Frequently Asked Questions

$5.99 for one pay stub. It's a single charge for the document you download — there's no subscription, no monthly fee and no charge for previewing your stub first.

Yes. Enter your details and the finished stub appears on screen with every figure calculated, before any payment. You only pay when you're satisfied with it and want the print-ready PDF.

The federal figures follow the IRS withholding method in Publication 15-T, Social Security and Medicare follow the rates and wage base the SSA sets for the year, and each state's income tax uses that state's own published withholding tables — including the extra payroll programs some states run, such as California SDI, New Jersey FLI and SUI, and Hawaii TDI.

What the calculation can't know is anything you don't enter: a second job, a mid-year raise, or a W-4 setting we weren't told about. Paystub Form is a document-preparation tool, not tax advice — for filing or an unusual payroll situation, check with an accountant.

All 50 states and the District of Columbia. That includes the no-income-tax states, where the stub correctly shows federal withholding and FICA only, and the states with extra payroll taxes on top of income tax. You can see the rules that apply where you are on our state-by-state pages.

No. You can fill in the form, preview your stub and check out without registering. You'll need to give an email address so the finished PDF can be sent to you — an account is optional, and only useful if you want to come back to your past stubs.

Yes — creating a pay stub that documents pay you actually received, or actually paid someone, is ordinary record-keeping. Employers, freelancers and small businesses do it every day, and many small employers have no payroll software producing one for them.

What is not legal is using a pay stub to state income that was never earned — to get a loan, a lease or a benefit. That's fraud, whatever tool produced the document, and our Terms of Service prohibit it. Everything you enter here should be true.

A print-ready PDF of your pay stub, available to download immediately and emailed to the address you gave. It's an ordinary PDF — you can print it, attach it to an application, or keep it with your records.

No. You pay $5.99 for a stub, and that's the end of it. Nothing renews, nothing is stored to be billed later, and there is no plan to cancel.

Major credit and debit cards. Card details are entered on our payment provider's own secure checkout page and are never stored on our servers.

Yes — every purchase is covered by a 30-day money-back guarantee. If the document isn't what you needed, ask and we'll refund it. The full terms, and how to request one, are on our refund policy page.

Yes. Tell us what's wrong through the contact form with your order details and we'll sort out the corrected document — you shouldn't have to pay twice because of a typo. Correcting it before you check out is quicker, so it's worth reading the preview through carefully.

Yes. Each stub is created and priced separately, so a small employer can run through several in one sitting — company details carry over, and only the employee and pay information changes.

Not much: the employer's name and address, the employee's name and address, how they're paid (hourly rate and hours, or a salary), the pay period and pay date, the filing status on their W-4, and any deductions you want shown. Year-to-date figures help if you want the stub to match the rest of the year, but the tool can work them out from what you enter.

Card details go straight to the payment provider and never reach us. The pay details you enter are stored with your order so the document can be re-sent, over an encrypted connection. Our privacy policy sets out exactly what is kept, for how long, and how to have it deleted.

Yes. The builder works on a phone or tablet as well as a computer, and the PDF you get is identical.

That's usually correct rather than a fault. Federal withholding depends on gross pay for the period, the pay frequency and the W-4 settings — and at lower earnings with a standard W-4, the calculated withholding genuinely is zero. Social Security and Medicare still appear, because those are withheld from the first dollar.

If it looks wrong, check the pay frequency first: the same amount entered as weekly rather than monthly produces a very different answer.

Yes — overtime hours at their own rate, bonuses, commission and reported tips can all be added as separate earnings lines, and each one flows into the tax calculation and the year-to-date totals the way payroll would treat it.

Yes. You can add pre-tax deductions such as health insurance premiums and traditional 401(k) contributions, which reduce the wages the tax is calculated on, and after-tax items such as Roth contributions or garnishments, which don't. Employer contributions can be shown separately, since they aren't deducted from take-home pay.

Yes, and it's a common use — but a contractor's stub is a different document. No income tax, Social Security or Medicare is withheld from contractor pay; the stub records what was earned and paid, which is exactly what a contractor needs when asked to evidence income. If tax is being withheld from someone's pay, they're being treated as an employee, and the employee form is the right one.

