Class code 8810: the clerical class and the wall that defines it
8810 is the cheapest widely used classification in the manual, and that is exactly why auditors test it hardest: the class survives only where clerical duties happen in space physically separated from the operation, so one recurring walk through the warehouse can move a whole department onto the governing class.
| Manual description | Clerical Office Employees NOC |
|---|---|
| Hazard group | A |
| What it captures | Employees whose duties are strictly clerical and who work in an area physically separated from the operative hazards of the business by walls or partitions. |
| Most common misclassification | Assigning it to an office worker who regularly walks the shop floor, warehouse or job site. Any operative exposure removes the separation the class requires, and the payroll moves to the governing class. |
| Payroll base | Gross wages including commission and bonus. Overtime may be recorded at straight time where the state permits the excess portion to be excluded. |
| Source | NCCI Scopes of Basic Manual Classifications · Verified 2026-08-11 · Next review 2027-08-11 |
This is the classification most employers assume they qualify for and the one most frequently corrected at audit. The test is not job title, salary band or what the offer letter says; it is a physical one. The duties must be clerical in substance and they must be performed in an area separated from the operative hazards of the business by walls, partitions or an equivalent barrier. An open mezzanine overlooking a production floor generally fails that test. A bookkeeper who spends two mornings a week counting stock in the warehouse fails it too, and the failure is not partial: the payroll follows the exposure onto the governing class for the whole employee.
The practical control is documentation written before the audit rather than argued during it. Keep a floor plan showing where clerical work happens relative to the operation, keep job descriptions that state the separation, and keep any change in duties dated. Where an employee genuinely splits duties, most jurisdictions allow a division of payroll only when the employer's records show the actual time in each classification contemporaneously — a retrospective estimate written the week before the auditor arrives will not be accepted. The financial stake is large because the differential between this class and a typical operating class is not a few percent; it is often a multiple.
Inside a co-employment arrangement the classification decision does not disappear, it changes hands. The provider assigns the code, the carrier audits it, and the employer still supplies the facts that decide it. Two things are worth confirming before signature: whether the arrangement lets a genuinely separated clerical population sit on this class rather than being folded into a blended rate, and whether an audit adjustment is passed through to the client in full, on what timeline, and with what right of challenge.
What decides the rate, and what does not
Nothing on this page is a rate, and the omission is deliberate. A class code describes exposure; the price is filed state by state, cleared by each regulator, then reshaped by an employer's own experience modifier and whatever schedule credit the underwriter allows. Two clerical populations of identical size in different states will not be charged the same, so a single national figure for 8810 would be invented rather than reported. The transferable part is the separation test above, because that is the one input an employer decides for itself.
Where to go next
Model the premium against your own payroll with the workers' comp premium tool, see every published class on the class code index, and read how classification sits inside a co-employment contract at the PEO hub. Sourcing rules are in the methodology note, the duty split is defined under how co-employment allocates employer duties, and neighbouring classes are covered at outside sales and collectors, code 8742, retail store, code 8017, restaurant, table service, code 9082.
What this doesn't cover
Classification guidance drawn from the public manual description and federal injury statistics — not a quote, not legal advice, and not a rate table. The carrier makes the final assignment and the audit tests it, monopolistic-fund states run their own class systems that do not map cleanly onto 8810, and your experience modifier comes from your own claims. Get the assignment confirmed in writing before you rely on it.