Delaware Paystub Generator

Reading a Delaware pay stub, line by line

A Delaware pay stub carried exactly one state line — income tax — until January 1, 2025, when Delaware Paid Leave arrived as a second deduction. Here is what each line means in 2026:

DE State Income Tax ("DE SIT", "DE Withholding"). Delaware taxes wages in seven brackets from 0% to 6.6%, and the same schedule applies to every filing status: the first $2,000 of taxable income is tax-free, then 2.2%, 3.9%, 4.8%, 5.2%, and 5.55% up to $60,000, with 6.6% on everything over $60,000. The brackets are written into statute and have not moved since tax year 2014 — a full-time $15/hr worker ($31,200) is already in the 5.55% bracket. Your employer annualizes your wages, subtracts the $3,250 standard deduction ($6,500 married filing jointly), runs the brackets, then subtracts a $110 credit per allowance from the tax. Because withholding uses the same brackets, deduction, and credit as the return, a DE-W4 with one allowance lands almost exactly on your real liability.

Delaware Paid Leave ("DE PFML", "DE Paid Leave", "DE FMLI" — payroll-software labels; the official name is Delaware Paid Leave). The program's total premium is 0.8% of wages (medical 0.4%, parental 0.32%, family caregiving 0.08%), and your employer may pass through up to half — anywhere from 0% to 0.4% of your wages, capped at the Social Security wage base of $184,500 (so at most $738 in 2026). Employers with 10–24 Delaware employees owe only the parental line, so the employee share there tops out at 0.16%; employers with fewer than 10 employees are not in the program at all. Contributions started January 1, 2025; benefits became payable January 1, 2026. If your stub shows $0 on this line, your employer is absorbing the premium.

Wilmington earned income tax ("Wilmington EIT", "City Wage Tax") — only if you live or work in Wilmington. The city takes 1.25% of all earned income of city residents wherever they work, and of income non-residents earn inside the city limits. It is the only local income tax in Delaware: state law (22 Del.C. §901) limits the power to cities over 50,000 people, and Wilmington is the only one that qualifies. No county, school district, or other city taxes wages.

What you will NOT see in 2026: an unemployment insurance deduction (Delaware UI is employer-only under 19 Del.C. ch. 33); a state disability line (Delaware has no SDI/TDI program); any workforce, transit, or occupational-privilege tax; or a flat supplemental-wage rate — bonuses and commissions are withheld by adding them to regular wages or annualizing them separately, not at a fixed percentage.

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%, plus 0.9% on wages over $200,000).

Delaware paycheck facts — 2026

What you actually take home in Delaware (2026 estimates)

Estimated for a single filer taking the standard deduction, including federal income tax, Social Security, Medicare, Delaware state income tax (statutory brackets after the $3,250 standard deduction and the $110 personal credit), and the full 0.4% Delaware Paid Leave employee share. No local tax is included — the Wilmington row shows the 1.25% city tax separately:

Where the money goes at $60,000: Delaware state tax $2,653 — 4.4% of gross, about $102 per biweekly check — plus $240 of Delaware Paid Leave if your employer passes through the full 0.4%. Federal income tax and FICA take another $9,610. Withholding on a DE-W4 with one allowance reproduces the same $2,653, so there is little to reconcile at filing time.

Your employer changes the Paid Leave number: the 0.4% is a ceiling. If your employer absorbs the whole premium, you keep $240 more than the table shows at $60,000; at a 10–24-employee firm the most you pay is $96. Live in Wilmington and the 1.25% city tax takes another $750 a year.

Methodology: 2026 federal brackets and $16,100 standard deduction (IRS Rev. Proc. 2025-32), FICA per SSA, Delaware brackets under 30 Del.C. ch. 11 (Division of Revenue, tax years 2014 and later) after the $3,250 standard deduction and $110 personal credit (PIT-RES instructions; Employer's Guide), Delaware Paid Leave at the 0.4% employee maximum to the $184,500 wage base (19 Del.C. §3705; Department of Labor contribution notice), Wilmington earned income tax at 1.25% (Wilmington Charter §4-241). Estimates only — your withholding depends on your DE-W4 allowances, your employer's Paid Leave pass-through, credits, and pre-tax benefits.

