To check your paycheck stub, work top to bottom: confirm the hours and gross pay, verify each tax withholding against a simple percentage, make sure your benefit and retirement deductions match what you elected, and check any garnishment against the legal cap. Five minutes a pay period is usually enough, and it’s the cheapest financial protection you have at work. Most payroll errors favor the employer, and most workers never catch them because they never look.
Start With Hours and Gross Pay
Compare the “hours worked” field against your own records: a time-tracking app, a written log, or a screenshot of your schedule. If the hours are wrong, every number below them is wrong too.
If you’re non-exempt, every hour beyond 40 in a workweek must be paid at one and a half times your regular rate. That’s federal law under the Fair Labor Standards Act, not company discretion.1eCFR. 29 CFR Part 778 A worker earning $20 an hour who logs 46 hours should see six hours billed at $30, not $20. This is one of the most common payroll errors.
Shift differentials and holiday pay get the same treatment. If your employer pays a premium for overnight or weekend shifts, confirm the higher rate appears on the stub for those specific hours. Holiday multipliers vary, so check your offer letter or handbook. A missing $2-per-hour weekend differential looks like nothing on a single check and adds up to real money over a year.
If your stub shows accrued paid time off, compare it to what you’ve actually used. No federal law requires PTO to appear on a stub, but many states and employers include it. Fixing a missing sick day now is easier than untangling it six months later.
Check Your Social Security and Medicare Withholding
Your stub should show two FICA lines. In 2026, Social Security is withheld at 6.2% of gross wages up to $184,500 in annual earnings.2Social Security Administration. Contribution and Benefit Base Once your year-to-date wages hit that ceiling, the withholding should stop. If it doesn’t, your employer is over-collecting, and while you’d eventually recover it at tax time, that’s money out of your pocket for months.
Medicare is 1.45% of all wages with no cap.2Social Security Administration. Contribution and Benefit Base Once your wages from a single employer exceed $200,000 in a calendar year, that employer must also withhold an additional 0.9% on everything above $200,000.3Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 560, Additional Medicare Tax That trigger is based on wages from that one employer regardless of your filing status. Married filing jointly, the actual tax threshold is $250,000 on combined income, so you may need to reconcile at tax time.
The check is simple. Multiply your gross by 6.2% and 1.45% and compare. If the numbers don’t match, something is coded wrong, and it affects both your take-home and your Social Security earnings record, which is what your future benefit is based on.
Check Federal and State Income Tax Withholding
Federal income tax withholding is driven by the Form W-4 you filled out at hire or last updated.4Internal Revenue Service. About Form W-4, Employee’s Withholding Certificate If your stub shows much more or much less federal tax than you’d expect, the likely cause is an outdated or mistyped W-4.
Getting this wrong costs real money in both directions. Too little withheld, and if you owe more than $1,000 at filing, the IRS can charge an underpayment penalty.5Internal Revenue Service. Underpayment of Estimated Tax by Individuals Penalty The penalty accrues daily at an interest rate the IRS sets quarterly, 7% as of early 2026.6Internal Revenue Service. Quarterly Interest Rates You avoid the penalty if you’ve paid at least 90% of your current-year tax or 100% of last year’s, whichever is less. Too much withheld, and you’ve given the government an interest-free loan.
Marriage, a new child, or a spouse’s job change all warrant a fresh W-4. After you submit one, check the very next stub to confirm it took. Payroll software calculates withholding straight from that form, so a single data-entry typo can throw off the whole year.7Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 753, Form W-4, Employees Withholding Certificate State and local income tax lines follow the same logic against whatever state withholding form you filed.
Check Retirement and Benefit Deductions
Voluntary deductions are where errors do the quietest damage, because they affect benefits you might not touch for years. If you contribute to a 401(k) or 403(b), verify that the dollar amount or percentage on your stub matches your enrollment election. The 2026 employee contribution limit is $24,500.8Internal Revenue Service. COLA Increases for Dollar Limitations on Benefits and Contributions At 50 or older, you can add $8,000 in catch-up contributions. Workers aged 60 through 63 get a higher catch-up limit of $11,250 under SECURE 2.0.