FICA is the pair of payroll taxes funding Social Security and Medicare. Social Security is withheld at 6.2% of wages up to an annual wage base the SSA resets each year; Medicare is 1.45% with no cap, plus an extra 0.9% on wages above $200,000 for a single filer. The employer pays a matching 6.2% and 1.45% that never appears as a deduction on your stub.

Year to date — the running total for the calendar year up to and including this pay period. Most stubs show a YTD figure beside each current-period figure, so you can see both what this cheque was and what the year has been. It's the column lenders and landlords read, because one period tells them very little.

Gross pay is what was earned before anything is taken out. Net pay — take-home pay — is what's left after taxes and deductions, and it's the amount that reaches the bank account. The gap between the two is the deductions section of the stub, line by line.

Old-Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance — the formal name for Social Security. A stub that shows "OASDI" and a stub that shows "Social Security" are showing the same 6.2% deduction; payroll systems just label it differently.

The details that let someone check the pay: the employer and employee, the pay period and pay date, hours and rate or salary, gross pay, each tax and deduction itemised, net pay, and year-to-date totals. States that require pay statements set their own list on top of that — some require the hours worked to be shown, some require paid-leave balances. Our state pages carry the rule for each state.

A pay stub and a payslip are the same document under different names — a statement of what was earned and what was deducted. A paycheck is the payment itself. With direct deposit there's no cheque at all, which is exactly why the stub matters: it's the record of a payment that otherwise leaves only a bank line.

There's no federal law requiring one. The Fair Labor Standards Act requires employers to keep accurate pay records, but not to hand a statement to the employee.

Most states do require one, and they differ in how: some require a written or printed statement, some allow an electronic one the employee can access and print, and a few require the employee's consent before going paperless. A handful require nothing at all. The rule for a given state is on its state page.

Yes. There's no employer issuing one, so a self-employed person creates it themselves from their own records — which is legitimate as long as the figures are what was genuinely earned. It's often the clearest way to present freelance income that otherwise sits in invoices and bank statements, and it can be paired with a tax return or bank records when someone asks for more.

Pay stubs are the document landlords and lenders ask for most often, because they show gross pay, deductions and year-to-date earnings in one place. Most will want to see recent consecutive stubs, and many verify them with the employer or alongside bank statements or a tax return.

Which is the practical reason to be careful with the figures: a stub that doesn't match what the employer confirms is worse than no stub at all.

Two to three of the most recent ones is the common request for a rental application — roughly a month of pay. Mortgage lenders typically want 30 days of stubs plus two years of W-2s, and will look at the year-to-date column to check the pay is steady. There's no legal minimum; it's whatever the person reviewing the application asks for.

For your own records, keep them until you can check them against the W-2 for that year, then keep the year's final stub. It's worth holding on to them longer if you're applying for a mortgage, disputing pay, or claiming a benefit that looks at earnings history.

Employers have a firmer rule: the IRS asks for employment tax records to be kept at least four years after the fourth quarter's return for the year is filed.

Ask in writing first — in most states the employer is required to provide a statement or give you access to one, and a written request on the record is what makes the next step possible. If nothing comes of it, your state's labour department takes complaints about unpaid or undocumented wages, and they're the right authority rather than a document you make yourself.

Creating your own stub from your bank deposits is reasonable for your own records and for showing income; it doesn't replace what your employer owes you.

Start with the three that account for most errors: the hours and rate, the pay period dates, and the filing status and allowances your employer has from your W-4 — a stale W-4 is the usual reason withholding looks too high or too low. Then check whether a pre-tax deduction changed, since that moves both the tax and the take-home figure. If it still doesn't reconcile, your payroll or HR contact can show you the calculation behind it.

You can produce a stub for a past pay period from your own records — the deposit amount, the dates and the rate you were paid — and that's a legitimate way to reconstruct a document you were given and mislaid. Ask your employer or payroll provider first, though: they hold the original figures, and a copy from them is what a lender or landlord would rather see.

No. Paystub Form prepares a document; it doesn't file, report or send anything to any tax authority, and it isn't payroll software. Filing and depositing payroll taxes stays with the employer.