Do you have to post a salary range for a remote job?
If your remote job is open to candidates in any state with a pay transparency law, you almost certainly have to post a salary range. Every one of these laws is triggered by where the work could be performed, not by where your company is headquartered or incorporated. A fully remote US role could be performed in Colorado, Washington, Maryland, Minnesota, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Massachusetts and California, so the strictest of those rules sets the bar for your posting.
This is the single most common compliance gap we see at companies under 200 people. The HR lead checks whether their own state has a posting law, finds it does not, and reasonably concludes they are fine. Then they publish a remote role on LinkedIn that a Denver engineer applies to, and the analysis they did was answering the wrong question. Below is what actually triggers coverage, the four ways employers try to avoid it and how well each works, and what a compliant remote posting looks like in 2026.
What actually triggers coverage
The mental model to drop is "my company is in Texas, so Texas law applies." Employment posting laws reach outward. Each one asks some version of: could this job be done by someone in our state, and are you big enough for us to care? The second half varies a lot, and the first half barely varies at all.
| State | Size threshold | How remote work pulls you in | Benefits line required? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maryland | None at all | Any position where work is physically performed at least in part in Maryland, including a remote role a Maryland resident could fill. | Yes |
| Colorado | One Colorado employee | Work that can be performed in Colorado. The threshold is effectively a single covered role. | Yes |
| Washington | 15 or more, counted globally | One Washington employee brings your global headcount into the count, then remote postings open to Washington are covered. | Yes |
| New Jersey | 10 or more, counted nationwide | Covers employers that do business, employ people or merely take applications in New Jersey. | Yes |
| New York | 4 or more | Roles performed at least partly in New York, including remote roles reporting to a New York office or supervisor. | No |
| Minnesota | 30 or more, Minnesota sites only | Only bites if you already have 30 people in Minnesota, which makes it the least likely to catch a small remote-first company. | Yes |
| Massachusetts | 25 or more, in-state only | Counts only Massachusetts-primary employees, so a distributed company can stay under it for a long time. | No |
| California | 15 or more | Applies where the position may ever be filled in California, in person or remotely. | No |
Read the size column carefully, because it is where remote-first companies get an unpleasant surprise and a pleasant one in the same table. The unpleasant one is Maryland, which has no size threshold whatsoever: an eight-person startup posting a nationwide remote role is covered exactly like a Fortune 500. The pleasant one is Minnesota, which counts only employees at Minnesota sites, so a distributed company with four people in the Twin Cities is under the line no matter how large it is nationally.
New Jersey deserves its own mention because it is the most misread rule in the set. Its 10-employee threshold is counted nationwide, not in New Jersey. One New Jersey remote worker plus nine people in Austin is a covered employer. Massachusetts does the reverse and counts only in-state. Multi-state employers get these two backwards more often than they get them right.
The four ways employers try to avoid this, ranked
Every company that discovers this problem tries one of the same four escapes. Here is how each actually holds up.
Works, at a cost
Exclude specific states from the posting
Writing "not open to candidates in CO, WA, NY, CA" is legal and some employers do it. Two problems. Colorado's regulators have taken the position that a blanket exclusion does not defeat coverage when the work could realistically still be performed there, so the exclusion has to be genuine rather than a formality. And you have just removed roughly a quarter of the US professional talent pool from your funnel to avoid writing one number. Candidates read state exclusions as a signal about how the company handles pay, and they are usually right.
Does not work
Skip the public posting and hire through referrals
Maryland closed this specifically. If the information was not in a posting, you must give the applicant the wage range, benefits and other compensation before any discussion of compensation, and again whenever they ask. Several other states define posting broadly enough that a recruiter's LinkedIn message or an emailed job description counts anyway.
Does not work
Let the staffing agency post it instead
Minnesota's definition of a posting expressly covers solicitations made through a third party, and New Jersey applies the same rules to agencies posting for a client. The obligation follows the role, not the publisher. If an agency trims your benefits paragraph to fit a job board's character limit, that is your violation.
Does not work
Post a range so wide it means nothing
"$80,000 to $250,000" satisfies nobody. Minnesota bans open-ended ranges by statute, and the good faith standard used in Colorado, Massachusetts and Maryland asks whether the range reflects what you would actually pay. A range spanning three levels is evidence that you have not built bands, which is the underlying problem the law is pointed at.
