Roughly half of American workers admit they don't fully understand their own pay stub. That's not a shameful number — pay stubs are dense, the formats vary by employer and payroll provider, and most schools never teach this. But not understanding your stub means you can't catch payroll errors, can't estimate your true take-home pay, can't plan retirement contributions intelligently, and can't answer basic questions like “why is my paycheck smaller this period?”
This guide walks through every standard section of a US pay stub, what each line means, what numbers to compare against, and the specific mistakes employers make most often. It's long because pay stubs are layered. You don't need to read top to bottom — skip to the section relevant to what you're trying to understand.
The five sections of a pay stub
Every US pay stub has five sections, even when employers label them differently:
- Header — pay period dates, pay date, employee identifying info
- Earnings — gross pay, broken into hours and rates
- Pre-tax deductions — 401(k), HSA, FSA, premium-only health insurance
- Taxes — federal income tax, Social Security, Medicare, state income tax, local tax
- Post-tax deductions and net — Roth contributions, garnishments, the final amount that hits your bank
Plus a sixth section that runs alongside the current pay period: year-to-date (YTD) totals showing cumulative numbers since January 1 of the current year. YTD totals matter for any tax-bracket-aware deduction (401(k), HSA, additional Medicare tax) and for end-of-year planning.
Section 1: The header
The header has identifying information that you should glance at every period:
- Pay period— the dates the pay stub covers (e.g., “March 1 – March 15” for a semi-monthly schedule). Note: this is the work period, not when the money is paid.
- Pay date — when the money lands in your bank. For tax purposes, the IRS uses pay date, not work date. A pay stub for work done December 28–31 with a January 5 pay date counts toward the new tax year.
- Pay frequency— weekly (52 paychecks/year), biweekly (26), semi-monthly (24), or monthly (12). Biweekly and semi-monthly look similar but aren't identical: biweekly produces 26 paychecks (occasionally 27 in a year that has 53 weeks), semi-monthly is always 24.
- Employee ID — internal identifier used by your employer.
- Filing status and allowances/dependents — what the employer is using to calculate withholding. If this is wrong (e.g., you got married, had a child, or moved to a no-income-tax state), submit a new W-4. Updates take effect within 1–2 pay periods.
Section 2: Earnings — your gross pay
Earnings is the section above any deductions. It usually breaks down by category:
- Regular pay — base hourly or salary pay for normal hours worked
- Overtime — federally, hours over 40 in a workweek paid at 1.5× the regular rate (some states require 1.5× over 8 in a day)
- Holiday / sick / vacation / PTO — usually shown as separate lines for accounting
- Bonus / commission — variable pay; often taxed at a flat 22% supplemental withholding rate (more on that below)
- Reimbursements — non-taxable expense reimbursements that pass through your stub but don't increase taxable earnings
The total of all these is your gross pay for the period — the number that goes into all subsequent tax and deduction calculations.
Common error #1: hours and rate. If your employer enters 39 hours instead of 40, that's missing pay. Verify the hours every period match what you actually worked. For salaried workers, the gross should be exactly your annual salary divided by your number of pay periods (e.g., $80,000 ÷ 26 biweekly periods = $3,076.92 per check, with rounding handled in the final period of the year).
Section 3: Pre-tax deductions
Pre-tax deductions reduce your taxable income before taxes are calculated. The common ones:
- Traditional 401(k)— reduces both federal and (in most states) state taxable income. Does NOT reduce FICA wages — you still pay 7.65% on the full gross. 2026 limit: $23,500 employee deferral, +$7,500 catch-up if you're 50 or older.
- HSA (Health Savings Account) — reduces federal, state, AND FICA wages, making it the most tax-advantaged contribution available. Requires a high-deductible health plan. 2026 limits roughly $4,300 individual / $8,550 family.
- FSA (Flexible Spending Account) — same FICA-reducing benefit as HSA. Use-it-or-lose-it (with a small grace amount). 2026 limit ~$3,300.
- Health insurance premiums — usually pre-tax (this is called a Section 125 cafeteria plan deduction). Reduces federal and state taxable income; FICA treatment varies by plan structure.
- Dependent care FSA — for childcare expenses. Different limit than medical FSA. 2026 limit $5,000.
- Commuter / transit benefits — pre-tax up to a monthly limit set by IRS; reduces taxable income for parking, transit passes, and (in some states) bicycle commuting.
On the stub, these usually show both the current-period deduction and a YTD total. Cross-check the YTD against your contribution intent: if you're trying to max a 401(k) by year-end, divide $23,500 by remaining pay periods to confirm your current rate gets you there.
Section 4: Taxes
Federal income tax (FIT)
Federal income tax is computed using your filing status, claimed dependents, and the IRS withholding tables. The amount per check is an estimate based on the assumption that this period's pay continues for the rest of the year. If your pay is variable (commission, bonus, partial-period start), your withholding may not track your actual annual liability — leading to either a refund or balance due in April.
