The Kansas Department of Insurance is transitioning its surplus lines premium-tax reporting and payment to SLIP+ (the “SLIP+ for States” platform), with mandatory use beginning April 1, 2026. Under guidance issued in early February 2026 alongside the department’s annual filing instructions, surplus lines producers must, as of that date, report through SLIP+ all policies with an effective date of January 1, 2026 or later, together with subsequent endorsements and any previously unreported policies effective on or after January 1, 2024. The change modernizes a process that had run through the legacy Kansas Surplus Lines Tax Filing System.

Timing is the trap. Policies effective before January 1, 2026 must still be reported in the legacy Kansas system, and that reporting has to be completed on or before the March 2, 2026 annual filing deadline (the statutory March 1 date falls on a Sunday this year). SLIP+ then goes live for qualifying newer business on April 1, 2026. In other words, brokers face a narrow window in which two systems are relevant at once: the old system to close out pre-2026 policies by March 1, and the new system for 2026-forward business starting April 1. Kansas’s standing rules add pressure at both ends — the annual affidavit and tax remittance are due at that same early-March deadline, and licenses not renewed by May 1 lapse with no grace period.

‍

The substance of the tax is largely unchanged:Kansas’s 3% surplus lines premium tax continues to apply, but SLIP+ introduces a new 0.175% transaction fee on gross premium for policies effective on or after May 1, 2026. Policies with earlier effective dates, including those effective January 1 through April 30, 2026, are exempt from the transaction fee. SLIP+ also changes the reporting rhythm, allowing producers to report policies throughout the year with quarterly invoicing rather than relying solely on an annual cycle. Brokers should confirm how the transaction fee will be surfaced to insureds and reconciled within their agency-management and tax-calculation systems.

For compliance teams, the near-term priorities are concrete: complete onboarding and credentialing in SLIP+ well ahead of April 1; build a clear rule for routing each policy to the correct system based on its effective date; ensure pre-2026 business is fully reported before the March 1 legacy cutover; and update tax-calculation logic to add the 0.175% fee for qualifying policies. Multistate brokers already using SLIP+ in other states will find the workflow familiar, but Kansas’s specific effective-date rules and fee treatment warrant a documented internal procedure so nothing falls between the two systems.

‍