Workers' Compensation Rates in Georgia (2026)

State Overview

Georgia requires workers' comp for employers with three or more employees. The state has moderate rates compared to the Southeast.

Understanding Georgia Workers' Comp Rates

Georgia is an NCCI state — the National Council on Compensation Insurance files annual advisory loss costs with the Georgia Office of Commissioner of Insurance, which reviews them before insurers can write at the new level. The Georgia State Board of Workers' Compensation (SBWC) administers the benefit and dispute system itself under the Georgia Workers' Compensation Act (O.C.G.A. Title 34, Chapter 9). Georgia has no monopolistic state fund; coverage is bought from private carriers in the voluntary market, and employers that cannot find voluntary coverage use the Georgia Workers' Compensation Assigned Risk Plan, which NCCI administers.

For policies renewing in 2026, the direction is sharply down. NCCI's Georgia filing cut voluntary-market loss costs by 8.8% and assigned-risk rates by 9.3%, effective March 1, 2026, on policy year 2022–2023 experience. As with every loss-cost state, that figure is a statewide average across all class codes — your specific code can move by more or less, and the loss cost is only the starting point: your premium also reflects the carrier's loss-cost multiplier, your experience modification factor, schedule rating credits or debits, and minimum premium. The rates on this page are filing-based benchmarks, not binding quotes.

How to find a Georgia workers' comp class code from a job description

There is no Georgia workers' comp class code for a job title. NCCI files the classifications used in Georgia, and the NCCI rules are what an auditor applies, and what gets classified is the employer's business — not the separate employments, occupations or operations inside it. "Machinist", "CNC operator", "general construction labor" and "data entry" are therefore work that sits inside whichever classification describes the business, not values you can look up on their own.

NCCI publishes Georgia's classifications in the Basic Manual for Workers Compensation and Employers Liability Insurance for Georgia (Georgia's rule names no edition and deliberately so — Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. r. 120-2-37-.06 makes "the Classification Plan, including codes of an authorized rating organization which is the current and latest Classification Plan on file with the Commissioner" the one that "shall be followed by all insurers when transacting workers' compensation insurance in the State of Georgia", so what governs is whichever plan is on file at the Insurance Commissioner's office on the day of the audit rather than a dated printing an employer can hold; NCCI's own Georgia assigned-risk instruction sheet points a Georgia employer at the Basic Manual for Georgia and the Residual Market Manual for Georgia together, and the rule that would name Georgia's authorized statistical agent is one the Secretary of State does not publish at all (see below)). To confirm the classification for a specific business, use Subject 120-2-37 of the Georgia Administrative Code, the Insurance Commissioner's filed rule that makes the rating organization's Classification Plan on file with the Commissioner binding on every insurer writing Georgia workers' compensation, published by the Georgia Secretary of State, which publishes the Rules and Regulations of the State of Georgia rather than by NCCI — that is the filed authority for Georgia, and a code quoted from another state's manual is not. Georgia keeps a standing board named for this exact argument, and it is written into the Commissioner's own rules rather than left to the carrier. Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. r. 120-2-38-.09(8) gives any risk or carrier the right to appeal to the Georgia Workers' Compensation Appeals Board where it "does not agree with the established classification, rates, rules, rating data, or rating plans", and makes the Board's decision itself appealable to the Insurance Commissioner. The same right runs outside the assigned-risk plan. Under r. 120-2-36-.06 an insurer must verify the unit statistical data with the employer before it goes to the statistical agent that computes the experience modification factor, hand over a legible copy of it with the disclosure in Form GID-63, and the rule then records that data deemed accurate because the employer let the thirty-day return window pass "will not in any way affect the right of the Insured to appeal to the Georgia Worker's Compensation Appeals Board" — so in Georgia missing that window costs the correction, not the appeal. Where the employer does dispute the data and the insurer disagrees, the insurer has sixty days from the original mailing to tell the employer the modification factor will be promulgated from the insurer's figures and to instruct it "in detail" of that right of appeal; an insurer that does not answer in time is deemed to have accepted the employer's records.

Georgia's class code is uniform and its rate is not, which is the reverse of what most rate-shopping advice assumes. Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. r. 120-2-37-.05 makes every insurer that wants to change what it charges file its own individual rate filing with the Commissioner, developed on that insurer's own Georgia experience to the extent that experience is actuarially credible and credibility-weighted against the rating organization's filed experience only where it is not — so there is no single Georgia rate behind a classification, only as many filed rates as there are carriers writing it, while r. 120-2-37-.06 keeps the classification itself identical across all of them. Two further Georgia wrinkles a multi-state employer will not expect. The rule that designates Georgia's authorized statistical agent, r. 120-2-36-.05, is one whose content the Secretary of State does not publish: its editor's note records that under O.C.G.A. § 50-13-21 "only the name and designation is filed, printed, and distributed", and that the regulation itself "is on file in the Office of the Comptroller General and is open for public examination and copying" — so who holds that designation cannot be read off the Code online. And the agency most Georgia employers deal with is not the one that classifies them: these classification, rating and appeal rules are Chapter 120-2 of the Georgia Administrative Code, the Rules of the Commissioner of Insurance, promulgated under O.C.G.A. §§ 33-2-9, 33-9-20, 33-9-21 and 34-9-133, not rules of the State Board of Workers' Compensation.

Subject 120-2-37 of the Georgia Administrative Code, the Insurance Commissioner's filed rule that makes the rating organization's Classification Plan on file with the Commissioner binding on every insurer writing Georgia workers' compensation (official Georgia lookup)

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Related Guides for Georgia Employers

• The Complete Guide to Workers' Comp Costs in 2026

  National benchmarks, the 2026 state rate-change table, and how to budget your premium.

• Compare Workers' Comp Rates by State

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• Workers' Comp Premium Calculator

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• Workers' Comp Class Codes Explained

  How NCCI assigns a code to each job and why it creates a 10–25× swing in your rate.

• NCCI Class Code Lookup & Directory

  Search workers' comp class codes by keyword to find the four-digit NCCI (or Georgia bureau) code for your business — then see how it is rated above.

• Experience Modification Rate (EMR) Explained

  How your claims history becomes a multiplier that raises or lowers your Georgia premium.

• 5 Proven Ways to Lower Your Workers' Comp Premium

  Tactics any small business can use to reduce cost at next renewal — from classification audits to return-to-work programs.

• How Rates Are Calculated: NCCI vs Independent States

  Whether Georgia uses NCCI or an independent bureau — and why the difference changes how your premium is set.