Free Payslip Generator (United States)
Build a payslip in USD: earnings on one side, deductions on the other, and the net your employee actually receives. The PDF is made on your device.
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- No sign-up
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- Updated for 2026
- Last reviewed October 2026
- Reviewed by the Owoode team
- $ USD
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- EIN
- US Letter
- English
What the labour law requires on a payslip
No federal statute requires an employer to hand an employee a pay stub. The Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. § 211(c), requires employers to make, keep and preserve records of wages, hours and other conditions of employment, but it does not itself require a statement to the worker. The duty to issue one comes from state law.
New York Labor Law § 195(3) is an example. With every payment of wages the employer must give a statement showing the work period, the names of employee and employer, the employer's address and telephone number, the rate or rates of pay and their basis, gross wages, deductions and net wages. For non-exempt employees the statement also shows the regular hourly rate, the overtime rate, and the regular and overtime hours worked. On request the employer must explain in writing how wages were calculated.
Check the labour department of the state where the employee works for its own list of items and delivery rules.
Social contributions on each payslip
For 2026, social security tax is 6.2% paid by the employee and 6.2% by the employer on wages up to a $184,500 wage base. Medicare tax is 1.45% each for employee and employer with no wage base. Wages above $200,000 attract an Additional Medicare Tax of 0.9%, withheld from the employee only, with no employer match. Together these are FICA, reported on Form 941.
The employer alone pays federal unemployment tax (FUTA) on the first $7,000 paid to each employee in the year. After the credit for state unemployment contributions the rate is 0.6%. State unemployment tax rates and wage bases are set by each state.
Deposits depend on the lookback period. An employer whose Form 941 liabilities in the lookback period were $50,000 or less is a monthly depositor and deposits by the 15th of the following month. Above that the employer is a semiweekly depositor. Whenever $100,000 or more accumulates in a deposit period, deposit by the next business day. Form 941 is filed quarterly, and the fourth-quarter return is due 31 January, or 10 February when all deposits were made on time (IRS Publication 15, 2026).