Free Pay Stub Template: 8 Types for US Employers
Free pay stub templates for US employers: basic, hourly, salary, PTO, California, and contractor versions, plus an XLSX calculator and YTD register.
A pay stub template is the fill-in-the-blank version of the earnings statement that goes out with each paycheck. The pay stub is a document I would tell any founder to get right early: your team sees it every payday, and it becomes the evidence if pay is ever disputed.
There are eight templates here, covering the situations employers actually run into: a basic stub, hourly with overtime, salaried, one with paid time off (PTO) and sick leave balances, a version built to California's nine-item standard, a contractor payment statement, plus a spreadsheet calculator and a year-to-date (YTD) register. Six download as Word documents, two as Excel workbooks, free and without an email.
If you run payroll by hand, without dedicated software, a template is what keeps every stub consistent: the same sections, in the same order, with nothing quietly missing. And what counts as missing is not a matter of taste. It is set by your state, and the requirements differ more than most employers expect.
What a Pay Stub Template Is
A pay stub template is a reusable document that lays out the standard sections of an earnings statement so you only have to supply the numbers. It is an employer tool for recording wages actually paid, which makes it a different thing from the income-verification generators you will also find online.
You will see this document under several names. A pay stub, a paycheck stub, a check stub, and a payroll stub all mean the same document. California statute calls it an itemized wage statement. Whatever the label, the content requirements are what matter.
Payslip is the same document under another name. The term is standard outside the US and turns up here too, usually from someone who learned payroll elsewhere or runs an international team, so a payslip template and a pay stub template are interchangeable. Whichever word you use, build to the US state rules.
What Goes on a Pay Stub
A complete pay stub answers four questions: who was paid and for what period, what they earned, what was taken out, and what actually landed. The exact required fields depend on your state, but the set below is the consensus that satisfies most of them.
Two fields get skipped most often and cause the most trouble. The first is itemizing deductions individually instead of showing one combined figure for taxes. The second is listing every applicable rate separately when an employee worked at more than one rate during the period, which several states treat as a distinct requirement rather than a formatting preference.
Pay Stub Example, Filled In
The templates below ship blank, so here is a sample pay stub with real numbers on every line. This one is for a biweekly hourly employee at $22 an hour who worked 80 regular hours and 6 overtime hours. Follow the arithmetic down the right column and the same logic applies to any period.
| Line | Detail | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Pay period | March 1 to March 14, paid March 20 | |
| Regular pay | 80 hours at $22.00 | $1,760.00 |
| Overtime pay | 6 hours at $33.00, the 1.5x rate | $198.00 |
| Gross pay | Regular plus overtime | $1,958.00 |
| Federal income tax | Looked up for this employee’s Form W-4, illustrative | $154.00 |
| Social Security | 6.2% of $1,958.00 | $121.40 |
| Medicare | 1.45% of $1,958.00 | $28.39 |
| State income tax | 4% flat, illustrative | $78.32 |
| Health insurance | Employee share, post-tax in this example | $85.00 |
| Total deductions | Sum of the five deduction lines above | $467.11 |
| Net pay | Gross minus total deductions | $1,490.89 |
Of the federal lines, only Social Security and Medicare, the two Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) taxes, are pure percentages. The federal income tax figure is a lookup against the employee Form W-4 and your pay frequency in IRS Publication 15-T, which is why every real pay stub example you see uses a number rather than a rate on that line.
One thing the example above simplifies: the health premium is shown after tax. If yours runs through a Section 125 plan (a cafeteria plan for pre-tax premiums), it comes out of gross first. Those salary reductions are excluded from both federal income tax wages and Social Security and Medicare wages. Getting that order backwards overstates withholding on every stub.
