US employee benefits are less about a long federal checklist and more about health insurance, state rules and competitive expectations. For a professional hire, budget roughly 25–35% above base salary before any EOR fee, then model family coverage and the employee’s work state separately.
Most foreign companies do not ask about US employee benefits early enough.
By the time benefits come up, something has usually already gone wrong.
A candidate in Texas has received an offer and replied, “What health plan do you provide?”
Finance approved a $120,000 salary and has just discovered that the employee may actually cost $150,000 or more.
A contractor who has effectively worked as a full-time employee for eight months has started asking about benefits and classification.
Or the company has grown without noticing that a federal or state threshold is approaching.
That is the first thing employers expanding into the United States need to understand:
US employee benefits should be designed before the offer, not after it.
For foreign companies, the US system can feel backwards. The federal list of mandatory employee benefits is relatively short. Yet a benefits package that merely meets the legal minimum is rarely enough to recruit professional employees.
Health insurance illustrates the problem.
A company below the federal Affordable Care Act employer-mandate threshold may not be federally required to offer health insurance. But trying to recruit experienced US employees without meaningful health coverage is a completely different question.
Legally optional does not mean commercially optional.
This guide explains both.
If you are still deciding how the employee will actually be hired, start with Peorient’s guide to hiring employees in the US as a foreign company. The employment structure and benefits decision are closely connected.
The US does not have one national statutory benefits package comparable with many European or Asian markets.
For a normal employee, the employer cost stack usually starts with payroll taxes and state-level employment obligations.
For 2026, employers pay 6.2% Social Security tax on wages up to $184,500 and 1.45% Medicare tax with no wage ceiling. The Social Security Administration publishes the annual wage base here.
That means an employer pays $7,650 in employer FICA taxes on a $100,000 salary.
Federal unemployment tax, or FUTA, is nominally 6% on the first $7,000 of taxable wages. Employers receiving the full state unemployment tax credit generally reach an effective FUTA rate of 0.6%, or $42 per employee, although credit-reduction states can increase the amount. The IRS explains the FUTA credit calculation here.
State unemployment insurance then sits on top. Rates and taxable wage bases depend on the employee’s state and the employer’s claims history.
Workers’ compensation is another state-based obligation. Requirements vary, although Texas is unusual because most private employers can elect not to carry workers’ compensation insurance. Texas explains its optional system here.
Not for every employer.
Under the Affordable Care Act, an employer generally becomes an Applicable Large Employer when it averaged at least 50 full-time employees, including full-time equivalents, during the previous calendar year.
ALEs can become subject to employer shared-responsibility requirements and annual reporting obligations. Part-time employees matter because their hours are aggregated when calculating full-time equivalents. The IRS explains the 50-FTE calculation here.
This is why “we only have 44 full-time employees” is not enough information.
A company with 44 full-time employees and enough part-time hours can still cross the threshold.
For employers below that threshold, federal law generally does not force the company to offer health coverage.
But that is the legal answer.
The hiring answer is different.
For most professional roles, meaningful health insurance is a baseline employment expectation rather than a perk.
Peorient field note: benefits rarely win a candidate. They lose one. A strong benefits package feels normal. A weak package suddenly becomes the entire negotiation.
For initial budgeting, Peorient uses a practical working range of roughly 25–35% above base salary for a typical professional hire, before adding an EOR fee.
It is a budgeting rule, not a statutory percentage.
A $100,000 employee might look approximately like this:
A practical view of the main employer costs involved in hiring a US employee, and whether each cost scales with salary or stays largely fixed per person.
| Cost | Illustrative annual employer cost | How it behaves |
|---|---|---|
| Social Security + Medicare | $7,650 | Percentage of salary, subject to Social Security cap |
| FUTA | About $42 with full credit | Capped |
| State unemployment | $300–$1,500 budgeting range | State and employer specific |
| Workers' compensation | $300–$1,000 for low-risk office work | Industry and state specific |
| Health insurance, single coverage | Roughly $8,000 employer share | Mostly per employee |
| Health insurance, family coverage | Roughly $20,000 employer share | Mostly per employee/family |
| Dental + vision | $500–$900 | Mostly flat per employee |
| Life + disability | $300–$700 | Mostly flat per employee |
| 401(k) match | Often 3–5% of salary | Percentage based |
| State leave or retirement costs | Varies | Location specific |
| EOR fee, if applicable | Often $6,000–$9,000 | Usually flat per employee |
The health figures are not hypothetical. KFF’s 2025 Employer Health Benefits Survey found average annual premiums of $9,325 for single coverage and $26,993 for family coverage. Workers contributed an average of $1,440 toward single coverage and $6,850 toward family coverage, leaving employers funding most of the total. See KFF’s 2025 employer health benefits data.
