Emailing Paystubs Safely: A Basic Delivery Checklist

To email a paystub safely, send it only to an address the employee confirmed in writing, open the PDF before attaching it, keep names and pay figures out of the subject line, protect the file with a password shared another way, and save the stub in your payroll records instead of relying on the sent folder.

Email is convenient and slightly risky in the same breath. A paystub carries a name, address, pay rate, net pay and often part of an identification number, so one wrong recipient or one careless subject line exposes more than most messages do. The checklist below is written for small employers who send stubs themselves, one message at a time.

Confirm where each stub should go before the first send

Most misdirected stubs go to an address that was once right. Employees change personal email accounts, leave the business, or share an old family inbox. Start with a delivery address the employee gave you in writing, and treat any change as something to confirm.

1. Record the delivery address on the employee's file, with the date they provided it.
2. When an employee asks to change it, confirm the change by phone or in person, using contact details you already had.
3. Be wary of change requests that arrive by email and ask for urgency; confirm them the same way.
4. Decide whether stubs go to a work or personal address, and apply that choice to everyone.
5. On an employee's last day, confirm where their final stub and any later documents should go.

Open the attachment you are about to send

Attaching the wrong file is the most common delivery mistake, and the easiest to prevent. Open each PDF and check three things against the recipient: the employee's name or ID, the pay date and the pay period. Then attach it to a message addressed to that one person. Never send several employees' stubs in one message, and never use BCC to spread one message across a team.

Illustrative example (made-up figures): A manager emails 12 biweekly stubs on a Friday afternoon. The files are named by employee ID, from 2026-06-12-E001-STUB-v1.pdf to 2026-06-12-E012-STUB-v1.pdf, and the manager works down an alphabetical staff list. Because E011 and E012 appear in a different order on the list than in the folder, the eleventh message gets E012's file. Matching the ID in the file name to the ID beside each recipient before pressing send catches it; checking one message out of twelve would not.

A clean file name makes that check fast. The broader pre-download checks in common pay stub mistakes cover the content of the PDF itself.

Subject lines and message text that give nothing away

Subject lines appear in notification previews on phones, lock screens and shared computers, often before anyone opens the message. Keep them generic and put nothing sensitive in the message body either.

The message itself can be two sentences: that the statement for a given pay date is attached, and who to contact with questions. There is no need to repeat the net pay figure or any identification number in the text.

Password-protect the PDF and share the password separately

A password-protected PDF limits the damage if a message reaches the wrong inbox. The protection only works if the password does not travel with it.

• Agree a password with each employee in person or by phone when you first set up email delivery.
• Avoid passwords built from details printed on the stub, such as the last four digits of a Social Security number or a date of birth.
• Never put the password in the same email, or in a reply to it.
• Change the password when an employee asks, and whenever you suspect it has been shared.

Some payroll portals and secure file-sharing services remove the need for attachments entirely by letting employees download stubs after signing in. If you already use one, it is usually the safer channel.

Electronic delivery rules differ from state to state

Whether you may email stubs at all, and on what terms, is a state question. Federal wage law does not require pay stubs, so the conditions come from state statutes and regulations. Two examples:

• Washington: WAC 296-126-040 allows electronic pay statements when employees can access and copy them on payday, and requires a written statement for an employee who cannot.
• Oregon: the Bureau of Labor and Industries, applying ORS 652.610, says statements may be provided electronically if the employee expressly agrees and can print or store them on receipt.

Other states set their own conditions or say nothing specific. Your state labor department is the place to confirm the rule before switching staff to email, and written consent from each employee is a sensible record to keep either way.

When an employee would rather not receive stubs by email

Email delivery suits most staff, not all. Some employees share a family computer, some do not want pay details in a personal inbox, and some simply do not check email reliably. Offering an alternative costs little and avoids stubs sitting unread in an account someone else can open.

• Printed copy: hand it over in a sealed envelope on payday, addressed by name.
• Secure portal or file share: the employee signs in to download the stub, so nothing sits in an inbox.
• Pickup on request: keep the stub in the restricted payroll folder until the employee asks for it.

Record each employee's chosen method and the date they chose it, and revisit it whenever they ask. In Washington, as noted above, an employee who cannot receive an electronic statement on payday is entitled to a written one, so a documented paper option is useful there regardless.

After sending: what to keep and what to delete

The sent folder is not a payroll archive. Save each stub PDF into your payroll folder before you email it, using the same name you sent, so the record exists even if the mailbox is closed or cleared. The payroll folder and naming system in our recordkeeping guide shows one layout that works.

Then tidy up. Delete stray copies from downloads and desktop folders, and note the date each stub was sent in a simple delivery log. If an employee asks for a stub again, you can send the same file rather than generating a new one.

If a stub does go to the wrong person, ask the recipient to delete it and confirm they have done so, record what happened, tell the employee, and resend to the right address. Depending on what the stub contained and where you operate, state data breach notification laws may also apply; check with your state attorney general's office.

Sending stubs you create in PayStubGo

When you create a stub in PayStubGo, you preview it and receive the finished PDF. Forwarding that PDF to an employee is a separate step, and everything above still applies: file it first, open it, password-protect it, and send it to a confirmed address with a neutral subject line. If a figure turns out to be wrong after sending, reissue a corrected stub rather than editing and resending the old file, and confirm it includes what an employee stub should show.

This checklist describes delivery habits, not legal requirements; for your obligations on electronic pay statements or data incidents, ask your state labor department or an employment attorney.