New Jersey Semi-Monthly payroll calendars
Every semi-monthly payroll schedule we publish for New Jersey small businesses, 2020 through 2027 — with federal holiday adjustments and IRS payroll tax deposit deadlines already worked out.
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Why semi-monthly works in New Jersey
New Jersey employers running semi-monthly payroll pay on the 15th of each month and the last day of the month, producing exactly 24 paychecks per year and dividing each annual salary into clean halves. The cadence is dominant in New Jersey's salary-heavy industries — software, professional services, agencies, dental and medical practices that compensate providers monthly — because each paycheck represents exactly 1/24 of annual base, which makes offer letters, equity vesting, and budget forecasts trivially easy to reconcile.
The trade-off most New Jersey employers don't appreciate until they hire their first non-exempt employee is overtime: semi-monthly pay periods don't align to whole workweeks, so calculating Fair Labor Standards Act overtime requires tracking a separate seven-day workweek alongside the pay period. For salary-only workforces this is a non-issue. For mixed teams, the bookkeeping is easier under biweekly. The schedules below already account for federal holiday observance, weekend bank closures, and the prior-business-day shift that applies when the 15th or the last day of the month falls on a Saturday, Sunday, or one of the eleven federal holidays.
Switch to a different cadence
If semi-monthly isn't the right fit, the New Jersey biweekly overview covers the same eight years on the alternate schedule. Most New Jersey employers can switch frequencies once per year on a clean January 1 boundary; the guide on switching payroll frequency walks through the mechanics of doing it without short-changing or double-paying any employee.