California Paystub Generator

Reading a California pay stub, line by line

California pay stubs carry two state deductions you won't see in most other states — and a few lines people search for every day. Here's what each one means in 2026:

CASDI (California State Disability Insurance). The line EDD itself says appears as "CASDI" on pay stubs (some payroll systems print CASDI-E or CA-SDI). For 2026 it is 1.3% of every dollar you earn — there is no wage cap. The cap was eliminated in January 2024, so high earners now contribute on all wages. It funds State Disability Insurance and Paid Family Leave benefits. On a $60,000 salary, CASDI takes about $780 a year ($30 per biweekly check).

CA State Income Tax (CA PIT). California's progressive income tax, withheld per your DE 4 elections. Rates run from 1% to 12.3% (plus a 1% Mental Health Services surcharge above $1 million of taxable income). Most middle earners land in the 6%–9.3% marginal range — but effective rates are much lower; see the take-home table below.

What you will NOT see: California employees do not pay State Unemployment Insurance (SUI) or Employment Training Tax — both are employer-paid in California (unlike Pennsylvania or New Jersey, where employees chip in). If a stub shows an employee-paid "CA SUI" deduction, that's a red flag worth questioning.

Plus the federal lines on every US stub: federal income tax, Social Security (6.2% up to $184,500 in 2026), and Medicare (1.45%). From January 1, 2027: Social Security 6.2% up to $192,300.

California paycheck facts — 2026

What you actually take home in California (2026 estimates)

Estimated for a single filer taking the standard deduction, including federal tax, Social Security, Medicare, CA income tax, and CASDI:

These use California's TY2025 brackets, the latest the Franchise Tax Board has published; the 2026 indexed figures arrive in October. A surprise worth knowing: at $60,000, a California worker's take-home is nearly identical to a New Yorker's ($47,817 vs $47,457) — California's lower brackets are gentler than its high-tax reputation suggests. The gap opens up above six figures.

Methodology: 2026 federal brackets and $16,100 standard deduction (IRS Rev. Proc. 2025-32), FICA per SSA, CA Schedule X and the $5,706 state standard deduction on a TY2025 basis (FTB; the 2026 indexed figures publish in October, so these are the latest published), CASDI 1.3%. Estimates only — your withholding depends on your W-4/DE 4, credits, and pre-tax benefits.

What California jobs pay (BLS, May 2025)

California's median hourly wage across all occupations is $28.00 — $3.49 above the national median of $24.51.

California's workforce in numbers

• 39.4 million residents, with a civilian labor force of 19.6 million — the largest in the nation (Census 2025 estimate; BLS, June 2026)
• 3,537,469 self-employed (nonemployer) businesses — more than any other state (Census, 2023). That's roughly 1 for every 11 Californians — freelancers, gig drivers, and contractors who get no employer pay stub and often need to document income themselves
• 1,029,689 employer establishments paying 16.4 million employees (Census CBP, 2023)
• Mean annual wage: $80,690 vs $69,770 nationally (BLS OEWS, May 2025)

California pay rules — the three answers people actually need

Final paycheck: California has the toughest rule in the country. Fired employees must be paid immediately at termination — including accrued vacation. If you quit with 72+ hours notice, final pay is due on your last day; without notice, within 72 hours. Miss the deadline and the employer owes a waiting-time penalty of one full day's wages per day late, up to 30 days (Labor Code §§201–203).

Pay frequency: Wages must be paid at least twice a month. Work done the 1st–15th must be paid by the 26th; work done the 16th–month-end by the 10th of the next month (LC §204).

Is a pay stub required? Yes. Labor Code §226 requires an itemized wage statement with every paycheck listing nine items: gross wages, hours worked, piece-rate units, all deductions, net wages, pay period dates, employee name and ID, employer name and address, and every hourly rate used. Violations cost employers $50–$100 per employee per pay period, up to $4,000 per employee.

City minimum wages above the state floor (2026)

California cities can — and do — set higher minimums than the state's $16.90:

• San Francisco: $19.61/hr (July 2026)
• Los Angeles: $18.42/hr (July 2026)
• San Diego: $17.75/hr (January 2026)
• Fast-food workers statewide at chains with 60+ national locations: $20.00/hr (AB 1228)

If you work in one of these cities, your stub's hourly rate should reflect the city rate, not the state minimum. (No California city taxes your paycheck, though — local income taxes are prohibited by state law.)

How California compares with its neighbors (take-home on $60,000, 2026 est.)

Moving from California to a no-income-tax state saves a $60k earner about $214/month — before considering cost-of-living differences.

