Pay Stub Generator

How this pay stub generator figures each line

Regular pay is your regular hours times your hourly rate. Overtime pay is overtime hours times the rate times 1.5. A bonus or commission goes on a line of its own. Every line is rounded to the cent, and gross pay is their sum.

A traditional 401(k) or 403(b) contribution lowers the wages used for federal, state, and local income tax, but not the wages used for Social Security and Medicare. Section 125 health, dental, and vision premiums lower both. The 401(k) paycheck impact calculator shows what a deferral really costs per check.

Federal income tax follows the IRS Pub. 15-T percentage method for automated payroll systems (Worksheet 1A). The tool annualizes this period's taxable wages (52, 26, 24, or 12 periods), adds W-4 Step 4(a), and subtracts Step 4(b) plus an adjustment of $8,600 ($12,900 for married filing jointly, $0 when the Step 2 box is checked). It looks up the annual table, divides the result back to one period, subtracts Step 3 credits per period, and adds Step 4(c). A separately listed bonus is withheld at the flat 22% supplemental rate instead; the bonus tax calculator compares that with the aggregate method.

Social Security is 6.2% of wages up to the $184,500 wage base for 2026. Medicare is 1.45% with no cap, plus 0.9% Additional Medicare once this employer has paid you more than $200,000 for the year. State and local tax are the rates you enter times your income-tax wages. No state tables are built in.

Net pay is gross minus every rounded tax and deduction line, so the stub always adds up to the cent. Take a single filer paid weekly at $22.00 an hour who works 40 regular hours and 6 overtime hours: $880.00 plus $198.00 is $1,078.00 gross. Pub. 15-T withholds $87.44 in federal income tax, Social Security is $66.84, Medicare is $15.63, and a 4% state rate takes $43.12, which leaves $864.97.

The take-home paycheck calculator answers a different question: roughly what a salary or hourly rate nets over a full year, using annual tax brackets. This tool builds one printable stub from a single period's hours, your W-4 entries, and your year-to-date figures, so its federal line is withholding, not annual tax owed, and the two won't always match.

Reading the year-to-date column

Each YTD figure is the amount on your last stub before this period plus this check, line by line. Leave the prior fields at zero for the first check of the year and YTD equals the current column.

YTD matters for more than record keeping. The Social Security cap and the Additional Medicare trigger both run on cumulative wages. Lenders and landlords also read YTD gross to judge your annual income.

Say a biweekly worker has $181,000 in prior gross and $3,400 in prior Section 125 premiums, so $177,600 in prior Social Security wages. This check carries $6,925 in FICA wages, but only $6,900 of it fits under the $184,500 base. Social Security comes to $427.80, and the YTD column tops out at $11,439.00, the 2026 maximum. Comparing the cap to prior gross instead would leave only $3,500 of room and understate the tax.

Additional Medicare works the same way. A worker with $195,000 in prior wages and a $12,720 semimonthly check crosses $200,000 during this period, so the 0.9% applies to the $7,720 over the line: $69.48 on top of $184.44 in regular Medicare. That happens even for a worker who files jointly and whose own threshold is $250,000. Any over-withholding is settled on Form 8959 at tax time.

Federal income tax does not use YTD. Each check is annualized on its own, which is why one big overtime check can withhold at a higher rate than your average for the year. If a lot of that pay is overtime premium, the overtime tax savings calculator estimates what the no tax on overtime deduction could give back when you file.

Overtime on a stub: workweeks vs. pay periods

Under the FLSA, covered nonexempt employees earn 1.5 times their regular rate for hours over 40 in a workweek. A workweek is a fixed, recurring block of 168 hours. Hours can't be averaged across weeks, and overtime is due on the regular payday for the period in which it was earned.

That makes biweekly stubs easy to get wrong. A 45-hour week followed by a 35-hour week totals 80 hours but still owes 5 overtime hours, because the first week ran 5 hours past 40. Count each week on its own, or let the biweekly timecard calculator split them. Semimonthly and monthly periods don't line up with workweeks at all, so payroll counts overtime from each workweek that ended in the period. Pay periods explained walks through the differences.

Some states go further. California requires daily overtime after 8 hours and double time after 12 hours in a workday. The regular rate can also include shift differentials and nondiscretionary bonuses, which raises the overtime rate above 1.5 times the base wage. This tool pays overtime at 1.5 times the hourly rate you enter, so work out the right rate first with the regular rate of pay calculator, and use the overtime calculator or double time calculator for the hours.

Who should use a pay stub generator (and who shouldn't)

The tool is mainly meant for household employers who pay a nanny, caregiver, or housekeeper. They withhold Social Security and Medicare, and federal income tax only if the worker asks and they agree (IRS Pub. 926). A very small business without payroll software can use it the same way, and workers can use it to check whether their employer's stub adds up.

The stub is built for W-2 wages. Independent contractors paid on a 1099 have nothing withheld, but this tool always takes out Social Security and Medicare, so it's the wrong fit for contractor pay. The 1099 vs W-2 calculator compares the two setups.

Federal law doesn't require pay stubs, but most states require an itemized wage statement. California Labor Code 226(a) lists nine items: gross wages, total hours worked, piece-rate units, all deductions, net wages, the pay period dates, the employee's name with the last four digits of the SSN or an employee ID, the employer's legal name and address, and every hourly rate with the hours worked at it. The stub here has a place for each of those except piece-rate units.

A stub that makes up income, hours, or an employer to get a loan, lease, or public benefits is fraud, whatever software produced it. Every stub from this page is stamped "Not an official payroll record." The numbers stay in your browser: nothing you type is stored or sent anywhere, and closing the tab clears it.

The stub is only as good as the hours on it. Timeclock44 logs each shift as you work it, and Pro can build a paycheck PDF for any pay period. Figures on this page are estimates only, not tax or legal advice.