How to Make a Pay Stub: Step-by-Step Guide With Real 2027 Tax Math
Updated for 2027: figures on this page use the 2027 federal tax figures (IRS Revenue Procedure 2026-35, announced 5 November 2026).
A pay stub is only useful if every line traces back to a real payment. This guide builds one in order.
To make a pay stub, gather the employer and employee details, set the pay period and pay date, enter gross earnings including overtime at 1.5 times the regular rate, subtract pre-tax deductions, apply federal, FICA, and state withholding, add post-tax deductions, and check the year-to-date totals before issuing it for a real payment.
The order is what matters: earnings, pre-tax deductions, taxes, post-tax deductions, then the year-to-date check — shown with an hourly worker and a salaried worker.
⚡ Key Takeaways
- Keep the order: gross pay − pre-tax deductions → taxes → post-tax deductions = net pay.
- Overtime is usually 1.5 times the regular hourly rate — show it as its own line.
- FICA is fixed: 6.2% Social Security up to the $192,300 wage base in 2027, plus 1.45% Medicare on all wages.
- A stub for a real payment is legitimate. A stub made up to misrepresent income is fraud.
What Information Does a Pay Stub Need?
Every stub answers the same questions: who paid, who was paid, what period the work covered, what was earned, what was taken out, and what is left. State rules differ, so check your state's requirements before issuing stubs regularly:
- Employer: legal business name and address.
- Employee: full name, address, and employee ID. Do not print a full Social Security number — an employee ID, or the last four digits only, is safer.
- Pay details: pay period start and end dates, pay date, and pay frequency.
- Earnings: each type of pay on its own line — regular hours and rate, overtime, salary, bonus, or commission — plus gross pay.
- Deductions and totals: each tax and deduction on its own line, current period and year-to-date, plus gross pay, total deductions, net pay, and payment method.
Keep labels plain — “Federal income tax withholding” needs no explanation.
Is It Legal to Make a Pay Stub Yourself?
Yes, when the stub records a real payment — wages an employer actually paid, or pay a worker actually received. A careful, accurate stub is far better than no record at all.
The line is clear: fabricating a stub to misrepresent income is fraud. Do not invent hours, inflate a rate, backdate a period, or create a stub for pay that never happened to qualify for a loan or lease. A false stub can lead to a denied application, a lost job, or legal trouble.
The same rule applies to recreated stubs. If you rebuild a stub from payroll records, label it as a recreation and keep the records it came from. Never present it as an employer's own record. When you need the employer's own document, ask the employer or its payroll provider for a copy.
Step 1: What Details Should You Gather First?
Gather everything from payroll and time records and onboarding forms — not from memory. Most errors come from a misremembered rate or a copied pay period.
For the employer: legal business name and mailing address. For the employee: full legal name, current address, employee ID, pay rate or salary, pay frequency, and Form W-4 filing status and withholding information, which drives the federal withholding in Step 5. If the W-4 has changed, use the new form, and confirm the name, rate, and address match the payroll record.
Step 2: How Do You Set the Pay Period and Pay Date?
The pay period is the work the stub covers; the pay date is when the money is paid. A stub might cover October 12–25, 2026 and be paid on October 30, 2026 — label both clearly.
Pay frequency sets the per-check math: weekly is 52 checks a year, biweekly is 26, semimonthly is 24, and monthly is 12. Use the actual frequency and keep it consistent — biweekly and semimonthly give different per-check amounts for the same salary; see semimonthly and biweekly pay.
Step 3: How Do You Calculate Gross Pay and Overtime?
Gross pay is everything earned in the period, before anything is taken out: regular plus overtime pay for hourly workers, salary plus any bonus or commission for salaried workers — each on its own line.
Under federal law, most hourly workers earn overtime over 40 hours in a workweek at 1.5 times the regular rate; some states add daily rules, so use the payroll rule that applies. The hourly example, worked in full — $22.00 an hour, 80 regular hours and 10 overtime hours biweekly:
- Regular pay: 80 hours × $22.00 = $1,760.00
- Overtime rate: $22.00 × 1.5 = $33.00 per hour
- Overtime pay: 10 hours × $33.00 = $330.00
- Gross pay: $1,760.00 + $330.00 = $2,090.00
For a salaried worker: salary divided by the number of pay periods — $75,000 biweekly is $75,000 ÷ 26 = $2,884.62 per check, plus any bonus or commission as its own line. Use the Overtime Pay Calculator if hours cross a week boundary.