FAQ

How California taxes your wages (2026)

California taxes wages on a nine-bracket progressive schedule running from 1% to 12.3%, and adds a mandatory State Disability Insurance deduction that no other line on the stub replaces.

California's income tax is the most graduated in the country: nine brackets for a single filer, from 1% at the bottom to 12.3% at the top, with a further 1% mental health services levy on taxable income above one million dollars. The brackets are inflation-indexed by the Franchise Tax Board every year, so the thresholds move even when the rates do not.

What makes a California stub different from a high-tax peer's:

• CASDI is compulsory and it is yours to pay. State Disability Insurance is an employee deduction — it funds both disability benefits and Paid Family Leave. Since SB 951 removed the taxable wage ceiling, the rate applies to all wages rather than stopping at a cap, which is why high earners saw the line grow rather than disappear partway through the year. The rate is set annually by the Employment Development Department.
• Its own withholding certificate. California uses Form DE 4. Since the federal W-4 stopped using allowances, a DE 4 is the only way to set California allowances correctly; without one the employer withholds as single with zero allowances.
• No employee unemployment deduction. California UI is employer-funded. An employee SUI line on a California stub is an error.

California pay-stub and pay-frequency law

Is a pay stub required in California?

Labor Code §226(a) is the strictest itemised-wage-statement law in the United States, and it is worth knowing by heart because the remedies attached to it are real. Every pay period, at the time of payment, the employer must give a detachable statement showing nine specific items: (1) gross wages earned; (2) total hours worked, for non-exempt employees; (3) piece-rate units and rate, where applicable; (4) all deductions, itemised; (5) net wages earned; (6) the inclusive dates of the pay period; (7) the employee's name and the last four digits of the social security number or an employee ID; (8) the name and address of the legal entity that is the employer; (9) all hourly rates in effect during the period and the hours worked at each.

Item 9 is the one payroll systems most often get wrong on a stub with a shift differential or a mid-period raise. Section 226 also gives employees a right to inspect or copy their records, and California employers face statutory penalties for knowing and intentional failures — which is why California stubs are long.

How often must you be paid in California?

Labor Code §204 requires wages to be paid at least twice during each calendar month, on days designated in advance, and it fixes the deadlines rather than leaving them open: work performed between the 1st and 15th must be paid between the 16th and the 26th of the same month, and work performed between the 16th and the end of the month must be paid between the 1st and the 10th of the following month.

Employees paid weekly, biweekly or semi-monthly under a different schedule must be paid within seven calendar days of the close of the payroll period. Exempt executive, administrative and professional employees may be paid once a month, by the 26th, provided the cheque covers the whole month.

City and local taxes in California

No California city or county levies an income tax on wages. The local income tax row does not exist in California — a San Francisco stub and a Fresno stub carry exactly the same set of tax lines. San Francisco's gross-receipts and payroll-expense taxes are levied on the business, not withheld from the employee, so they never appear as a deduction.

Local variation in California is in the wage floor, not the tax: a large number of cities and counties set minimum wages above the state rate, and several index them each July rather than each January. A stub spanning a local increase can legitimately carry two rates — which is precisely the case Labor Code §226(a)(9) requires to be itemised.

A California pay stub, worked through line by line

An $88,000 salary paid every two weeks, a single filer in California, with $220 of pre-tax deductions per period.

Income tax lines only. CASDI sits outside this calculation — it is a separate statutory deduction at a rate the EDD sets annually, and it is not derived from the brackets above.

Every figure in this table is computed by PayStubGo's own 2026 tax engine from the inputs stated above — none of it is typed in by hand, and a build check re-runs the same inputs through the same engine and fails if a published figure and a freshly computed one disagree. It is an estimate of withholding, not a statement of your final liability: your own W-4 and state certificate, credits and pre-tax benefits all move the result.

Terms on a California stub, and where to go next

The lines that vary most by state on a California stub, defined in full on the pay stub glossary:

• state income tax — the term as it appears on the stub
• state disability insurance — the term as it appears on the stub
• state withholding certificate — the term as it appears on the stub
• local municipal tax — the term as it appears on the stub

Related reading:

• The pay stub glossary — Ninety-four terms, each with where it appears on the stub.
• Build a pay stub — Enter your own figures and see the earnings, deduction and year-to-date lines laid out.
• Holiday season pay — How holidays, overtime and a second seasonal job change the December stub.
• Every state — The state index, for comparing withholding across a move.

Dated figures on this page

Tax rules change every year. Each figure below carries the year or edition it applies to and the official body it came from, so you can check it rather than trust it. Last re-verified 2026-09-20.

Where a rate is set fresh each year and we could not verify the 2026 figure against the issuing agency, the rule is stated and the number is deliberately left out rather than approximated.