Tennessee Employee Cost Calculator
The annual, monthly, and hourly cost of a hire in Tennessee, with local state unemployment pre-filled.
Pre-filled with Tennessee estimates: SUI 2.7% on a $7,000 wage base, no state income tax. Edit any field below.
2,080 = 40 hours × 52 weeks
Sets the SUI rate and wage base below. Both stay editable.
New-employer estimate; use your assigned rate
SUI applies only up to this amount
Health, retirement match, etc.
Vacation, sick, and holidays
Equipment, software, admin
$108,962
Annual employer cost
$9,080
Per month
$52.39
Per hour (2,080 hrs)
28.2%
Burden on salary
Cost breakdown
At $108,962 a year, a wrong hire is expensive. Skillora's AI screens and scores every resume against the role before you spend it.
Estimates only, using editable 2025 US defaults. Tax and insurance rates vary by employer, classification, and locality. Verify with a licensed accountant before relying on these figures.
A Tennessee hire costs $108,962. Screen first.
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An $85,000 hire in Tennessee costs the employer about $108,962 a year at the defaults on this page, or $9,080 a month and $52.39 an hour on 2,080 hours. The $23,962 above salary is the burden: employer FICA, federal and state unemployment, workers comp, benefits, paid time off, and overhead. The calculator pre-fills Tennessee's SUI estimate; every other field is editable.
Tennessee charges state unemployment insurance on the first $7,000 of each employee's wages, at an estimated 2.7% for a new employer. On an $85,000 salary that is $189 for the year, $119 below the $308 median across the 51 jurisdictions on this site. The wage base is met in week 5 of a full-time year, so SUI stops accruing after that and the annual figure is the cap. Experience-rated employers pay more or less than the new-employer rate, so replace it with the rate on your annual notice.
Tennessee has no state income tax on wages. That changes nothing in the employer's cost above, but an $85,000 salary goes further for the employee than the same salary in a taxing state, which can make a Tennessee offer competitive at a lower number.
The largest line in the Tennessee total is employer FICA at $6,503, which is federal and identical in every state. Benefits at 8.0% add $6,800, and 15 days of PTO cost $4,904 in salary paid for hours not worked. Workers comp at 1.5% adds $1,275; the real rate depends on the class code and on Tennessee's rate filings, so replace the default with the rate on your policy.
For a staffing agency placing a W2 employee in Tennessee at this salary, $108,962 is the floor a bill rate has to clear: $52.39 an hour before any gross margin. In Tennessee, SUI is a small share of that floor, so the bill rate math is driven by FICA, benefits, and the workers comp class, not the state.
| Line ($85,000 in Tennessee) | % of salary | Annual |
|---|---|---|
| Employer FICA (Social Security + Medicare) | 7.7% | $6,503 |
| Federal Unemployment (FUTA) | 0.1% | $42 |
| State Unemployment (SUI) | 0.2% | $189 |
| Workers' Compensation | 1.5% | $1,275 |
| Benefits (health, retirement) | 8.0% | $6,800 |
| Paid time off | 5.8% | $4,904 |
| Overhead (equipment, admin) | 5.0% | $4,250 |
| Total burden | 28.2% | $23,962 |
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