Pay Stub Requirements by State: The Field Checklist

Last reviewed: July 2026. This is general information, not legal advice. State wage statement rules change, sometimes mid-year, so confirm the details against your state labor agency or an employment attorney before you set payroll policy.

Search this topic and you get the same artifact ten times: a fifty-row table where every cell says “requires pay stub” or “no requirement.” It answers a question almost nobody is stuck on.

A bookkeeper in Colorado already knows Colorado requires a statement. What they need to know is whether regular and overtime hours have to appear on separate lines. The table has nothing to say about that.

So flip the axis. Federal law requires records, not stubs. Forty-two states require a statement, and the useful split is between rules about how the document reaches the worker and rules about what gets printed on it. This piece is about the second kind: the fields.

The baseline every stub-requiring state expects

Start here, because these eight fields show up in nearly every state statute that requires anything at all.

• Employer legal name and address. New York adds a phone number.
• Employee identification. Name, plus an employee ID or the last four digits of the SSN. Never the full number.
• Pay period start and end dates, stated inclusively.
• The pay date.
• Gross wages for the period.
• Each deduction, itemized by amount and purpose. “Misc. deductions: $184.22” fails this in most states. Break it into the tax, the pre-tax benefit, and the after-tax garnishment.
• Net wages.
• Hours worked and the applicable rate, for non-exempt workers.

None of that is arbitrary. It is a near-copy of the payroll data an employer already has to keep under 29 CFR § 516.2, which lists twelve items including the regular rate and its basis, daily and weekly hours, straight-time earnings, overtime premium, every addition and deduction, total wages, and the date of payment with the period covered.

Read the regulation and you’ll notice the thing it never says: hand this to the employee. There is no furnishing duty in it anywhere. States wrote that part.

So if your template carries the eight fields above, you’re compliant in the large majority of states before you look up a single one. The rest of this article is the overlay.

Delivery regimes describe the envelope, not the document

Payroll vendors sort the states into buckets with names like “access,” “opt-in,” and “printable.” Those labels are a convention rather than statutory language, and they describe how the statement reaches the worker. They say almost nothing about what is on it. Conflating the two is why the charts feel useless when you sit down to build a stub.

Worth knowing anyway, because the format rules are real:

No requirement (8 states). Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Dakota, Tennessee. Nothing is owed. Federal recordkeeping still applies, and almost every employer issues a statement anyway, because a pay stub is the standard evidence in a wage dispute.

Access (the majority). The information has to be reachable. A payroll portal generally satisfies it. New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Michigan, and Arizona sit here on most charts, which shows why the label misleads: New York carries one of the longest field lists in the country and is still filed under “access.” Ohio’s placement is unsettled since April 2025, and the statute reads closer to furnishing: ORC § 4113.14 tells employers to provide a written or electronic statement each payday.

Statement furnished, printable or written. California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, New Mexico, North Carolina, Texas (see the asterisk below), Vermont, and Washington are the states most vendor lists name. Those lists differ by two or three states depending on who compiled them, so confirm your own state with its labor agency rather than with a chart.

Opt-out (3). Vendor charts file Delaware, Minnesota, and Oregon here, and only the first two earn it. Delaware lets an employee who is given an electronic statement ask for a written one. Minnesota has to switch to written statements once an employee gives 24 hours’ notice. Oregon is stricter than its label: ORS 652.610 permits an electronic statement only if the employee expressly agrees to it and can print or store it at the time of receipt, which leaves paper as the default until the worker says otherwise.

Opt-in (1). Hawaii is the only state whose statute puts the authorization in writing. Under HRS § 388-7 the worker gets a legible printed, typewritten, or handwritten record each payday showing gross compensation, the amount and purpose of each deduction, net compensation, the payment date, and the period covered, unless they give written authorization for an electronic statement.

The Texas asterisk. Texas Minimum Wage Act § 62.003 requires an earnings statement, but § 62.151 exempts FLSA-covered employees from the Act, so the requirement reaches only workers the FLSA does not cover. The Texas Workforce Commission’s own guidance says statements are “not required for employees covered by the federal law known as the Fair Labor Standards Act.” Most Texas workers are covered. Charts that list Texas flatly as a printed-statement state give the typical Texan reader the wrong answer.

Four states that want more than the baseline

These are the ones that will break a generic template. Each is a checklist you can hold against a stub.

California: nine items, and each omission counts

Labor Code § 226(a) enumerates nine items. Missing any single one is its own violation.

1. Gross wages earned
2. Total hours worked (non-exempt)
3. Piece-rate units earned and the applicable piece rate, if paid by the piece
4. All deductions
5. Net wages earned
6. The inclusive dates of the pay period
7. Employee name and the last four digits of the SSN, or an employee ID number
8. Employer’s legal name and address
9. All applicable hourly rates in effect during the period, with the corresponding hours worked at each rate

Item 9 is the one that catches people. A worker who did 30 hours at $22 and 8 hours at a $26 shift differential needs both rates and both hour counts printed, not a blended average.