A salary pay stub example works the same way with one substitution. Instead of hours times rate, the earnings line is the annual salary divided by the number of pay periods. This one takes a $78,000 salary paid semimonthly, which is 24 periods, with a retirement deferral in the mix.
| Line | Detail | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Salary for the period | $78,000 a year over 24 semimonthly periods | $3,250.00 |
| Gross pay | No overtime line for an exempt employee | $3,250.00 |
| Federal income tax | Looked up for this employee’s Form W-4, illustrative | $341.00 |
| Social Security | 6.2% of $3,250.00 | $201.50 |
| Medicare | 1.45% of $3,250.00 | $47.13 |
| State income tax | 4% flat, illustrative | $130.00 |
| Health insurance | Employee share, post-tax in this example | $140.00 |
| Retirement contribution | 5% employee election | $162.50 |
| Total deductions | Sum of the six deduction lines above | $1,022.13 |
| Net pay | Gross minus total deductions | $2,227.87 |
The retirement line is a useful edge case. An elective deferral, pay the employee chooses to put into a retirement plan, is not subject to federal income tax withholding, but it stays in Social Security and Medicare wages. So the FICA lines above are figured on the full $3,250 while the federal line is not, and that asymmetry is normal.
Which Template Should You Use?
Pick by how the person is paid. Hourly staff need the overtime version, salaried staff the salary version, and anyone in a state that requires leave balances on the stub needs the PTO version. If you operate in California, start from the section 226 template rather than adapting a generic one.
8 Free Pay Stub Templates
Download all eight together or grab the one you need. Six are Word documents you fill in per pay period. Two are Excel workbooks: a calculator that walks gross down to net, and a register that logs every period across the year so your year-to-date figures come from somewhere real rather than being retyped.
Every Word file arrives as a blank, editable form. Open it in Word or Google Docs, type over the underscored fields, then print it or export to PDF when you are ready to issue it. The blanks are deliberate, so the same file serves every employee and every pay period without being rebuilt.
Template 1: Basic Pay Stub
Every field a standard stub needs and nothing more. Employer and employee details, pay period, gross pay, itemized deductions, net pay, and year-to-date totals. Start here if you just need a clean, correct stub.
Template 2: Hourly Pay Stub with Overtime
Separate lines for each rate paid during the period, plus overtime, shift differential, and total hours worked. Built for non-exempt employees and for the states that require every applicable rate to appear on its own line.
Template 3: Salaried Employee Pay Stub
Salary for the period instead of hours times rate, with an exempt or non-exempt classification field. The hours line stays because salaried non-exempt employees still earn overtime and often need hours shown.
Template 4: Pay Stub with PTO Balance
Adds accrued, used, and available balances for paid time off and paid sick leave alongside the earnings detail. Useful anywhere, and required in the states whose sick leave laws put the balance on the stub.
Template 5: California Compliant Pay Stub
Every field mapped to one of the nine items California Labor Code section 226 requires, including an employee identifier that is not the full Social Security number, plus the available paid sick leave balance that Labor Code section 246 adds.
Template 6: Contractor Payment Statement
For independent contractors, who are not on payroll. No withholding, gross equals net, with a backup withholding line and a running annual total for Form 1099-NEC reporting.
Template 7: Pay Stub Calculator (XLSX)
An Excel worksheet that walks gross down to net line by line. The last column gives the exact formula to paste into each Amount cell, and a second tab holds the current federal rates, limits, and retention minimums.
| A | B | C | D | E | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Line item | Hours | Rate | Amount | Formula to enter in Amount |
| 2 | Regular pay | =B2*C2 | |||
| 3 | Overtime pay | =B3*C3 | |||
| 4 | Other earnings (bonus, tips, commission) | Enter the amount directly | |||
| 5 | GROSS PAY | =D2+D3+D4 | |||
| 6 | Federal income tax | From IRS Publication 15-T and the employee Form W-4 | |||
| 7 | Social Security | =D5*0.062 | |||
| 8 | Medicare | =D5*0.0145 | |||
| 9 | State income tax | Per your state withholding schedule | |||
| 10 | Other deductions (insurance, retirement) | Enter the amount directly | |||
| 11 | TOTAL DEDUCTIONS | =SUM(D6:D10) | |||
| 12 | NET PAY | =D5-D11 |
Template 8: Year to Date Payroll Register (XLSX)
A register logging each pay period across the year, with a totals tab that rolls up gross, each tax, and net. This is where the year-to-date figures on your stubs should come from.
| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pay date | Pay period | Regular hours | OT hours | Gross pay | Federal tax | Social Security | Medicare | State tax | Other deductions | Net pay |
| 2 | SAMPLE 01/15/2026 | 01/01 to 01/15 | 80 | 4 | 2150 | 215 | 133.3 | 31.18 | 86 | 120 | 1564.52 |
| 3 | |||||||||||
| 4 | |||||||||||
| 5 | |||||||||||
| 6 | |||||||||||
| 7 | |||||||||||
| 8 | |||||||||||
| 9 |
How to Save a Pay Stub as a PDF
Fill in the template first, then save it as a PDF. PDF is what a finished stub becomes, not what it starts as, which is why these templates download as editable Word and Excel files rather than as a locked PDF pay stub. Once converted, the layout is fixed, nobody edits it by accident, and it prints exactly as it looks on screen.
In Word, open the File menu, then choose Save As, then pick PDF as the file type. In Google Docs, open the File menu, then Download, then PDF Document. Excel follows the same route through File, then Export. Name each file with the employee and the pay date, so a year of stubs stays sorted without you renaming anything later.
The format also settles the delivery question in the states that accept an electronic stub only when the employee can print it. A PDF emailed to the employee, or posted somewhere they can download it, meets that standard. A portal screen that blocks saving and printing does not.
Pay Stub Rules by State
State law alone decides whether you must issue a pay stub and how you may deliver it, because there is no federal mandate. States sort into five groups: one with no requirement at all, and four that differ in how the stub may be delivered rather than in what it must contain.
Texas is the state that surprises people. Section 62.003 of the Texas Labor Code calls for an earnings statement each pay period, but the Texas Workforce Commission says check stubs are not required for employees covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act, which is most of them. The agency still recommends issuing them, because a stub doubles as a payroll record.
Oregon and Connecticut sit in the opt-in group alongside Hawaii. Oregon law allows an electronic statement only when the employee expressly agrees and can print or store it, and Connecticut law requires the employee's explicit consent first. Without that agreement, both states expect the statement on paper.
Illinois tightened its rules around the same time. Effective January 1, 2025, Public Act 103-0953 amended the Illinois Wage Payment and Collection Act to define a pay stub as an itemized statement showing hours worked, rate of pay, overtime pay and overtime hours, gross wages, deductions, and year-to-date totals for wages and deductions.
Illinois employers must issue a pay stub each pay period, keep copies for three years from the date of payment even after the employee leaves, and respond to a request within 21 days. Employees may request copies up to twice in a 12-month period, and each violation carries a civil penalty of up to $500.
Dwight SchruteSales3 people
Darryl PhilbinWarehouse1 person
Kelly KapoorCustomer Service1 personCalifornia remains the strictest content standard. Labor Code section 226 lists nine mandatory items, and the state Division of Labor Standards Enforcement enforces them closely. Statutory penalties run $50 for the initial pay period in which a violation occurs and $100 per employee for each subsequent pay period, capped at $4,000 per employee, with costs and attorney fees on top.
A separate $750 penalty applies when an employer fails to produce records within 21 days of a request. The $50 and $100 penalties, by contrast, require a knowing and intentional violation, and the statute excludes an isolated clerical or inadvertent payroll error. That gives a good-faith employer some room that headline figures rarely mention.
How to Calculate Deductions
Work top down. Total the earnings to get gross pay, apply each withholding in order, then subtract to reach net. Federal income tax is looked up rather than calculated from a flat rate, which is the step people most often get wrong.
| Line | Rate or basis | What to watch |
|---|---|---|
| Gross pay | Regular plus overtime plus other earnings | Non-discretionary bonuses raise the regular rate used for overtime |
| Federal income tax | Per IRS withholding tables | Depends on the Form W-4 and pay frequency, not a flat percentage |
| Social Security | 6.2% of gross | Stops once wages for the year reach $192,300 in 2027 ($184,500 in 2026) |
| Medicare | 1.45% of gross | No wage cap. Add 0.9% on wages above $200,000, employee only |
| State income tax | Per state schedule | Nine states have no wage income tax at all |
| Voluntary deductions | Per employee election | Health premiums, retirement, and garnishments listed separately |
| Net pay | Gross minus total deductions | This is the figure that should match the deposit |
The calculator template handles the arithmetic once you enter hours and rates, and its second tab keeps these figures in front of you. What it cannot do is decide whether a worker is exempt or whether a bonus belongs in the regular rate. Those are judgment calls, and both are common sources of payroll mistakes.
