QuickBooks provides a payroll feature to process employee payments. It helps you easily manage employees’ financial records, calculate their earnings, payroll taxes, and more. However, while accessing payroll data from your company file or updating payroll, you may encounter various payroll-related errors. Such errors usually appear in the 15XXX series. Payroll error 15276 is one such error that may occur when trying to download the latest tax table update for payroll. It shows that the payroll process is incomplete. The error can occur for various reasons. In this article, we’ll cover its major causes and their solutions.
Table of Contents
Causes for the Payroll Error 15276
The error can occur due to one of the below reasons:
- Incorrect mapping of the Shared Drive.
- Missing file or component required for downloading Payroll updates.
- Incorrect configuration of the Internet Explorer or other Browsers
- Incorrect Firewall Settings
- Disabled QuickBooks File Copy Service
- Company file is in use
- Missing or invalid Digital Signature
- Payroll related objects are corrupted in QuickBooks company file.
- Incorrect data or time on your system on which you’re trying to install payroll updates.
Top Methods to fix Payroll Error 15276:
This error may prevent you from installing the latest payroll tax table. To resolve it, first follow the basic troubleshooting workarounds given below:
1-Download the Updates with Administrator Rights.
One of the common reasons behind the payroll errors in QuickBooks is not having the administrative rights on the application to install the desired updates. Sometimes, the inactive subscription for QuickBooks Desktop payroll can also cause this error. First, ensure you have an active QuickBooks Desktop payroll subscription to update the tax table. Next, try to download the Payroll tax table updates with Admin rights by following the steps below:
- First of all, close the active company files and your QuickBooks Desktop.
- Right-click on the QB application icon and then click Run as Administrator.
- On the message” Do you want to allow this program to make changes to your computer?” click
- Next, download the latest QuickBooks updates, if available.
- Ensure that you have an active QuickBooks Desktop payroll subscription to update the tax table.
- Next, try to download the latest Payroll tax table update, to check if the error is fixed or not.
2-Check your System’s Date and Time
The QuickBooks payroll update process can get interrupted if the data or time on your system is not correct. To troubleshoot QuickBooks payroll error 15276, you can check the system date and time on the system by follow the steps below:
- Locate to right-side on your system clock on your desktop and right-click on it. Select Adjust date/time.

- Click Change date and time and add the current date and time.
- Next click OK
- Close the window and reopen your QuickBooks application.
Now try to download the QuickBooks payroll updates again to check the error is fixed or not.
3-Check Firewall Settings:
Several Payroll errors occur due to the firewall settings on your system are blocking the Payroll updates. You can check and reconfigure firewall settings to resolve the Payroll error 15276. In Firewall Settings you need to check the QuickBooks ports exceptions for the QuickBooks are configured correctly.
If these troubleshooting workarounds fail to resolve the error, then try the below methods to resolve the Payroll error 15276 in QuickBooks
Method 1-Validate Service key of QuickBooks payroll
You may encounter QuickBooks Payroll error 15276 if the QuickBooks application fails to verify the payroll subscription. This situation usually arises if multiple QuickBooks versions or payroll subscriptions exist in your system. If multiple versions and subscription conflicts are behind the error, then you can check and update the service key of QuickBooks Payroll. To do this, follow the steps below:
- Open your QuickBooks, locate to the top menu bar, and click
- Click option named My Payroll Service.
- Click Activate Service key
- The Service Keys window is displayed. Check the current payroll key and change it if required. To do so click
- Click
Method 2- Check Intuit QuickBooks FCS Service:
The Intuit QuickBooks FCS service plays a major role in allowing you to update and upgrade QuickBooks payroll updates. If this service is not running, you can face payroll-related errors such as Payroll error 15276. You can check this service on your system and enable it if it is not running. To check and enable this service, following are the steps:
- Open the Computer Management window by launching the Run window on your system.
- In Run dialog box, enter MSC and click OK.

- In the Computer Management wizard, click on the option named Services and Applications and then click
- In the Service window, you will see a list of all the system services.
- Find the Intuit QuickBooks FCS service from the list and check whether it is running. If not, double-click on it to run the service.
- Now, the properties window of the Intuit QuickBooks FCS service is displayed. From there, click on the drop-down under the Startup type and click on Manual. Click
- Click
Method 3-Repair your QuickBooks Company file
Sometimes, inconsistencies in the payroll reports in the QuickBooks company file might be causing Payroll issues, including error 15276. In such a case, simply perform a data rebuild to identify and correct issues in your company file. To rebuild data in QBW, use the Verify and Rebuild utility. If it doesn’t help resolve the issue, then you can download, launch, and install the QuickBooks Tool hub. Next, use the QuickBooks repair tools available in it to resolve the company file errors.
Note: You can even use the tool hub’s Program repair tools, like the QuickBooks Program Diagnostic tool and Quick Fix My Program, in case payroll errors occur due to corrupt programs or installation files in the QuickBooks application.
If the QuickBooks file repair tool- QuickBooks file doctor tool stops working or fails to respond, then you can use a professional QuickBooks repair tool like Stellar Repair for QuickBooks. It is one of the best QuickBooks repair tools as it has no file size limitations and doesn’t fail to respond while repairing severely corrupted QuickBooks company files. You can easily repair QBW and QBB files with complete integrity.
Conclusion
The QuickBooks payroll error 15276 can occur due to various reasons as discussed in the article. To resolve the error, you can ensure you have correctly mapped shared drives, configured firewall settings, and follow the methods mentioned above. If the error is associated with corruption in the QuickBooks company file, then you can use a reliable QuickBooks repair tool like Stellar Repair for QuickBooks. It can help you rebuild or repair the corrupt QuickBooks company file without any data loss. Also, it helps you restore all the corrupt payroll data from the QBW into a new file. It helps in resolving many QB errors.