New York: four separate lines for non-exempt pay

Labor Law § 195(3) requires a statement with every wage payment listing the dates of work covered, the employee name, the employer name, the employer’s address and phone number, the rate or rates of pay and the basis (hour, shift, day, week, salary, piece, commission, or other), gross wages, deductions, any allowances claimed as part of the minimum wage, and net wages.

For non-exempt employees, add four separate values: the regular hourly rate, the overtime rate, the number of regular hours worked, and the number of overtime hours worked. Piece-rate workers get the piece rates and the number of pieces completed at each.

The employer phone number and the tip or meal allowance line are the two most commonly missing fields on stubs that otherwise look fine.

Illinois: year-to-date totals are in the definition

Public Act 103-0953, effective January 1, 2025, did something no other state has: it wrote a statutory definition of “pay stub.” The definition is an itemized statement reflecting hours worked, rate of pay, overtime pay and overtime hours worked, gross wages earned, deductions made, and the total of wages and deductions year to date.

That last clause is the field-level consequence almost every competing article skips. In Illinois, a stub without YTD columns is arguably not a pay stub. If the YTD column is the part you squint at, what YTD actually means on a pay stub breaks it down, and the YTD earnings calculator will total a partial year for you.

The Act also requires three years of retention past the payment date, gives current employees the right to request copies twice a year (former employees within a year of separation), sets a 21-calendar-day response window, and carries a civil penalty of up to $500 per violation.

Ohio: newest law, and the one your chart probably missed

The Pay Stub Protection Act, HB 106, took effect April 9, 2025 and is codified at Ohio Revised Code § 4113.14. Every regular payday, Ohio employers provide a written or electronic statement carrying:

• The employee’s name and address (Ohio is unusual in requiring the employee address)
• The employer’s name
• Total gross wages for the pay period
• Total net wages paid
• Each addition to and deduction from wages, with the amount and purpose of each
• The date paid and the pay period covered

Hourly employees also get total hours worked in the period, the hourly rate paid, and hours worked in excess of forty in one workweek as its own value. Skip a period and the employee can make a written request, which the employer has 10 days to answer. Failures route to the Ohio Department of Commerce rather than to a private lawsuit.

What changed in 2025 and 2026

If your stub template was built before 2025, these are the lines to add.

Ohio joined the requiring states (April 9, 2025). The correct count of no-requirement states is now eight, not nine. A surprising number of articles dated 2026 still print the old nine-state list with Ohio in it. That makes it a ten-second accuracy check on any source you are leaning on.

Illinois moved from access to furnish (January 1, 2025). Plus the YTD field, three-year retention, and the 21-day request window above.

Oregon added an at-hire disclosure (January 1, 2026). SB 906 requires employers to give new hires a written explanation of every payroll code used for pay and for deductions, with a clear description of each, along with the pay rates and benefit contributions that may appear. It can be delivered by email, an intranet link, a posted document, or a shared file, and it has to be reviewed and updated annually by January 1. BOLI publishes a model template with common statewide deductions. Penalties run up to $500, enforced by the agency; the law creates no private right of action. This is a hiring-packet document rather than a stub field, though it’s a lot easier to write if your stub already labels every code plainly.

Colorado tightened leave records (February 1, 2026), but not the stub itself. COMPS Order #40 requires employers to keep records of vacation or PTO hours accrued, used, and available in the current benefit year, and of HFWA sick leave hours accrued, used, and available where tracked separately. Putting the balance on the pay stub is permitted, not required: employers may disclose through the stub, a self-service portal, or a separate written notice, and must supply the figures in writing on employee request, up to once a month. If you already print an accrued/used/balance block, you’ve satisfied the disclosure duty without building anything new.

Penalties, retention, and the floor you cannot go below

The exposure is uneven enough to be worth knowing before you decide how careful to be.

State	What it costs to get the stub wrong
California	Greater of actual damages or $50 for the initial pay period, $100 per employee for each later violation, capped at $4,000 aggregate, plus costs and reasonable attorney’s fees (LC § 226(e))
New York	$250 for each work day the violation continues, capped at $5,000, plus costs and reasonable attorney’s fees (Labor Law § 198(1-d))
Illinois	Up to $500 per violation
Oregon	Up to $500, assessed by BOLI; no private right of action
Ohio	Department of Commerce enforcement; a substantiated violation can require the employer to post a notice at the workplace

Retention is the quieter half of the answer, and it’s where a “requirements” question usually ends up:

• Federal: three years for payroll records (29 CFR § 516.5), two years for the time cards and wage-computation records behind them (29 CFR § 516.6).
• Illinois: three years from the date of payment, paper or electronic, even after the employee leaves.
• California: three years, with the inspection right surviving separation.
• Hawaii: six years.

