The only thing you are on your own for is tax filings and registration as a foreign entity. And that is only in some cases in some states. In most states, having a few remote employees is not enough to even trigger a filing requirement. In CA, which is probably one of the most draconian, we had to register as a foreign entity and then we have to file corporate taxes there and allocate taxes proportionally according to percentage of revenue that comes from CA, I believe.
And actually, they want your corporate income tax even if you don't have employees there, just because you sell to Californians. But they have had a hard time collecting for those that have no employees or other presence in the state.
I know for a fact this is wrong. Payroll companies don’t do worker’s compensation in Washington because the state runs the insurance program. You have to register with the state.
https://support.gusto.com/state-registration-compliance/comp...
All 50 states have a different process. Many require you to get a private policy but some have state run funds.
As an example, I have to deal with my insurance agent annually for my worker’s compensation in California and then deal with Washington separately for their scheme.
Your payroll provider generally tells you that you’re on your own for all that stuff.
For every additional state there is a ton of overhead.
I’ve had employees in California, Washington, and New York. It took two years to unwind Washington after the one employee there left, and it took a year and 20 hours of lawyer time to unwind New York, who was trying to charge us $5,000 as a penalty for missing paperwork we didn’t think we had to file (we ended up being right after paying the lawyer).