expect to see the same line. In Kansas those lines do not exist. The mandatory deductions on a Kansas stub are federal taxes and the graduated state income tax, with no local or employee-social-insurance lines.

Kansas Supplemental Wage Withholding

Supplemental wages are payments outside regular salary: bonuses, commissions, overtime, sales awards, and back pay. Kansas has a specific rule for them in the KW-100.

• Stated separately: when a supplemental payment such as a bonus is identified separately from regular wages, Kansas withholds a flat 5% of the payment. Kansas withholding on a $1,000 bonus is $50 ($1,000 × 5%).
• Combined with regular wages: if the supplemental wage is added to regular wages and not itemized, the employer runs the combined amount through the regular percentage-method or wage-bracket tables.
• Local wage tax: none, on supplemental wages or regular wages.
• Employee unemployment: none, on supplemental wages or regular wages.

Federal income tax withholding on supplemental wages is a separate calculation set by the IRS, often the 22% federal flat supplemental rate, and Social Security and Medicare still apply under their own rules. For the federal supplemental math, use the Bonus Tax Calculator.

Kansas Filing and Payment Frequency

Kansas employers remit withheld state income tax on a schedule set by the amount withheld: annual, quarterly, monthly, semi-monthly, or quad-monthly filing frequencies are assigned based on payroll size. Deposits are made on Form KW-5, and the year is reconciled on the annual withholding return Form KW-3 with the W-2 data. Returns are filed through the Kansas Department of Revenue Customer Service Center. The federal deposit schedule is covered separately in the payroll tax deadlines guide.

Unemployment tax is reported and paid separately from income tax withholding, quarterly through the Kansas Department of Labor. New employees must be reported to the Kansas new-hire directory within 20 days of the hire date.

How Take-Home Pay Works in Kansas

The calculation sequence runs from gross pay down to net pay. Because Kansas income tax begins with federal wages, the same pre-tax deductions that reduce federal wages also reduce the Kansas state base.

1. Start with gross wages for the pay period.
2. Subtract federal pre-tax deductions (401(k), Section 125 health premiums) to find taxable wages for federal and Kansas state tax.
3. Apply federal income tax withholding using the Form W-4 and IRS Publication 15-T.
4. Annualize wages, subtract the Form K-4 allowance, apply the graduated single or married chart, round to the nearest whole dollar, and divide across pay periods.
5. Subtract Social Security (6.2%) and Medicare (1.45%) on FICA wages. The remainder is net pay; there is no employee unemployment line, no state disability line, and no local wage line.

To see exact figures for a specific salary, K-4 status, and pay frequency, use the Kansas paycheck calculator or the general take-home pay calculator for a full pre-tax benefits stack.

Kansas Payroll Quick Facts (2026)

Frequently Asked Questions