An incorrect retirement contribution isn’t just less money in your account. If your employer matches up to a certain percentage and your deduction is coded too low, you’re leaving free money on the table every pay period. Fixing it in December doesn’t recover what you lost in March.
Health insurance premiums deserve the same check. Confirm the deduction reflects your actual plan tier (individual, employee-plus-spouse, family) and hasn’t changed unexpectedly. Open enrollment changes sometimes fail to process, and the wrong premium can mean your old coverage is still active, or that you’re being charged for something you didn’t select.
If you fund a Health Savings Account, the 2026 limits are $4,400 for self-only coverage and $8,750 for family coverage.9Internal Revenue Service. Revenue Procedure 2025-19 Watch the year-to-date total so your per-check deductions don’t push you over by December; excess contributions trigger a 6% excise tax. FSA deductions should also match your annual election, and because most FSA funds follow use-it-or-lose-it rules, wrong amounts create problems in either direction.
Check Any Garnishment Against the Legal Cap
Wage garnishments for child support, back taxes, or other debts should appear on your stub with the exact amount being withheld. Federal law caps most consumer-debt garnishments at 25% of your disposable earnings, or the amount by which your weekly disposable earnings exceed 30 times the federal minimum wage ($7.25 per hour), whichever produces the smaller garnishment.10Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1673 – Restriction on Garnishment
Child and spousal support orders run higher: up to 50% of disposable earnings if you’re supporting another spouse or child, or 60% if you’re not, with an additional 5% for support more than 12 weeks overdue. Tax debts and certain bankruptcy orders have no percentage ceiling at all.11eCFR. 5 CFR 582.402 – Maximum Garnishment Limitations
If a garnishment amount looks wrong, don’t assume the court or creditor will sort it out. Over-garnishment happens, and the excess doesn’t automatically come back. Flag it with payroll and, if needed, with the court that issued the order.
Reconcile Your Final Stub Against Your W-2
Your employer must furnish your W-2 by February 1 of the following year.12Internal Revenue Service. General Instructions for Forms W-2 and W-3 (2026) When it arrives, compare every box against the year-to-date totals on your final paystub. Total wages, federal and state tax withheld, Social Security and Medicare wages, retirement contributions: all should match. A discrepancy means either your stubs were wrong all year or the W-2 was generated from bad data.
The W-2 is what you file with and what the IRS uses to check that filing. Overstated income means you overpay tax. Understated withholding means an unexpected bill. Catching the error before you file is far easier than amending later. Ask your employer for a corrected W-2c, and don’t file until you have it.
What to Do When You Find an Error
Bring it to payroll or HR with specifics: which pay period, which line, what the number shows versus what it should be. Vague complaints get vague responses. Attach documentation: your time records, your benefits enrollment confirmation, or the relevant section of your offer letter.
Most companies can issue an off-cycle correction or apply an adjustment on the next regular payday. Keep copies of every email and note the date and outcome of each conversation. Payroll mistakes are usually administrative, and a documented request resolves most of them within one pay cycle.
If your employer won’t fix it, or the problem involves unpaid overtime or minimum wage, you can file a complaint with the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division by calling 1-866-487-9243.13U.S. Department of Labor. How to File a Complaint Complaints are confidential; neither your name nor the existence of the complaint is disclosed to your employer.
Watch the clock. Federal law gives you two years from the date of a wage violation to file a claim for unpaid wages or overtime, or three years if the violation was willful.14Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 255 – Statute of Limitations After that, the wages are gone no matter how clear the evidence. The longer you wait to look at your stubs, the more money may already have slipped beyond reach.
Are You Even Entitled to a Paystub?
There is no federal law requiring your employer to give you a paystub. The FLSA requires the employer to keep records of your wages, hours, and employment conditions, but those records are for the employer’s files.15Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 211 – Collection of Data Most states fill that gap by requiring a written or electronic wage statement each pay period, but requirements vary widely. Some mandate only gross and net pay; others require a full breakdown of hours, rate, deductions, employer information, and leave balances. A handful require nothing. Delivery rules also differ, with some states defaulting to electronic and others requiring your written consent to go paperless. If you’re getting no pay documentation at all, check your state labor department’s website for what your employer owes you.