That is why the salary percentage can mislead you.
Payroll taxes scale with salary.
Health insurance largely does not.
An employer may pay a similar health premium for a $60,000 employee and a $250,000 employee.
That means benefits can consume a much larger percentage of compensation for junior roles.
If the employee needs family coverage, a lower-paid employee can easily produce a benefits loading above 35–40%.
At senior compensation levels, the same fixed health cost becomes a much smaller percentage.
Do not take base salary, multiply it by 1.3 and assume the model is finished.
Model health coverage separately.
And model employee-only and family scenarios separately.
Usually not in the simple salary-loading calculation.
If you agree to pay an employee $100,000 annually, their paid vacation days are already inside that annual salary.
PTO still creates an operational cost, and in some states it can create an accounting liability. But you should not normally add another percentage of salary simply because the employee receives 15 vacation days.
Federal law does not require private employers to provide paid vacation, paid sick leave or paid federal holidays under the Fair Labor Standards Act. State and local laws can impose separate requirements. The US Department of Labor explains the federal position here.
The FLSA also does not generally require severance pay, although contracts, benefit plans and other laws can create obligations. See the Department of Labor’s severance guidance.
For a professional employee, Peorient’s practical starting package is:
A practical starting point for professional US hires. These are market recommendations, not the federal legal minimum.
| Benefit | Practical baseline |
|---|---|
| Medical insurance | Employer pays about 75–80% of employee premium |
| Dependent medical coverage | Employer contributes at least 50% |
| Dental | Included |
| Vision | Included |
| Life insurance | Included |
| Short/long-term disability | Included |
| 401(k) | 4% employer match |
| Vesting | Immediate |
| Vacation | 15 days initially |
| Sick leave | 8–10 separate days |
| Paid holidays | Around 10–11 |
| Parental leave | 12 weeks paid for all parents |
| Bereavement | 5 days for immediate family |
This is not the federal legal minimum.
It is the package we would start from when trying to make an offer look normal to a US professional.
For a wider operational view, Peorient’s guide to employee benefits administration explains how benefits move from plan design into ongoing administration.
Candidates do not value every benefit equally.
A wellness stipend and a health plan are both technically “benefits.”
They are not remotely equal.
The highest-impact questions tend to be:
Candidates do not judge a benefits package by how many perks are listed. They judge it by cost, risk and what happens when they actually need the benefit.
Employers describe benefits by what is included. Employees evaluate them by what leaves their bank account each month and what happens when something goes wrong.
That is the benefits document candidates are mentally reading.
Employers often send a different one filled with wellness budgets, apps, learning allowances, snacks and other low-cost extras.
Those additions are fine.
But they should come after the benefits that can remove hundreds or thousands of dollars from an employee’s bank account.
The easiest way to understand US health insurance is as a series of gates.
Think of a theme park.
The premium is the membership fee. You pay it every month simply to stay insured.
The deductible is the amount you may need to spend before the insurer begins paying for many covered services.
Coinsurance is the percentage you continue paying after reaching the deductible.
A copay is a fixed amount for a particular service, such as a doctor visit.
The out-of-pocket maximum is the annual ceiling on what you pay for covered in-network care through deductibles, copays and coinsurance.
The network determines which doctors and hospitals participate in your plan.
For Marketplace plans in 2026, the out-of-pocket limit cannot exceed $10,600 for an individual or $21,200 for a family. HealthCare.gov explains the 2026 out-of-pocket maximum here.
That legal maximum should not become your target.
KFF found the average deductible for workers with single coverage and a general deductible was $1,886 in 2025. At firms with 10–199 employees, it was considerably higher at $2,631.
A cheap premium paired with a very high deductible and high out-of-pocket maximum can feel like poor insurance to the employee using it.
An HMO usually provides the narrowest structure. Employees generally use a defined network and may need a primary-care referral before seeing specialists.