Step 4: What Are Pre-Tax Deductions?
Pre-tax deductions come out before income tax is figured, lowering taxable wages: traditional 401(k)/403(b) contributions, health premiums paid through payroll, and HSA/FSA contributions.
Subtract them from gross pay first. In the $75,000 example, a $200.00 traditional 401(k) contribution gives taxable wages of $2,884.62 − $200.00 = $2,684.62 for income-tax purposes. Social Security and Medicare taxes are generally still calculated on the full gross pay, so do not let a pre-tax deduction shrink the FICA line.
Over a year, $200.00 per check is $5,200.00. Without it, the 2027 federal tax is $7,389.50 a year. With it, taxable income falls from $58,400.00 to $53,200.00 and the tax falls to $6,245.50 ($1,280.00 + $4,707.00 + $258.50 across the 10%, 12%, and 22% brackets) — a saving of $1,144.00 a year (no other changes, no state tax).
Step 5: How Is Federal, FICA, and State Tax Withheld?
Keep federal, FICA, and state withholding on separate lines — a combined “taxes” line hides errors.
Federal income tax is an estimate based on the worker's Form W-4 and the 2027 brackets, which run from 10% to 37%. The 2027 standard deduction for a single filer is $16,600, so taxable income is yearly gross pay minus pre-tax deductions and minus that deduction, taxed bracket by bracket. The W-4 form controls the estimate, which is why Step 1 gathers W-4 information first. The final bill is settled at tax-return time.
FICA is fixed by law: Social Security is 6.2% of wages up to the 2027 wage base of $192,300 (maximum $11,922.60 a year), and Medicare is 1.45% of all wages — 7.65% combined. An extra 0.9% Medicare tax applies above $200,000 (single) / $250,000 (married filing jointly). State withholding depends on the work state: California and New York withhold on a separate line; Texas and Florida have no state income tax. In California, show State Disability Insurance (SDI) at 1.3% as its own line — $975.00 a year, or $37.50 per biweekly check, on $75,000 — and calculate California income tax separately.
Now the $75,000 example, finished for a single filer with no state tax and no pre-tax or post-tax deductions:
- Gross biweekly pay: $75,000 ÷ 26 = $2,884.62
- Federal income tax: $7,389.50 a year ÷ 26 = $284.21 per check
- FICA: $5,737.50 a year ÷ 26 = $220.67 per check (Social Security $4,650.00 + Medicare $1,087.50 a year)
- Net biweekly pay: $61,873.00 a year ÷ 26 = $2,379.73 per check
For the hourly example, on a $2,090.00 gross pay: Social Security $2,090.00 × 6.2% = $129.58, Medicare $2,090.00 × 1.45% = $30.31, FICA $159.89. Federal withholding, as an annualized illustration — the same $2,090.00 check repeated for 26 periods, single filer, no state tax or deductions — is $164.34 per check, from $4,272.80 a year on $37,740.00 of taxable income. Real withholding follows the W-4 and payroll tables each period. Estimate a different salary and state with the Paycheck Calculator.
Step 6: What Are Post-Tax Deductions?
Post-tax deductions come out after taxes, so they do not lower taxable wages: Roth 401(k) contributions, union dues, insurance premiums paid through payroll, and wage garnishments. A Roth contribution is taxed now and withdrawn tax-free in retirement — the reverse of Step 4's traditional 401(k) — so the two must never share a line.
Garnishments are court-ordered — child support, back taxes, or debts — and should appear only with a valid order. Never invent one or keep deducting one after the order ends.
The stub's core equation is now complete: Net pay = Gross pay − Taxes − Pre-tax deductions − Post-tax deductions. For the hourly example, with no pre-tax or post-tax deductions: $2,090.00 − $164.34 − $159.89 − $0.00 − $0.00 = $1,765.77 net pay. Show each post-tax deduction on its own line.