Contractors Do Not Get Pay Stubs
Independent contractors are not on payroll, so there is no withholding and no pay stub in the legal sense. A contractor invoices and receives the contracted amount in full, which means gross equals net. The only routine exception is backup withholding when a valid taxpayer identification number was not furnished.
You can still give a contractor a payment statement documenting what was paid, and Template 6 does exactly that, but the label matters. Calling it a payment statement rather than a pay stub keeps the record honest and avoids implying a payroll relationship that does not exist.
Handing someone a document that looks like a pay stub has no effect on their status either way, since classification turns on the actual working relationship, not the paperwork.
Legal Use and the Line You Should Not Cross
Creating your own pay stubs is legal when you are the employer and the numbers are real. Federal rules set no particular form for payroll records, so building stubs from a template rather than from payroll software is entirely legitimate as long as the content meets your state requirements and the figures are accurate.
The line is fabrication. Producing a pay stub that overstates income, or shows employment that never happened, to obtain a loan, a lease, or a benefit is document fraud. The civil and criminal exposure does not depend on which tool made the file.
Every template on this page is built for an employer documenting wages actually paid to actual employees. None of them should be used to represent income that was not earned.
Issue, File, and Keep the Record
A pay stub is only doing its job if it goes out on time, in the format your state accepts, and the copy is still findable years later. That last part is the one most employers lose, and it is the part that matters during a dispute or an audit.
These templates work on their own. For the surrounding paperwork, FirstHR keeps the employee profile that holds the identifying details a stub needs, stores signed payroll documents like the direct deposit authorization and the deduction authorization against the right person with document management, and captures those signatures with a timestamp.
FirstHR is an onboarding and HR platform, not a payroll provider and not a law firm: it does not run payroll, calculate withholding, or issue pay stubs, so pair it with your payroll provider or accountant for the money side. Applicant tracking is coming soon to FirstHR.
The routine stays the same whatever tools you use: match the template to how each person is paid, check it against your state's rules, and keep a copy of every stub you issue.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a pay stub template?
A pay stub template is a reusable, fill-in-the-blank document an employer uses to produce the earnings statement that accompanies an employee paycheck. It lays out the standard sections in the right order: the employer name and address, the employee name and identifier, the pay period dates and pay date, hours worked and the rates paid, gross wages, every deduction itemized, net pay, and year-to-date totals. The template is the structure. You supply the numbers for each pay period. Employers who run payroll manually, without dedicated payroll software, use a template so that every stub comes out consistent and complete rather than being rebuilt from scratch each time. Since required content is set by state law and varies, the right template is one that covers the fields your state requires. This is general information, not legal or tax advice.
Are employers required to provide pay stubs?
It depends on your state, because no federal law requires a pay stub. The federal duty is to keep accurate payroll records, so whether you must give employees a statement is a question for state law. Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Dakota, and Tennessee are the eight states with no requirement. The remaining 42 each have a pay statement law, and the details differ from one state to the next. Texas is a special case: its rule does not apply to employees the Fair Labor Standards Act covers, and that takes most Texas employers out of it. Delivery rules vary as well. Some states are satisfied with electronic access, some insist the electronic copy can be printed, some give employees the right to ask for paper, and a few, Hawaii among them, require the employee’s consent before you switch to electronic stubs. Ohio moved onto the required list in April 2025, so any chart that still lists it among the no-requirement states is out of date. This is general information, not legal advice.
Is it legal to create your own pay stub?