The honest summary is that there is no cheap escape, and the compliant path costs less than the escapes do. Publishing a real range is a one-time structural exercise. Maintaining a patchwork of state exclusions is permanent operational drag on every requisition you ever open.
National range or geographic tiers?
Once you accept that you are posting a number, the real design question arrives: do you publish one national range, or ranges by location tier? Both are defensible and they suit different companies.
A single national range is simpler, reads as fairer to candidates, and removes an entire class of awkward conversation about why someone in Boise is worth less than someone in Boston. It costs more, because you are effectively paying a blended rate everywhere, and it can price you out of low-cost markets where a local employer will beat you on nothing but geography working in reverse.
Geographic tiers are cheaper and more precise, and they are what most companies over about 50 people land on. The mechanics matter more than the concept: build one national band per role and level, then apply a documented multiplier per tier, so every posted range descends from the same structure. The alternative, benchmarking each role separately per city, produces inconsistencies you cannot explain a year later. We walk through the multiplier method in geographic pay differentials.
Whichever you choose, post the tier that applies to where the candidate would work, or post all the tiers with their ranges. What you cannot do is publish the union of every tier as one giant range and call it a national band.
The remote posting template that satisfies every state
Because a nationwide remote posting touches every posting law at once, the efficient answer is one template built to the strictest requirement in each category. That template has four elements.
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Element 01
A closed range with both ends real
A minimum and a maximum, no "up to", no "and up", no "starting at", no "competitive". Minnesota bans open-ended ranges outright and the good faith states will read a vague range as evidence you do not have one.
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Element 02
A general benefits and other compensation paragraph
Health, retirement, paid time off, plus any bonus, commission or equity. Five states require it, so on a nationwide remote posting it is effectively mandatory. Write it once and it lives in the template forever.
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Element 03
The location basis for the range
One sentence saying whether the range is national or tier-based, and which tier this posting shows. It costs nothing, it prevents the most common candidate complaint, and it documents that the range was set deliberately.
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Element 04
An archived copy of what you published
Maryland requires three years of records and Illinois requires five, including visual snapshots of postings. Job boards purge expired ads long before that, so save the published text to your own storage the day it goes live.
One more operational note that saves real time: hold this template in one place and make every requisition inherit from it. Teams that let each hiring manager write their own posting end up with a compliance surface that scales with headcount, and the same problem shows up again the moment you automate the first-round screening and start moving candidates through faster than anyone is reviewing the ad copy.
Frequently asked questions
Do you have to post a salary range for a remote job?
Usually yes. Every US state posting law is triggered by where the work could be performed, not where the employer is based. A remote role open nationwide could be performed in Colorado, Washington, Maryland, Minnesota, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Massachusetts and California, so the strictest of those rules governs your posting.
Can you exclude a state from a remote posting to avoid the law?
Legally you can exclude states, and some employers do, but Colorado has indicated a blanket exclusion does not by itself defeat coverage where the work could realistically still be performed there. It also removes a large share of the US talent pool from your funnel. Publishing a range is almost always cheaper.
Which state law applies to a job open in every state?
All of them at once, so the strictest requirement you touch sets the standard. In practice that means a closed range with a real minimum and maximum, plus a general description of benefits and other compensation, which together satisfy every current posting law.
Does a remote job posting need to list benefits?
If you are open to hiring in Colorado, Washington, Maryland, Minnesota or New Jersey, yes. Those five require a general description of benefits and other compensation alongside the pay figure, and a nationwide remote posting touches all of them.
Can a remote posting show a very wide national range?
It is risky. Minnesota bans open-ended ranges outright, and the good faith standard used elsewhere asks whether the range reflects what you would actually pay. Post either a national range that matches your real policy or tiered ranges by location, not the union of every tier.
Do these laws apply if we have no office in the state?
Frequently, yes. Maryland covers any position where work is physically performed at least in part in the state with no employee threshold. New Jersey covers employers that merely take applications from New Jersey residents. Having no office is rarely a defense.
Do it now
A remote posting needs one number you can defend in nine states at once. Wagelist turns a role, a market, a level and a company stage into a P25/P50/P75 band and a closed, posting-ready range from public U.S. BLS wage data, with the methodology attached so the good faith basis is documented before anyone asks for it.