A PPO generally gives employees more freedom to see specialists and may provide some out-of-network coverage.
An EPO normally offers direct specialist access but has a harder boundary around its provider network.
An HDHP is different. It describes the cost structure rather than the provider network. It has a higher deductible and may qualify an employee to contribute to a Health Savings Account.
For 2026, an HSA-qualified HDHP must have a deductible of at least $1,700 for self-only coverage or $3,400 for family coverage. Its qualifying out-of-pocket expenses cannot exceed $8,500 and $17,000 respectively. The 2026 HSA contribution limits are $4,400 for self-only coverage and $8,750 for family coverage. The IRS publishes the 2026 HSA and HDHP limits here.
An HSA is valuable because the account belongs to the employee and unused funds can remain available for future eligible medical costs.
Do not confuse an HSA with an FSA. They have different eligibility, ownership and rollover rules.
Do not begin with the monthly premium.
Compare in this order:
One statistic makes the dependent-coverage issue clear.
KFF found the average worker contribution toward family coverage was $6,850 annually in 2025. At firms with 10–199 employees, the average worker contribution was $8,889.
That is real household cash flow.
And if someone has to bridge a gap using COBRA after leaving a previous employer, qualified beneficiaries can generally be charged up to 102% of the full group-plan premium. The Department of Labor explains COBRA premium rules here.
Using KFF’s 2025 average family premium, 102% would be roughly $2,300 per month.
That is why the start date of health coverage is not an admin detail.
There is no general federal rule requiring every private employer to provide a 401(k).
But state retirement mandates have changed the practical answer.
California, for example, now requires eligible employers with one or more employees to provide access to a qualified retirement program or comply through CalSavers unless exempt. The expansion took full effect for the smallest covered employers by 2026. See the current CalSavers employer mandate.
New York Secure Choice applies to qualifying employers with 10 or more employees that have been in business for at least two years and do not already offer a qualified retirement plan. See New York Secure Choice requirements.
Colorado has its own threshold for eligible employers with five or more employees.
The important distinction is that these state programs can require access to retirement savings. They do not necessarily require the employer to provide a 4% match.
The goal is not to make the retirement plan complicated. It is to give employees a credible, low-friction benefit they can understand and actually use.
Keep the match sensible, make the employer contribution valuable from day one, reduce friction to participation, and avoid expensive funds or long waiting periods that weaken the benefit.
For 2026, the federal employee elective-deferral limit for a 401(k) is $24,500, with separate catch-up rules for eligible older employees. See the IRS 2026 401(k) limits.
If your benefits budget is limited, we would rather see a company offer a sensible 4% immediately vested match and improve dependent health coverage than advertise a 6% match alongside weak medical insurance.
The principle is simple:
Fix the benefit that costs the employee money this month before increasing the benefit they may use decades from now.
The federal baseline is much thinner than many international employers expect.
The FLSA does not require paid vacation, paid sick leave or paid public holidays.
The Family and Medical Leave Act provides eligible employees of covered employers with up to 12 weeks of job-protected leave for qualifying family and medical reasons, but the leave itself can be unpaid.
Private-sector FMLA coverage generally involves employers with at least 50 employees, while individual eligibility includes service and hours-worked requirements and a 50-employees-within-75-miles test. The Department of Labor explains FMLA eligibility here.
State programs can go significantly further.
Peorient would normally start with:
15 days paid vacation.
8–10 separate paid sick days.
Around 11 paid holidays.
12 weeks paid parental leave for all parents.
5 days bereavement leave for immediate family.
Then build a tenure ladder for vacation if desired, such as 20 days after three years.
Keep sick leave separate from vacation.
This makes state sick-leave compliance easier and avoids creating an incentive for employees to work while ill simply to protect their vacation balance.
Parental leave should generally be consistent across parents rather than divided into “primary” and “secondary” categories.
And the policy needs to work in practice.
Twenty days on paper with managers who repeatedly refuse leave is not a 20-day policy.
Usually not as a default.
It removes the clear balance employees can plan around. It may also affect accrued-vacation liability depending on the state and how the policy operates.
California shows why the detail matters.
California does not require employers to offer paid vacation. But once earned vacation is provided under a policy, accrued vacation is treated as wages, cannot be forfeited and generally must be paid when employment ends. California’s Labor Commissioner explains vacation pay here.