Where they conflict, the longest applicable rule is your actual policy. Keeping a PDF of each stub plus the underlying data satisfies most of them, which is why exporting both a render and a CSV at creation time is the habit worth building.

Building one template that clears every checklist

Multi-state employers don’t maintain twelve templates. They build to the strictest common denominator and use it everywhere, because a stub that satisfies California, New York, Illinois, and Ohio satisfies essentially every other state by inclusion.

That template carries: employer legal name, address, and phone; employee name, address, and an ID or last-four; inclusive pay period dates and the pay date; every earning line with its own hours and rate rather than a blend; overtime hours and the overtime rate broken out separately, including hours past forty in a workweek; every deduction labeled with amount and purpose, split into tax, pre-tax, and after-tax; employer contributions in their own block; leave accrued, used, and available; year-to-date columns on both earnings and deductions; and net pay.

That is the whole checklist. Print it and tick it against whatever your current system produces.

Payslip44 happens to be built along those lines, with hours and a rate on each earning line, deduction categories that satisfy “amount and purpose,” employer contributions and leave balances as separate sections, and YTD columns on earnings and deductions. It runs on-device with decimal-precise money math, which matters more than it sounds when a rounding drift makes gross minus deductions fail to equal net on a document someone is going to audit.

If your stubs are already going out and you just want to know what a reviewer would flag, the most common pay stub errors covers the mistakes that actually show up. Household employers have a narrower set of rules worth reading separately in the nanny and household employee guide, and nobody paying 1099 contractors is covered by any of these statutes at all.

The short version

Which states require a stub is the easy half of the question, and the charts have it covered. The half that decides whether you’re actually compliant is which fields go on the stub, and that comes down to eight baseline lines plus four states that want more.

Build to California, New York, Illinois, and Ohio, and the rest of the map takes care of itself. Then check the date on whatever source you used, because Ohio, Illinois, Oregon, and Colorado all moved between 2025 and 2026, and plenty of published guides have not.

If you need a document that carries all of it without assembling a spreadsheet by hand, Payslip44 builds one on your device in a couple of minutes per pay period, and exports it as PDF, PNG, CSV, or text.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which states require itemized pay stubs?

Forty-two states require some form of wage statement. Eight require nothing: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Dakota, and Tennessee. Ohio left that list on April 9, 2025, when the Pay Stub Protection Act took effect, so any chart showing nine no-requirement states is out of date.

What information must be on a pay stub?

The common floor is employer name and address, employee identification, the pay period dates, the pay date, gross wages, every deduction itemized by amount and purpose, and net wages. For non-exempt workers, add hours worked and the rate paid at each rate. California, New York, Illinois, and Ohio each add fields on top of that.

Can I email pay stubs instead of printing them?

In most states, yes. Hawaii requires the employee's written authorization first. Delaware and Minnesota let a worker who receives electronic statements ask for paper instead. Oregon goes further: under ORS 652.610 an electronic statement is allowed only if the employee expressly agrees to it and can print or store it at the time of receipt.

What does California require on a wage statement?

Nine items under Labor Code 226(a): gross wages, total hours worked, piece-rate units and the piece rate, all deductions, net wages, the inclusive dates of the pay period, the employee name with the last four of the SSN or an employee ID, the employer's legal name and address, and every applicable hourly rate with the hours worked at each rate.

Do pay stubs have to show year-to-date totals?

Not under federal law, and not in every state. Illinois is the clearest exception: Public Act 103-0953 wrote the total of wages and deductions year to date into the statutory definition of a pay stub as of January 1, 2025. Carrying YTD columns everywhere is the safer default for a multi-state employer.

How long do employers have to keep pay stubs?

Federal law requires three years of payroll records under 29 CFR 516.5, and two years under 29 CFR 516.6 for the time cards and wage computations behind them. Illinois requires three years from the date of payment. Hawaii requires six. When the rules conflict, the longest one is your real retention policy.

What are the penalties for a missing or incorrect pay stub?

They vary widely. California: $50 for the initial pay period and $100 for each later one, capped at $4,000 per employee, plus costs and attorney's fees. New York: $250 per work day, capped at $5,000, plus costs and fees. Illinois: up to $500 per violation. Oregon: up to $500, enforced by BOLI rather than by private suit.

Do 1099 contractors need pay stubs?

No. Contractors are not employees, so no state pay stub statute covers them. They rely on invoices, 1099-NEC forms, and bank records. Many still build an itemized pay record voluntarily, because lenders and landlords ask to see one.