Nebraska Workers’ Comp Exemption
We file workers’ compensation exemptions for Nebraska sole proprietors, LLC members, and corporate officers. Send us your details and we’ll confirm whether you qualify and handle the filing.
When coverage is required in Nebraska
The Nebraska Workers' Compensation Act applies to the State of Nebraska, every governmental agency, and every employer in the state employing ONE OR MORE employees in the employer's regular trade, business, profession, or vocation — there is no minimum-employee-count threshold for general employers. The main numeric carve-out is agricultural: an agricultural employer of unrelated employees is exempt unless it employs 10 or more unrelated, full-time employees on each working day for 13 calendar weeks (consecutive or not) in a calendar year. An employer otherwise exempt (e.g., under the agricultural threshold) may voluntarily elect coverage by obtaining a policy from a licensed insurer.
Who can be excluded in Nebraska
Sole proprietors
Sole proprietors are excluded from mandatory self-coverage; they are not counted as an 'employee' of their own business. They may elect to be covered, but per the sources reviewed this election must be filed in writing (the exact office/insurer filing mechanics for sole proprietors specifically were not independently confirmed on an official page beyond secondary summaries — treat mechanics as medium confidence).
Partners
Same as sole proprietors: partners are excluded from mandatory coverage on themselves and may elect coverage by written filing.
LLC members
Same general treatment as sole proprietors/partners: LLC members are excluded from mandatory self-coverage and may elect in.
Corporate officers
Executive officers of a Nebraska corporation who own 25% or more of the corporation's common stock are NOT considered 'employees' under the Act and are therefore excluded from mandatory coverage, unless they elect to be covered. To elect coverage, the officer must file the election in writing with BOTH the workers' compensation insurer and the corporation's secretary (not with the Workers' Compensation Court). For nonprofit corporations, executive officers who receive annual compensation of $1,000 or less from the corporation are similarly excluded unless they elect coverage using the same written-filing process. No cap on the number of officers who can be excluded was found (the exclusion is defined by the 25%-ownership / $1,000-compensation test, not a headcount cap).
Construction rules in Nebraska
No Nebraska-specific construction carve-out or heightened construction requirement was located in the sources reviewed; general 1-or-more-employee threshold appears to apply uniformly across industries aside from the agricultural exception.
How the exemption is filed
Nebraska does NOT run a state-filed exemption certificate/registry for sole proprietors, partners, or LLC members — exclusion is automatic by statute (the mechanism is exclusion-by-default, with coverage obtained through the insurer if the owner wants IN, not an application to a state agency to get OUT). For the 25%-stock corporate-officer exclusion, this is also automatic by statute; the only filing involved is the opposite action — electing INTO coverage — which is done by written notice to the insurer and the corporate secretary, not a state agency form.
- Form
- No state exemption form — see above
- Statute
- Nebraska Workers' Compensation Act, Neb. Rev. Stat. Chapter 48, Article 1 (general coverage/employer definitions and the 25%-stock officer exclusion provision); exact subsection number for the officer exclusion was not independently pulled from statute text and is left unspecified rather than guessed.
- Market
- Competitive — coverage is bought from a private carrier.
Notes and open questions
Nebraska is in the 'excluded-by-default, may elect coverage via insurer/corporate filing' regime — there is no state exemption certificate to apply for. Direct WebFetch of the Nebraska Workers' Compensation Court's official FAQ pages (wcc.ne.gov) repeatedly failed at the network level ('socket closed') during this research session, so the content below is drawn from search-engine result snippets that quote wcc.ne.gov directly (the search tool itself renders the live page), rather than from a WebFetch-rendered copy of the page in hand. The substance is consistent across two independent searches and matches the general pattern of similar states, but because I could not personally render the full official page, confidence is set to medium rather than high. Recommend a follow-up direct visit to wcc.ne.gov/employers/employer-frequently-asked-questions to confirm exact wording and the precise statute subsection before publishing statute-cite-level detail.
Sources
- https://www.wcc.ne.gov/information-for-the-public/employer-frequently-asked-questions
- https://www.wcc.ne.gov/employers/employer-frequently-asked-questions
Source material dated Search snippets retrieved 2026-08-30; underlying wcc.ne.gov page date unknown (undated). Compiled from official Nebraska sources as a starting point, not legal advice — rules change, and your situation may turn on facts this page cannot see. Confirm with Nebraska Workers' Compensation Court or ask us and we’ll check it for you.
Workers' comp exemption filing in Nebraska
Tell us about your Nebraska business and we'll confirm whether you qualify for an exemption.