Guide
How to Read a Pay Stub
A pay stub (or pay slip, earnings statement, or check stub) is the summary that comes with each paycheck. It shows what you earned, what was taken out, and what landed in your account. Every stub is laid out differently, but the same handful of sections appear on all of them. This guide walks through each one for a typical US private-sector stub.
The four sections of a pay stub
- Header — employer name, your name, the pay period start and end dates, the pay date, and often a check or deposit number.
- Earnings — gross pay, broken out by type (regular, overtime, bonus, holiday, PTO).
- Deductions and taxes — everything subtracted from gross pay, usually split into taxes and other deductions.
- Summary — gross pay, total deductions, and net pay (take-home), each shown for the current period and year-to-date.
"Current" vs "YTD"
Almost every number on a stub appears twice: once for this pay period (current) and once as a running total for the calendar year so far (YTD, year-to-date). YTD figures reset to zero on the first paycheck of each year. They are useful for checking that your withholding is on track and for loan or rental applications that ask for year-to-date income.
Earnings
Gross pay is your total earnings before anything is removed. On an hourly stub it is a set of lines like:
| Type | Hours | Rate | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| Regular | 80.00 | $22.00 | $1,760.00 |
| Overtime | 5.00 | $33.00 | $165.00 |
| Holiday | 8.00 | $22.00 | $176.00 |
| Gross pay | 93.00 | $2,101.00 |
A salaried stub usually shows a single "Salary" line equal to your annual salary divided by the number of pay periods in the year. If you see hours on a salaried stub, they are informational and do not change the amount.
Taxes withheld
These are amounts your employer sends to tax authorities on your behalf. Withholding is a prepayment, not the final tax — you settle up when you file a return.
- Federal income tax (often "Fed W/H" or "FITW") — based on your Form W-4, your pay, and IRS withholding tables.
- Social Security ("OASDI" or "SS") — 6.2% of wages up to the annual wage base ($184,500 for 2026).
- Medicare — 1.45% of all wages, with an extra 0.9% on wages above $200,000 in a year.
- State income tax — in the 41 states that tax wages. Nine states do not.
- Local tax — some cities and school districts (for example parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New York City) levy their own.
Social Security and Medicare together are called FICA.
Pre-tax vs post-tax deductions
The order matters. Pre-tax deductions come out of gross pay before income tax is calculated, so they lower your taxable wages:
- Traditional 401(k) or 403(b) contributions
- Health, dental, and vision insurance premiums (under a Section 125 plan)
- Health savings account (HSA) and flexible spending account (FSA) contributions
Post-tax deductions come out after tax and do not reduce taxable wages:
- Roth 401(k) contributions
- Wage garnishments and child support
- Union dues, charitable giving, and repayment of a payroll advance
- Disability or life insurance, depending on how the plan is set up
This is why two people with the same salary can have very different take-home pay: pre-tax benefits shrink the paycheck now but also shrink the tax bill.
Employer contributions and imputed income
Some stubs list amounts your employer pays that are not deducted from you — the employer share of FICA, a 401(k) match, or the employer portion of health premiums. These are shown for transparency. You may also see imputed income: the taxable value of a benefit like group-term life insurance over $50,000, added to taxable wages but not paid to you in cash.
How to check your stub is right
- Multiply your hourly rate by regular hours. It should match the regular earnings line to the cent.
- Check overtime is your regular rate × 1.5 (or your state/contract multiplier) × overtime hours.
- Social Security should be almost exactly 6.2% of this period's gross (minus any pre-tax health or FSA amounts).
- Medicare should be almost exactly 1.45% of the same figure.
- Add every deduction and subtract from gross. The result should equal net pay.
- Compare YTD gross to your rate × hours worked so far this year.
If the numbers do not reconcile, raise it with payroll in writing and keep a copy of the stub. Underpayment errors are common with overtime, shift differentials, and the first check after a raise.
Estimate your own paycheck
The Paycheck Calculator takes your gross pay, filing status, state, and pre-tax deductions and returns an itemised estimate of federal tax, FICA, and state withholding — the same lines you see on a stub. The Take-Home Pay Calculator does it from an annual salary, and the Hourly Pay Calculator builds the gross earnings side from a rate and hours.
Sources
- US Department of Labor — Fact Sheet #21: Recordkeeping Requirements under the FLSA
- IRS — Topic no. 751, Social Security and Medicare withholding rates
- IRS — Publication 15-T, Federal Income Tax Withholding Methods
- Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — understanding your pay
See the Methodology & Sources page for the exact tables used in the calculators.