Step 7: How Do You Check YTD Totals?
YTD (year-to-date) totals are the running sums from January 1 through the current period, beside the current-period figures. If the current period is right but YTD is wrong, something earlier was entered incorrectly.
Each new YTD figure should equal the previous YTD plus the current-period figure. After ten biweekly checks at $2,884.62, gross YTD should be 10 × $2,884.62 = $28,846.20. After five checks at $2,090.00, it should be 5 × $2,090.00 = $10,450.00.
FICA YTD should track at 7.65% of gross YTD until the wage base is reached; a jump or flatline usually means a rate error. Once gross YTD passes $192,300, Social Security withholding stops for the year while Medicare continues. If a YTD figure does not match, find the period where it went wrong and correct that stub — do not adjust it to look right.
How Do You Review the Stub and Keep Records?
Read the finished stub as if you were the employee receiving it, before it is issued:
- Identity and dates: names, employee ID, pay period, pay date, and frequency match the payroll record.
- Earnings: hours × rate rechecked, overtime at 1.5×, bonus on its own line.
- Deductions in order: pre-tax before tax, taxes next, post-tax last, each plainly labeled.
- Tax lines and totals: FICA at 6.2% and 1.45%, withholding consistent with the W-4, state line right for the work state, net pay equal to gross minus deductions, and every YTD figure up by the current-period amount. No full Social Security number.
Penny differences from rounding are normal: the $75,000 example divides to $2,379.73 on the annual total, while adding rounded per-check lines ($2,884.62 − $284.21 − $220.67 = $2,379.74) can land a cent away. A difference of dollars, a fallen YTD figure, or an unexplained deduction is not — correct those first.
Keep the stub and its supporting records for several years; workers should keep copies at least until they have filed that year's return and checked it against the W-2. To compare stubs, read how to read your pay stub and check unfamiliar labels in the pay stub abbreviations guide first.
Should You Use a Generator or a Template?
A generator, template, or spreadsheet can each produce a correct stub — or a wrong one. The difference is whether the tool does the tax math or leaves it to you.
A pay stub generator fills in the layout and arithmetic from the details you enter, suiting occasional stubs for real payments. A template gives you the layout only — you must enter every tax figure yourself, and free templates often carry no tax math at all. A spreadsheet sits in between, helping only if you test every formula first. Payroll software does withholding automatically — the right choice once stubs become a regular weekly job.
Build from the real payment record, verify the tax lines with the 2027 figures here, and keep the supporting records. Use the free Pay Stub Generator for a head start, then run the previous section's review before issuing the stub.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I make a pay stub for free?
Yes. A spreadsheet, a template, or a free pay stub generator costs nothing by itself. What matters is the math and record behind the stub: real dates, hours, rates, and 2027 withholding figures, plus the records supporting every line.
Do I need to include state tax on a pay stub?
Include state withholding where the work state has an income tax, and leave the line at zero only where none applies, such as Texas and Florida. In California, also show State Disability Insurance at 1.3% of wages as its own line.
Can I make a pay stub if I am self-employed?
You can document a real payment with a pay stub style record, but a stub does not turn self-employment income into wages or replace invoices, contracts, or bank records. Report it as self-employment income when you file.
Can I recreate a pay stub from a previous employer?
Ask the previous employer or payroll provider for a copy first — that is the employer's own record. If you recreate a stub, label it a recreation, keep its source records, and never present it as if the employer issued it.
What is the difference between a pay stub and a paycheck?
A paycheck is the payment itself, whether a paper check or a direct deposit. A pay stub is the statement that explains the payment: gross pay, each tax and deduction, year-to-date totals, and net pay.
What should I do if the numbers on a stub do not add up?
Recheck the pay period, hours and rate, overtime rate, and year-to-date totals before issuing or relying on the stub. Correct the error, reissue it, and keep the corrected version with its supporting records.
Try It Yourself
Ready to build the stub? Use our free Pay Stub Generator. To estimate the bottom line for any salary and state first, try the Paycheck Calculator.