How are PEOs regulated in Florida?

Florida calls it employee leasing

The state does not regulate “PEOs” by that name. According to the DBPR Employee Leasing Companies board page (Florida DBPR, retrieved 13 October 2026), the Board of Employee Leasing Companies is responsible for licensing and regulating employee leasing companies. The board’s own FAQ page (Florida DBPR, retrieved 13 October 2026) says the governing law is Chapter 468, Part XI, Florida Statutes, and Chapter 61G7 of the Florida Administrative Code.

DBPR describes an employee leasing company as a business entity that assigns its employees to a client and allocates the direction of and control over the leased employees between the leasing company and the client. That is the same shape as the co-employment arrangement we describe in what co-employment actually means. The same board page lists arrangements the term does not include, among them temporary help arrangements, an arrangement where an organization assigns only one category of employees to perform a separate and divisible function, and assignments only to a commonly controlled group of companies where the organization does not hold itself out to the public as an employee leasing company. DBPR’s FAQ also states that it does not regulate temporary agencies or staffing companies.

What licensing involves, as DBPR states it

Per the DBPR FAQ page, an employee leasing company cannot receive a license without at least one licensed controlling person, and a person cannot be licensed as a controlling person unless there is also a licensed company. A controlling person is generally anyone who owns 50 percent or more of the voting securities, who has the power to direct management or policies, who can endorse negotiable instruments for the company, or who is authorised to enter a contract with a client on the company’s behalf. Two to five commonly owned companies can operate as one licensee, an “employee leasing company group.”

The DBPR board page lists the license fees and cycle: $900 for an employee leasing company, $1,500 for a group and $600 for a controlling person, no continuing education requirement, and licenses expiring on April 30 of even-numbered years. Fees can change, so check the page itself rather than relying on a copy.

Ongoing duties and financial requirements

The DBPR FAQ page describes continuing obligations. A quarterly report is due within 75 days after each calendar quarter, with a copy of the company’s workers’ compensation certificate of insurance for that quarter; the first and third quarter reports also include a balance sheet and income statement. An annual report is due within 120 days after the fiscal year end, and an annual assessment is due April 1 and delinquent after April 30. The same page says there is no inactive license status, and that a licensee with no leased employees still files and still shows workers’ compensation coverage.

On financial strength, the FAQ states that a surety bond cannot be used to meet the financial requirements, and that the board accepts a board-approved guaranty form or a letter of credit in the approved language to offset deficiencies in net worth and net working capital. It also says a company accredited by the Employer Services Assurance Corporation (ESAC) is not required to file the quarterly or annual financial reports with DBPR, but must still be licensed in Florida. The specific net worth and working-capital thresholds were not on the pages we read.

Out-of-state companies and the de minimis registration

A company based in another state is not exempt simply because it is licensed there. The DBPR FAQ says an out-of-state company that is licensed elsewhere and ESAC-accredited must still be licensed in Florida under Chapter 468, Part XI and Chapter 61G7. The one carve-out is the “de minimis” registration, which the DBPR board page defines as a company domiciled outside Florida and licensed or registered in its home state, that provides no leased employees to a client located or domiciled in Florida, keeps no Florida office, does not solicit Florida clients, and has no more than 50 leased employees working in the state. DBPR calls such a company “registered with the state but not licensed.” The FAQ says de minimis registrants are exempt from the licensing requirements of section 468.525 of the Florida Statutes, including quarterly and annual financial statements.

Workers’ compensation and where the state’s own pages stop

The only workers’ compensation requirement we could read on a primary page is the one DBPR attaches to the license: the licensee files a certificate of insurance with every quarterly report. The FAQ also notes that client initiation and termination reporting (Form EL 4502) is no longer handled by DBPR and points to the Florida Department of Revenue and the Department of Financial Services’ Division of Workers’ Compensation. We could not load the Division’s own coverage pages, so we do not state its coverage, exemption or leasing rules here; our general page on how workers’ compensation premium is rated covers the mechanics that are not state-specific.

A state license is not the IRS certification

These are two separate things. The IRS CPEO page (Internal Revenue Service, retrieved 13 October 2026) says a certified professional employer organization is a PEO certified by the IRS under Internal Revenue Code section 7705, and describes the program, created by the Tax Increase Prevention Act of 2014, as a voluntary certification program. The IRS publishes public lists of certified, suspended and revoked CPEOs (IRS, page last reviewed 26 November 2025), and says the certified list is updated by the 15th day of the first month of each calendar quarter. Certification status matters for tax mechanics such as wage bases; the cost page and our PEO explainer cover why it has a dollar value.