A clearer approach is often a defined entitlement plus encouragement to actually use it.
For remote employment, the employee’s physical work location is usually the first place to look when determining payroll, leave, workers’ compensation and other employment obligations.
That makes employee location data part of your compliance system.
A worker who relocates from Texas to California has not merely changed their mailing address.
They may have changed payroll registration requirements, sick-leave rules, vacation treatment and other employment obligations.
Companies should therefore maintain a current record of each employee’s primary work location and require employees to report proposed relocations before moving.
One national handbook can still work, but it often needs state or local addenda.
US employment rules can change significantly depending on where the employee physically works. These are four issues worth checking early.
| State | One issue foreign employers should notice |
|---|---|
| California |
Accrued vacation can become payable wages, and most workers are
entitled to at least 40 hours or five days of paid sick leave.
|
| New York |
Paid sick leave varies with employer size, and New York City can
add local requirements.
|
| Texas |
Most private employers can elect not to carry workers' compensation,
but non-subscribers take on different reporting and liability exposure.
|
| Washington |
Paid Family and Medical Leave and WA Cares create payroll deduction
and reporting obligations.
|
California requires most covered employees to receive at least five days or 40 hours of paid sick leave annually, with local ordinances potentially requiring more. See California’s current paid sick leave guidance.
New York requires up to 40 or 56 hours of paid sick leave depending on employer size, with a separate rule for very small employers based on net income. See New York’s paid sick leave requirements.
Washington’s 2026 Paid Family and Medical Leave premium rate is 1.13% of covered wages up to the Social Security cap. Employers with 50 or more employees pay an employer portion, while smaller employers are generally exempt from that employer share but still have employee-premium and reporting responsibilities. See Washington’s 2026 employer responsibilities.
Washington’s WA Cares program separately uses a 0.58% premium rate. See WA Cares information.
The Department of Labor also maintains a state paid-leave map because the landscape continues to change. See the US Department of Labor paid-leave map.
This is why the right question is not:
“What benefits does our company offer?”
It is:
“What benefits and employment rules apply to this employee, in this location, under this employment structure?”
An EOR and a PEO are not lighter and heavier versions of the same service.
They solve different structural problems.
An Employer of Record becomes the formal employer for the worker through its US employment infrastructure. Your company directs the employee’s work.
A PEO generally works through a co-employment arrangement with a company that already has its own US entity.
So the decision starts with:
Do we already have or need a US entity?
If the answer is no, an EOR is normally the relevant outsourced employment model.
If the answer is yes, a PEO can become an option.
Peorient’s Employer of Record USA guide explains the EOR structure in more detail. For companies already operating through an entity, our guide to PEO pricing and cost structures is the better next step.
An EOR does not erase every legal, tax or joint-employment risk for the client company. The service agreement and actual working relationship still matter.
There is no universal break-even number.
Our working decision range for foreign employers is:
Headcount is not the only factor, but it gives you a useful starting point for deciding when to keep using an EOR and when to model your own US entity.
| US headcount | Practical starting view |
|---|---|
| 1–5 |
EOR normally makes sense
|
| 5–15 |
EOR often still makes sense
|
| 10–25 |
Model EOR versus entity annually
|
| 25+ |
Entity economics become increasingly compelling
|
| 50+ |
Entity and direct benefits strategy deserve serious attention
|
Why such a wide range?
Because ten employees in Texas are very different from ten employees spread across California, Washington, Colorado, New York, Illinois and Massachusetts.
Every new state can introduce payroll registrations, unemployment accounts, leave rules and other administration.
The right crossover therefore depends on:
Headcount.
State spread.
Expected growth.
Benefits needs.
Entity maintenance cost.
Internal HR and finance capacity.
Commercial reasons for needing a US entity.
Control requirements.
Provider fees.
Peorient’s broader guide to choosing an EOR provider can help once the employment model itself is clear.
A foreign employer without a US entity generally cannot simply behave like an established US employer sponsoring its own conventional group plan.
Even small US employers that can access group insurance face eligibility and participation rules.
For example, SHOP generally serves qualifying employers with 1–50 full-time equivalent employees, requires at least one eligible employee other than certain owners and family members, and in most states uses a 70% minimum participation rule. See HealthCare.gov’s SHOP eligibility requirements.
An EOR or PEO may give a small team access to benefits arrangements negotiated across a larger employee population.
