Product updates

Minnesota has introduced a new Paid Family and Medical Leave (PFML) program that goes into effect on January 1st, 2026. This program will be funded by a 0.88% payroll tax, which is comprised of both employer and employee contributions.

Like PFML programs in other states, Minnesota employers will be prompted for new setup parameters for Minnesota PFML. These include whether:

1. They are a “qualified small employer” (and are therefore subject to a lower tax rate);

2. They have an equivalent private plan that exempts them from the state plan;

3. They wish to “pick up” employee contributions.

New tax parameters for Minnesota PFML will be released next week on Friday, December 19th, 2025. At that time, Minnesota employers should expect to have their onboard status move to a blocking status until they provide those necessary setup parameters.

Check has added support for bulk deletion of payroll items, allowing partners to remove multiple payroll items within a single request. This new bulk delete endpoint follows the same patterns as our existing bulk update functionality and enables partners to programmatically clean up or correct large sets of payroll data in a single operation.

Partners can begin using this endpoint immediately. For details on request structure and usage, refer to our updated API documentation for deleting payroll items.

Beginning January 1, 2026, catch-up contributions to 401k, 403b, and 457 plans will be required to be made as Roth contributions if the employee meets a certain threshold of FICA taxable wages in 2025. This requirement was introduced by the Secure 2.0 Act, section 603.

This requirement is now supported in Check and will be applied on payrolls with payday of January 1st, 2026 or later. Refer to our guide to our Help Center for more information about how this requirement is implemented.

Partners can now download and preview tax variances for Q4 2025 using the Quarterly Variance Report in Console. This report was previously only available after the close of the quarter, but it will now be available to preview throughout the quarter and will be updated on a weekly basis.

Additionally, partners can also access a breakdown of tax variances for an individual company by employee and tax. This is available in Console by downloading a preview report of the “balancing payroll” for the company in Q4.

For instructions on accessing both of these reports, refer to our updated Balancing help center article.