Coverage generally follows where the work is performed, so a remote role that could be done from a state with a posting requirement can trigger that requirement even where the employer has no office there. Employers respond in one of three ways: post a range everywhere, exclude the covered states from the advert, or omit the range and hope. The first has quietly made ranges normal across the country; the second is a signal worth reading; the third is worth a question.
The rule that does the work
Employment protections generally attach to where the work is performed rather than to where the company is incorporated or where its headquarters sit. For an office job that is a simple question with one answer. For a remote role advertised nationally, it turns into a question about every state the successful candidate might work from, and several of those states require a range in the posting.
That is the whole mechanism, and it explains why a national advert for a fully remote role can be subject to a rule in a state the employer has never operated in. The employer is not being caught out by a technicality. They are advertising a job that could be performed in that state, and the state’s rule covers jobs performed there. Once you see it that way the result stops being surprising and starts being obvious.
The details differ from state to state in ways that matter. Some word their coverage around roles that will or may be performed in the state; others around employers who have any presence there at all. That variation is exactly why employers find this genuinely hard rather than merely inconvenient, because there is no single test you can apply once and be done with. A company advertising in forty states is answering forty slightly different questions.
The three responses, and what each tells you
The first response is to post a range everywhere. It is the simplest option to administer and it is why ranges now appear on national postings in markets that never legislated for them. Running one compliant version of an advert costs less than running twelve versions and tracking which applies where, so uniform compliance wins on cost rather than on principle.
The second is to exclude the covered states from the advert — “this role is not open to applicants in Colorado” or similar. It is lawful, it was fairly common when these rules were new, and it is the response most worth reading as a signal. An employer prepared to shrink its candidate pool rather than publish a number is telling you something about how it expects the pay conversation to go.
The third is to omit the range and see what happens. Sometimes this is a considered bet that a complaint-driven system will not find them; far more often it is a smaller employer who has not thought about it at all. Either way the practical move is the same, which is to ask rather than to assume which of the two you are looking at.
What this means for you as a candidate
The useful consequence for you is that you can frequently find a range for a role even when your own state requires nothing at all. Search the same job title filtered to a jurisdiction with a posting requirement, and you will usually find comparable adverts carrying real numbers. That gives you a market reading you can adjust for your own location, which is most of what a local requirement would have given you. It costs one search and nobody’s cooperation.
It also means a national posting without a range is more likely to be non-compliant than a purely local one, simply because a national posting is far more likely to touch a covered state. That makes the polite question — is there a range for this role — a reasonable thing to ask of any remote advert. It is answered far more often than people expect, because for most employers the omission was an oversight rather than a position.
The band question is different when the job is remote
For an onsite role, the range describes one market. For a remote role it may describe several, and the employer has to have decided something about how it prices geography before it can publish anything at all. So a remote posting with a range is implicitly telling you about the pay model as well as the number.
A narrow range on a national remote posting usually indicates a single national band, which is the model where moving costs you nothing. A very wide one usually indicates location-based tiers, where your own metro decides where in that range you land. That distinction matters more to your eventual salary than the endpoints do, and it is worth asking about directly rather than inferring from the width.
The follow-up question is the one people forget to ask. If pay is tied to location, what happens if you move later? Employers are frequently asymmetric about this, treating a downward adjustment as automatic policy and an upward one as a request to be considered. Finding that out before you sign a lease somewhere new is considerably better than discovering it in the month after, and the question costs nothing to ask during hiring.
Where employers are genuinely uncertain
It is worth extending some good faith here, because the uncertainty is real. A company with fifteen employees and no HR function, hiring its first remote worker, is facing a genuinely complicated question about which of fifty jurisdictions might apply to a job advert. They are not ignoring the rule; they have not encountered it.
The genuinely hard cases are real as well, and there are several of them. A role open to candidates in a defined set of states, a posting that goes up before the location policy is settled, a job that starts remote and is expected to become hybrid — each of these has an answer and none of the answers is obvious. Reading a missing range as bad faith is often wrong, and asking about it is nearly always more productive than reporting it.
Where the work is performed is not always obvious
One more wrinkle worth knowing, because it affects more than postings. If you are hired into a remote role and then move, the state whose employment rules apply to you can change, and so can the state that taxes you. Posting requirements are the visible part of a much larger set of obligations that follow your keyboard around.
That is a good reason to tell an employer before you move rather than afterwards, and the full picture is covered properly elsewhere in this section. For the purposes of this article the point is narrower and worth holding onto on its own. Coverage tracks the work, and the work is wherever you happen to be sitting when you do it. Everything else about remote employment law follows from that one sentence.
What to do with all this
If a remote posting carries no range, ask for it and mention that the role appears to be open in states that require one. That framing is neutral rather than accusatory, it is usually accurate, and it gives a compliance-minded employer an easy reason to supply the number without anybody having to be wrong. Recruiters at larger companies will often escalate it internally on the strength of that one sentence.
If a posting excludes your state, treat that as information about the employer rather than merely an obstacle in your way. And if a range is published, ask whether it is a national band or a set of location tiers before forming any view about what the number means for you specifically. The same published range means two very different things under those two models, and the difference is usually larger than any negotiation you would have had.
This is general information about how coverage works rather than legal advice about your situation. Which states reach remote roles, and on what wording, is amended regularly and is genuinely contested in places — your state labor agency can confirm the position where you are, without any obligation to file anything.
Common questions
Do posting laws apply to remote jobs?
Generally yes, because coverage follows where the work is performed. A remote role that could be done from a state with a posting requirement can trigger it even where the employer has no office there.
How do employers respond?
Three ways: post a range everywhere, exclude the covered states from the advert, or omit the range. The first is simplest to administer and is why ranges appear nationally.
What does excluding a state mean?
It is lawful and worth reading as a signal. An employer prepared to shrink its candidate pool rather than publish a number is telling you how it expects the pay conversation to go.
Is a missing range always bad faith?
No. A small employer hiring its first remote worker faces a genuinely complicated question about which of fifty jurisdictions applies. Asking is usually more productive than reporting.
How can I find a range if my state requires none?
Search the same title filtered to a jurisdiction with a posting requirement. Comparable adverts there usually carry real numbers you can adjust for your own market.
What does the width of a remote range tell me?
A narrow range usually indicates a single national band, where moving costs you nothing. A very wide one usually indicates location tiers, where your metro decides where you land.
What should I ask about a remote range?
Whether it is a national band or location tiers — and if it is tiered, what happens if you move later. Employers are often asymmetric, treating a cut as policy and a rise as a request.
Does moving change which rules apply?
Yes. The state whose employment rules apply, and which taxes you, can both change when you move. Posting requirements are the visible part of a larger set of obligations that follow the work.