Yes, provided the stub comes from you as the employer and records wages you actually paid. No federal rule dictates what a payroll record must look like, so a stub you produce yourself in Word or Excel is just as valid as one printed by payroll software. What matters is that it carries every field your state asks for and that each number is correct. Trouble starts in a different situation entirely: a person inventing a pay stub to make their income look bigger to a lender, a landlord, or an agency. That is document fraud, and it can bring serious civil and criminal consequences no matter which program created the document. All the templates here assume the first situation, an employer documenting real pay for real employees, and none of them is meant for manufacturing proof of income. This is general information, not legal advice.
What must a pay stub include?
Requirements vary by state, but one set of fields satisfies most of them. List the employer’s legal name and address; the employee’s name with an identifier, either an employee ID or the last four digits of the Social Security number; the first and last dates of the pay period; and the pay date. Then show total hours worked by non-exempt employees, each pay rate in use and how many hours were worked at it, gross wages, every deduction on its own line rather than as one combined figure, net wages, and year-to-date totals. California Labor Code section 226 sets the toughest of the common standards, with nine required items, and a stub that meets it will usually meet other states’ rules too. Where a state’s paid sick leave law calls for it, add the employee’s available leave balance. This is general information, not legal advice.
Do 1099 contractors get pay stubs?
No. A pay stub belongs to payroll, and an independent contractor is paid outside it. The contractor bills you for the work and you pay the invoice in full, so the amount earned and the amount received are the same. Nothing is withheld for federal income tax, Social Security, or Medicare, and you owe no employer share of those taxes. The usual exception is backup withholding, triggered when the contractor has not given you a valid taxpayer identification number. Some businesses still give contractors a statement of what was paid, and that is a sensible record to keep, as long as you call it a payment statement and not a pay stub. Bear in mind that the format of that paperwork does nothing to make someone a contractor or an employee. Classification depends on how the working relationship actually operates. This is general information, not legal or tax advice.
Are electronic pay stubs legal?
In most states, yes, but each state attaches its own conditions, and that is where employers tend to trip up. The rules fall into four broad groups. In access states, an electronic stub is fine as long as your employees can genuinely get to it. Access-and-print states, California among them, also require that employees can print their copy, so a portal that will not let them download or print does not count. In opt-out states such as Delaware and Minnesota, electronic delivery is allowed, but any employee who asks must be switched to paper. Opt-in states, which include Connecticut, Hawaii, and Oregon, require the employee to agree before the first electronic stub goes out, and in Hawaii that agreement has to be in writing. Before you change how stubs are delivered, check which group your state belongs to. This is general information, not legal advice.
How do you calculate deductions on a pay stub?
Start with gross pay and subtract your way down. Gross is the sum of every earning for the period: regular hours multiplied by the regular rate, overtime hours multiplied by the overtime rate, and any bonus, commission, or tips on top. Next comes federal income tax, which you find in the IRS withholding tables using the employee’s Form W-4 together with how often you pay, rather than by applying a set percentage. Social Security takes 6.2 percent of gross up to an annual wage base of $192,300 for 2027 and $184,500 for 2026, and once an employee’s earnings for the year hit that cap, you stop withholding it. Medicare takes 1.45 percent of all wages with no cap, and wages above $200,000 carry an extra 0.9 percent that only the employee pays. Then take out state income tax and local income tax where it applies, followed by voluntary items such as health insurance and retirement contributions. Whatever is left after every deduction is net pay. This is general information, not tax advice.
How long do you have to keep pay stub records?
Plan on at least four years, the longest of the federal minimums, and then check your state for extra rules. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, payroll records must be preserved for three years or more, while the time cards, work schedules, and other records behind each wage calculation need at least two. The IRS sets the four-year floor: it treats the amounts and dates of wage payments as employment tax records and wants them kept for at least four years after you file the fourth-quarter return for that year. States add obligations of their own. In California, you must hold a copy of every wage statement for three years, either at the workplace or at a central location inside the state, and hand it over within 21 days when a current or former employee asks. Illinois also requires three years of pay stub copies, counted from each payment date and kept even for employees who have since left, with 21 days to answer a request. Because state rules sit on top of the federal ones, erring toward longer retention is the safer choice. This is general information, not legal advice.
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