That can mean stronger carrier access, different plan choices or simpler administration.
But do not assume “EOR benefits” automatically means good benefits.
Ask for the plan documents.
The provider fee is easy to compare. The health plan is where the employee experience and much of the real financial risk actually sit.
A provider's monthly EOR fee tells you almost nothing about these questions. And these questions usually affect the employee far more than a small difference in the provider's headline fee.
We would ask every shortlisted provider for three things before discussing which one is “best”:
The actual health plan documents.
Recent renewal history.
A full list of chargeable events.
Then compare:
The cheapest provider should not automatically win.
A provider that saves $100 per employee per month but gives employees materially worse health coverage has saved the company $1,200 while potentially creating several thousand dollars of additional employee exposure.
That is the wrong trade.
Ask these directly:
“Can we see the complete health plan documents before signing?”
“What were your health-plan renewal increases for the last three plan years?”
“Is our workforce pooled for rating purposes, and how does renewal pricing work?”
“Which hospital networks serve each of our employee locations?”
“Can we contribute differently toward employee and dependent coverage?”
“Who is responsible when payroll is wrong, and how quickly can you run an off-cycle correction?”
“Who answers employee benefits and claims questions?”
“Are you operating directly in the states we need?”
“What does it cost to terminate the contract?”
“What happens when employees move from your EOR to our own entity?”
“What charges exist beyond your monthly service fee?”
“Can you support equity granted by our parent company?”
“Which party carries which employment risks under the agreement?”
“Can we speak with a client that has a similar US headcount and state footprint?”
A provider that cannot produce the plan document, explain renewal history or clearly list its additional charges is giving you useful information before you sign.
The goal is to remove the expensive surprises before the candidate sees a salary number. Complete the decisions first, then collect the information needed to compare providers.
If you have no US entity and are making your first hire, evaluate an EOR before creating an entity solely to put one person on payroll.
Do not ask candidates about protected family information simply to estimate your benefits costs. Model single and family coverage scenarios internally instead.
If the person is currently being treated as a contractor, check the classification before assuming benefits are the only issue. Peorient’s employee versus contractor guide explains why classification needs its own analysis.
Shortlist three providers.
Not seven.
Three is enough to create competitive tension without turning the project into a procurement exercise nobody finishes.
Have a benefits summary ready that gives actual numbers.
Do not write:
“Comprehensive health coverage.”
Write:
Carrier and plan.
Employee premium contribution.
Dependent premium contribution.
Deductible.
Out-of-pocket maximum.
Coverage start date.
Dental and vision coverage.
401(k) match and vesting.
Vacation.
Sick leave.
Paid holidays.
Parental leave.
The candidate should not need to accept the job before discovering what the job actually includes.
For a $100,000 first US hire, we would generally start by getting roughly $130,000–$140,000 of annual employment budget approved when using an EOR, then replace the estimate with actual state, plan and provider quotes.
That prevents the most avoidable US hiring failure: approving salary first and discovering the real employment cost after the offer has been made.
At 5 employees, an EOR can still be straightforward. Start paying attention to how many states you are entering.
At 10, begin modelling the cost of your own entity each year.
Do not necessarily build it yet.
At 25, entity economics frequently become more attractive, especially when employees are concentrated in a small number of states.
At 50, the conversation changes again.
The ACA’s employer threshold is based generally on an average of at least 50 full-time employees including full-time equivalents during the preceding calendar year, rather than an instant switch the day employee number 50 starts.
Applicable Large Employers also take on information-reporting duties relating to health coverage.
Model this before you reach the threshold.
Do not discover it from an accountant after the year has ended.
As headcount grows, you gain more reasons to control:
Plan design.
Carrier relationships.
401(k).
Payroll.
HR policies.
Offer branding.
Employee data.
Renewal strategy.
At that point a broker, PEO or direct benefits structure may make more sense than staying indefinitely on an EOR.
But do not assume your own entity automatically means better health insurance.
Compare the actual benefits available to your employees before moving.
The transition itself also matters. Moving employees from an EOR to your own entity normally means new employment documentation, payroll changes, benefits enrolment and careful coordination of coverage dates.
Plan that transition before announcing it.
Going directly to three EORs usually creates three sales processes.
Each vendor explains its own model.
Each gives you its own pricing format.
