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.
Pay Stub Templates for Employers
Eight pay stub templates for US employers paying real wages to real employees: basic, hourly with overtime, salaried, PTO balances, a California section 226 version, a contractor statement, plus an XLSX calculator and a year-to-date register. Fill-in-the-blank DOCX and XLSX. No signup.
A pay stub template is the fill-in-the-blank version of the earnings statement that goes out with each paycheck. If you run payroll by hand, without dedicated software, the 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.
There are eight templates here, covering the situations employers actually run into: a basic stub, hourly with overtime, salaried, one with 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 register. Six download as Word documents, two as Excel workbooks, free and without an email.
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 is a different thing from the income-verification generators that also rank for this search.
The terms are interchangeable, which is worth saying plainly because searchers use all of them. 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 the same request. Build to the US state rules regardless of which word you searched.
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 a biweekly hourly employee at 22 dollars an hour who worked 80 regular hours and six 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 withholding lines above | $467.11 |
| Net pay | Gross minus total deductions | $1,490.89 |
Only the two FICA lines 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 it comes out of gross first, and 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 dollar 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 withholding 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 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 dollars 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 and the available paid sick leave balance.
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
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. Fill in the blanks first. The point of the conversion is that the layout is then 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
Because there is no federal mandate, whether you must issue a pay stub, and how you may deliver it, is decided entirely by state law. States sort into five groups, and the difference between them is delivery format rather than content.
Illinois tightened its rules on the same timeline. 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 one 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 violations carry a civil penalty of up to $500.
California 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, with costs and attorney fees on top, and a separate $750 penalty for failing to produce records within 21 days of a request. Worth knowing: those statutory penalties require the violation to have been knowing and intentional, which 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 | 2026 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 the employee reaches $184,500 in wages for the year |
| 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 that shows employment that did not happen, in order to obtain a loan, a lease, or a benefit is document fraud, with civil and criminal exposure that 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.
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 entirely on your state, because there is no federal pay stub mandate. Federal law requires employers to keep accurate payroll records, but it does not require handing the employee a statement. Pay stub obligations come from state law instead. Eight states have no requirement at all: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Dakota, and Tennessee. The other 42 require some form of pay statement, though what they require varies. Some accept electronic access, some require that the electronic version be printable, some default to paper unless the employee opts into electronic, and Hawaii requires written consent before you can go electronic at all. Note that Ohio joined the requiring states in April 2025, which many published state charts have not yet corrected. This is general information, not legal advice.
Is it legal to create your own pay stub?
Yes, when you are the employer documenting wages you actually paid. Federal law sets no particular form for payroll records, so an employer generating pay stubs from a template rather than from payroll software is perfectly legitimate, as long as the content meets the applicable state requirements and the figures are accurate. The legal problem arises in a different scenario: an individual fabricating a pay stub to overstate their income to a lender, landlord, or agency. That is document fraud, and it can carry serious civil and criminal consequences regardless of what tool produced the document. The templates on this page are built for the first case, an employer recording real wages for real employees. They are not income-verification generators. This is general information, not legal advice.
What must a pay stub include?
The required fields vary by state, but the consensus set that satisfies most requirements is: the legal employer name and address, the employee name plus an identifier such as an employee ID or the last four digits of their Social Security number, the inclusive dates of the pay period, the pay date, total hours worked for non-exempt employees, every applicable pay rate with the hours worked at each, gross wages earned, all deductions itemized separately rather than lumped together, net wages, and year-to-date totals. California Labor Code section 226 is the strictest widely cited standard, requiring nine specific items, so a stub built to it will generally satisfy other states. Some states with paid sick leave laws also require the available leave balance to appear. This is general information, not legal advice.
Do 1099 contractors get pay stubs?
No. Independent contractors are not on payroll, so there is nothing to withhold and no pay stub in the legal sense. A contractor invoices for services and receives the full contracted amount, which means gross equals net. There is no federal income tax withholding, no Social Security or Medicare withheld from the payment, and no employer tax match. The common exception is backup withholding, which applies when the contractor has not furnished a valid taxpayer identification number. Businesses do sometimes issue contractors a payment statement documenting what was paid, and that is fine as a record, but it should be labeled as a payment statement rather than a pay stub. Importantly, issuing a contractor a document that looks like a pay stub does not affect their classification, which turns on the actual working relationship. This is general information, not legal or tax advice.
Are electronic pay stubs legal?
In most states, yes, but the conditions differ and this is where employers most often slip. States generally fall into four groups. Access states let you deliver electronically as long as employees can actually reach their pay information. Access-and-print states, which include California and Texas, accept electronic delivery but require that employees be able to print a copy, so a portal that blocks downloads fails the test. Opt-out states such as Delaware, Minnesota, and Oregon default to paper and let an employee request paper even after you move to electronic. Hawaii is the only opt-in state, meaning you need the employee written consent before delivering electronically at all. Confirm which category your state falls into before switching your delivery method. This is general information, not legal advice.
How do you calculate deductions on a pay stub?
Work top down from gross pay. Start by totaling earnings: regular hours times the regular rate, overtime hours times the overtime rate, plus any bonus, commission, or tips. That total is gross pay. Then apply withholdings in order. Federal income tax comes from the IRS withholding tables based on the employee Form W-4 and your pay frequency, so it is looked up rather than calculated from a flat percentage. Social Security is 6.2 percent of gross up to the annual wage base, which is $184,500 for 2026, after which you stop withholding it. Medicare is 1.45 percent with no cap, plus an additional 0.9 percent on wages above $200,000 that the employee alone pays. Then subtract state and any local income tax and voluntary deductions such as insurance and retirement. Gross minus total deductions equals net pay. This is general information, not tax advice.
How long do you have to keep pay stub records?
At minimum, three years under federal rules, and longer in some states. Federal recordkeeping requires employers to preserve payroll records for at least three years, and the records that wage computations are based on, such as time cards and work schedules, for at least two years. Several states layer their own requirement on top. California requires a copy of each wage statement to be kept for three years at the place of employment or a central location in the state, and to be produced within 21 days of a current or former employee request. Illinois requires employers to retain pay stub copies for three years from the date of payment even if the employee has since left, and to fulfill requests within 21 days. Because state rules stack on federal ones, keeping records longer rather than shorter is the safer practice. This is general information, not legal advice.