Bonuses are often withheld at the “supplemental wage rate” — a flat 22% federal (37% above $1M cumulative) regardless of your actual marginal rate. That's why a $5,000 bonus often shows up as ~$3,300 net even though your regular paychecks have a different effective rate. The actual tax owed gets reconciled on your annual return.
FICA: Social Security and Medicare
FICA appears as either one combined line (“FICA 7.65%”) or two separate lines. Either way:
- Social Security: 6.2% of wages, capped at the year's wage base ($168,600 in 2026). Above the cap, no more Social Security withholding for the rest of the year.
- Medicare: 1.45% on all wages, no cap.
- Additional Medicare: 0.9% on wages above $200,000 (single) or $250,000 (married). Employer doesn't match this.
Employers also pay an equal-matching portion of Social Security and Medicare — that's why you may have heard your “true” FICA contribution described as 15.3%. Self-employed people pay both halves.
State income tax
Forty-one states + DC have a state income tax. Nine states have no state income tax: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming. Some states use a flat rate (Pennsylvania 3.07%, Illinois 4.95%); most use progressive brackets like the federal system.
Local taxes
About 5,000 US localities — concentrated in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Maryland, New York, Indiana, and Kentucky — also withhold local income tax. Major examples: New York City (3.876% top rate), Philadelphia (3.75% resident), Detroit (2.4% resident, 1.2% non-resident), Baltimore (3.20%), Columbus and Cleveland (2.5% each). If you live in one of these places and don't see a local tax line, something is misconfigured.
Section 5: Post-tax deductions and net pay
Post-tax deductions reduce your take-home but not your taxable income:
- Roth 401(k)— taxed now, withdrawn tax-free in retirement. Doesn't reduce current-period taxable income, but counts toward the same $23,500 annual 401(k) limit as traditional contributions.
- Garnishments — court-ordered deductions for child support, defaulted student loans, IRS levies, etc. Federal law caps total garnishment at 25% of disposable income for most consumer debts (50–60% for child support).
- Union dues, parking, life insurance — depending on the employer, some of these are pre-tax, some are post-tax. Read the line carefully.
- Payroll advances or repayments — if you took a payroll advance, the repayment shows here.
Net pay is the bottom-line number — what hits your bank. For a typical worker, net pay is roughly 65–75% of gross, depending on state, deductions, and bracket. Use our Paycheck Calculator to model what your net should be given your inputs, and compare to what your employer actually paid.
The YTD column: why it matters
Year-to-date totals are critical for end-of-year planning:
- Hitting the 401(k) ceiling. If your YTD 401(k) is approaching $23,500, your contributions should stop or your employer should auto-cap. A missed cap means over-contribution (which has a deadline to fix without penalty).
- Crossing the Social Security wage base.Once YTD wages exceed the wage base, Social Security withholding should drop to zero. If it doesn't, you're overpaying — fixed on your annual return but cash-flow-relevant in the short term.
- Crossing the additional Medicare threshold. Once YTD wages exceed $200,000 (single) or $250,000 (married), an extra 0.9% Medicare kicks in. Verify it appears.
- Bonus + bracket math. A late-year bonus can push you into a higher bracket. Federal supplemental withholding at 22% may underwithhold for high earners — plan for the gap on your tax return.
Common employer errors to check for
- Wrong filing status. Marriage, divorce, dependents, or moving states changes withholding. Submit a new W-4.
- Wrong state. Remote workers — particularly those who moved mid-year — sometimes have withholding to the wrong state. Catch this fast; fixing it after year-end requires filing returns in multiple states.
- Missing 401(k) match.Verify your employer's match shows up. The match is the most-leaked benefit; if you contribute 6% but don't see the company match line, check with HR.
- Pre-tax vs post-tax confusion.Health insurance premiums should normally be pre-tax. If yours are post-tax and you have a Section 125 plan available, you're overpaying tax.
- Hours mismatch.Hourly workers: cross-check hours every period. Salaried: if your gross varies week to week without a corresponding event (bonus, missed period), something's wrong.
- Local tax leakage. If you moved from a city with local tax to one without (or vice versa), the change can take a few periods to flow through. Verify after a move.
Tools and what to do next
If you want to verify your stub against what it “should” be, our Paycheck Calculator handles federal + FICA + state tax for any state and shows the breakdown component by component. For state-specific take-home with 2026 brackets, the per-state pages (California, Texas, New York, etc.) include state-by-state notes. For city-level local taxes, the city paycheck pages apply the city rate on top of state and federal.
For after-tax estimates by salary bracket, the $100K after tax in California-style pages let you sanity-check what take-home should look like for typical incomes.
Final thoughts
Your pay stub is the single best record you have of how your employer treats you financially. Catching errors usually requires the same skills you already have for checking a credit card statement: scan for the lines that should be there, verify their values, and follow up when something looks off. The cost of looking is five minutes per period. The cost of not looking is the lost dollars from missed matches, wrong withholding, and unfixed input errors that compound over years.