Each describes its own benefits in the language that makes them look strongest.
The buyer spends the first part of the process learning how to compare them.
Peorient starts from the employer’s requirements instead.
We gather the hiring location, headcount, timeline, expected growth, benefits expectations and budget.
Then we research suitable providers, contact them for current operational information and costs, and compare the options before returning recommendations.
For US hiring, the comparison should include more than the monthly EOR fee.
It should include health-plan design, state coverage, support, onboarding, benefit flexibility, contract terms and the practical path for eventually moving employees to your own entity.
Read the full explanation of Peorient's provider matching process, how providers are compared, and how recommendations are made.
Peorient’s provider-shortlisting service is free to the client.
Peorient receives referral fees through agreements with partner providers. According to Peorient’s published process, the agreed referral payment is structured so that it does not create an incentive to recommend one partner over another.
The client remains free to choose whichever provider they prefer.
For US hiring enquiries, Peorient’s published turnaround is 24 hours for the ranked provider recommendations.
Employers discuss benefits by counting how many items are on the list.
Employees evaluate benefits by calculating how much money leaves their bank account and what happens if something goes wrong.
That difference explains most benefits mistakes.
A wellness allowance cannot compensate for a $6,000 deductible.
A 6% 401(k) match does not repair a family health plan that takes $1,000 from someone’s paycheck every month.
Unlimited PTO does not matter if nobody feels comfortable using it.
And a high salary does not always repair weak dependent coverage.
The benefit most likely to become an invisible offer problem is family health cost.
A candidate may never say:
“I declined because your dependent contribution was too low.”
They may simply decline “for personal reasons.”
Use this order:
The goal is not to create the longest benefits list.
The goal is to remove reasons a good employee would say no.
Not every employer. The federal ACA employer shared-responsibility rules generally apply to Applicable Large Employers with at least 50 full-time employees including full-time equivalents, based generally on the previous year's average workforce size. Smaller employers may still offer coverage voluntarily and may face other state-specific obligations.
For professional hires, Peorient uses roughly 25–35% of salary above base as an initial planning range before an EOR fee. Lower-paid employees with family health coverage can exceed that percentage, while highly paid employees may fall below it.
KFF reported average annual 2025 employer-sponsored premiums of $9,325 for single coverage and $26,993 for family coverage. Employers funded the majority of those premiums.
There is no general federal requirement forcing every private employer to offer a 401(k), but several states require covered employers to provide access to a retirement savings program or sponsor a qualifying alternative. California and New York are current examples.
For a normal professional benefits package, a 4% employer match is a sensible target. Peorient generally prefers immediate vesting rather than increasing the headline match while imposing a long vesting schedule.
Federal law does not generally require private employers to provide paid vacation. State law can affect how promised vacation is accrued, carried over or paid at termination. California, for example, treats earned vacation as wages.
There is no universal federal paid parental-leave entitlement for private-sector employees. Eligible employees of covered employers may receive unpaid, job-protected leave under FMLA, while multiple states operate separate paid family and medical leave programs.
Often, yes, particularly when the company has no US entity and is testing the market. The answer changes as headcount, state spread and the company's commercial need for its own US entity grow.
An EOR provides the employment entity and becomes the formal employer for the worker. A PEO generally enters a co-employment arrangement with a company that already has its own US legal entity.
Waiting until after the salary and offer have been agreed before modelling health insurance, dependent coverage, payroll taxes and state-specific costs.
The salary is not the employment cost.
And in the US, the difference can be large.
This guide provides general information, not legal, tax, insurance, investment or accounting advice. US employment requirements vary by federal law, state, city, employer size, plan design and individual circumstances. Employers should obtain appropriate US legal, tax, benefits and insurance advice before acting.
Written by
Head of Cross-Border Tax and Compliance · 14+ years experience
Claire leads cross-border tax and compliance at Peorient. Previously at PwC Global Mobility Tax and Mercer, she specialises in permanent establishment risk, employer tax obligations, and co-employment tax implications. CTA, ACCA, CEBS, M.Sc. Taxation (LSE).
US Employee Benefits Guide 2026: Costs & Requirements
US employee benefits are less about a long federal checklist and more about health insurance, state rules and competitive expectations. For a professional hire, budget roughly 25–35% above base salary before any EOR fee, then model family coverage and the employee’s work state separately.
