Arizona Department of Economic Security
Your Partner for a Stronger Arizona
English Arabic French Persian Spanish Swahili Ukrainian Vietnamese

SpeakUpAZ

Main menu

Arizona Unemployment Tax and Wage System

Tax and Wage System Overview

Use the Unemployment Tax and Wage System (TWS) to:

  • File a Quarterly Wage Report
  • Make a Payment
  • File a Report of Change
  • View Benefit Charge and Rate Notices
  • View and Print Copies of Documents Previously Filed Online

You can use TWS to file reports listing wages for employees, or file zero-wage reports indicating your business had no employees and paid no wages.

Business Tax and Wage Requirements

In order to use Arizona’s Internet Unemployment Tax and Wage System, your business must be:

  • registered with DES;
  • determined by DES to be liable for Unemployment Insurance (UI) coverage;
    and
  • have an active UI account as a rated or reimbursable employer.

To become registered: Your business must have filed an Arizona Joint Tax Application (form JT-1/UC-001) with the Arizona Department of Revenue or with DES (by registering with either agency you have effectively registered with both). If you have not registered, you may do so online at AZTaxes.gov.

To be determined liable for UI: after registering, you will receive a "Determination of Unemployment Insurance Liability" form (UC-016 or UC-015A) and an UI employer account number from DES. If you have met any UI liability criteria but have not received a liability determination from DES, contact the Employer Registration Unit by phone at (602) 771-6602 or email at [email protected].

To become active: Your UI account should display as "active." If your account states that it is temporarily suspended, permanently closed or not in active status, please contact the Employer Registration Unit by phone at (602) 771-6602 or email at [email protected].

Rated: Your business is considered "Rated" once it has been determined by DES to be liable to pay for UI coverage by means of quarterly UI taxes and, therefore, has been assigned a tax rate for the calendar year.

Reimbursable: Your business is considered "Reimbursable" once it has been determined by DES to be liable for UI coverage and to be eligible to pay for it by means of the Reimbursement Payment Option (which is chosen by the employer). Reimbursable employers complete the TWS Wage Report screen as if they were Rated, except their Tax Rate is 0% and they report all wages as Excess every quarter, so no payment is submitted with the report. When a Reimbursable account incurs quarterly unemployment claim charges, DES will send you a statement of the amount due, which may be paid electronically via TWS.

Your Company's Technology Requirements for Using the Tax and Wage System

Operating System

The Tax and Wage System (TWS) functions best when used on a computer with a Microsoft Windows operating system, preferably version XP or newer. Mac users may encounter problems (TWS is periodically upgraded and this may result in improved Mac compatibility in the future).

Internet Functionality

TWS functions best when using Chrome or Microsoft Edge. Other browsers may encounter problems, especially with adding wages/employee records and making payments.

TWS also requires the use of the following Internet browser technologies:

  • Java Script - a means of adding interactivity and error-checking
  • Pop-up Blocker - a security measure to prevent most pop-up windows from appearing ("Block Pop-ups" should be disabled)

If your current browser cannot support these technologies, we recommend that you update your browser before using TWS. You can download the latest version of Microsoft Edge or Chrome free of charge.

Printing

To successfully print the PDF Pay Voucher, Payment Receipt and copies of your reports, you must have Adobe Acrobat Reader version 5.5 or newer installed on your computer (available free of charge from Adobe.com). If clicking the "Print" button does not generate a PDF frame, check the top of the screen for a message indicating pop-ups are blocked. If they are, click where indicated to allow the pop-up from this site, confirm your selection, then click "Retry." If you still have trouble printing, please refer to the Adobe Reader Support webpage.

Security of the Arizona Tax and Wage System

Data Encryption

Federal and state laws protect the privacy of data reported to DES by employers. DES has taken every precaution to make certain that your information is secure and uses 128-bit Secure Socket Layer technology to encrypt all data processed from your computer to our server. To make sure your browser is secure, look for a closed lock or an unbroken key at the bottom of the page. Additionally, your wage and employee information is not stored on an Internet Web server or unsecured network.

Login and Passwords

In compliance with DES departmental policy concerning the protection of confidential data on the internet, your account is safeguarded by both a password and security question/answer. Passwords must be created by the user and changed every 90 days. To change your password on the Tax and Wage System site, you will be directed to answer several questions about your account, including your challenge question. If you are unable to match the answers provided previously when your password was established, please call the Help Desk at (602) 542-2460 for assistance.

In order to access your account, the Employer-Account Number and Password must match those on our database. If they do not, you will receive an error message. Continued invalid access attempts could result in your account becoming locked. This is a measure of protection against unauthorized attempts to gain access to sensitive information. A link for password assistance is provided on the login screen of the TWS application.

Save Your Progress

To ensure the security of your account, the system will timeout and you will be logged off after 20 minutes of inactivity. Note: Keying employee wage data alone is not recognized as "activity." If you have many employees, we suggest frequent "Saves" to avoid losing data if the system times out.

Back to Top