How to Read Your Paycheck: Every Line Item Explained

 A pay stub packs a lot of abbreviations and numbers into a small space, and most people only really look at the final total. Here's what every common line actually means, so the rest of it stops being a mystery.

Earnings section

  • Gross pay — your total earnings for the pay period before anything is taken out
  • Regular hours/rate — your standard hourly rate and hours worked (hourly employees) or salary portion for the period (salaried employees)
  • Overtime (OT) — hours worked beyond 40/week, typically paid at 1.5x your regular rate
  • YTD (Year-to-Date) — the running total of that figure for the calendar year so far, useful for tracking toward annual limits like the Social Security wage cap

Tax withholding section

  • Federal income tax (Fed W/H or FIT) — federal tax withheld based on your W-4 elections and IRS withholding tables
  • State income tax (State W/H or SIT) — state tax withheld, if your state has one
  • Local tax — city or county-level income tax, where applicable
  • Social Security (SS or OASDI) — 6.2% of wages up to the annual wage cap ($184,500 for 2026)
  • Medicare (Med) — 1.45% of all wages, with an additional 0.9% above $200,000 for single filers

Pre-tax deductions section

  • 401(k) or 403(b) — retirement contributions deducted before tax
  • Medical/Dental/Vision — insurance premiums, usually pre-tax if run through an employer's cafeteria plan
  • HSA — Health Savings Account contributions (only available with a qualifying high-deductible health plan)
  • FSA — Flexible Spending Account contributions for medical or dependent care expenses

Post-tax deductions section

  • Roth 401(k) — retirement contributions deducted after tax
  • Garnishment — court-ordered deductions for child support, unpaid debts, or tax levies
  • Union dues
  • Life insurance (in many plans)
  • Misc. post-tax — could include things like charitable payroll giving or employer-run loan repayments

Net pay section

  • Net pay — what's actually deposited into your account after every tax and deduction above
  • Direct deposit breakdown — if you split your paycheck across multiple accounts, this shows the amount going to each

A quick example, line by line

LineAmount
Gross pay$2,500.00
Federal tax−$210.00
Social Security−$155.00
Medicare−$36.25
401(k) (pre-tax, 5%)−$125.00
Health insurance (pre-tax)−$80.00
Net pay$1,893.75

Reading top to bottom, you can see exactly how gross pay of $2,500 becomes $1,893.75 in your account — and which specific line to check first if a paycheck ever looks different than expected.

Double-check your own paycheck

If a line on your pay stub doesn't match what you expect, the fastest way to check is comparing it against a clean estimate. Run your salary, pay frequency, and typical deductions through the PayGauge paycheck calculator to see what each line should look like.

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