What Delaware jobs pay (BLS, May 2025)

Delaware's median hourly wage across all occupations is $25.09 — almost exactly the national median of $24.51 (2.4% above), with a mean annual wage of $69,880 against $69,770 nationally. The spread inside the state is wide: a Delaware software developer's $133,020 median is more than 2.5 times the all-occupations median of $52,190, and at that salary the 6.6% top bracket applies to the last $73,000 of income — about $7,438 of state tax a year.

Delaware's workforce in numbers

• 1.06 million residents, civilian labor force of 506,661, unemployment 4.8% (Census 2025 estimate; BLS, July 2026 preliminary)
• 93,022 self-employed (nonemployer) businesses (Census, 2023) — about one for every 11 residents, and 3.1 times the number of businesses with employees
• 457,635 people on employer payrolls at 29,706 establishments, earning $33.2 billion a year (Census County Business Patterns, 2023)
• Mean annual wage: $69,880 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)

Delaware pay rules — the answers people actually need

Final paycheck: the later of your next regular payday or three business days after your last day — whether you quit, were fired, suspended, or laid off. 19 Del.C. §1103 makes the rule identical for every kind of separation: wages become due on the later of the next date they would have been paid under the regular pay cycle, or three business days after the last day worked, through the usual pay channel or by mail if you ask. Most guides still say "next scheduled payday" — the current statute adds the three-business-day floor. If the employer stalls without reasonable grounds for a dispute, it owes liquidated damages of 10% of the unpaid wages per day (excluding Sundays and holidays), up to an amount equal to the wages themselves.

Pay frequency: at least once a calendar month (§1102(a)), on regular paydays set in advance, and all wages must be paid within 7 days after the pay period closes (§1102(b)). If payday falls on a non-work day, wages are due the preceding workday. Direct deposit only with your written request. Overtime, new hires, and variable-hour part-timers may roll to the following period when the period is 16 days or shorter and payday falls inside it.

Is a pay stub required? Yes, for any employer with more than three employees. 19 Del.C. §1108(4) requires a statement at the time of payment — on the check, a separate slip, or electronically in a form you can keep — showing the wages due, the pay period, and the total deductions, separately specified; hourly employees must also see the total hours for the period. You can ask for a paper copy of an electronic stub. The same section requires written notice of your pay rate and payday at hire, advance notice of any pay cut, and three years of wage and hour records.

Minimum wage: $15.00 for every employer since January 1, 2025 (19 Del.C. §902) — the last rung of the 2021 schedule, with no CPI indexing and no next step written into law; any 2027 change needs new legislation. The tipped cash wage is $2.23 (tip credit up to $12.77) for employees who customarily receive more than $30 a month in tips, tip pools are capped at 15%, and a service charge belongs to the direct-service employee unless management posts clear notice that it keeps it. Current §902 contains no youth or training sub-minimum.

Deductions and withholding rules. An employer may withhold only what the law requires, a court orders, or you authorize in writing for your own benefit (§1107). For state tax, your employer must collect Form DE-W4 — a federal W-4 completed in 2020 or later has no allowances and cannot be used for Delaware; only pre-2020 federal forms may still be honored. Any employer that withholds federal tax must withhold Delaware tax (30 Del.C. §1151), and Delaware has no reciprocal agreement with any state: Pennsylvania, Maryland, and New Jersey commuters pay Delaware tax on Delaware wages and claim a credit at home.

Local taxes and minimum wages in Delaware (2026)

Delaware has one statewide minimum wage and one local income tax. No city or county sets its own minimum wage — $15.00 applies from Wilmington to Sussex County with no local override — and the counties (New Castle, Kent, Sussex) and cities such as Dover, Newark, and Middletown levy no wage tax at all.

The exception is Wilmington's 1.25% earned income tax, authorized by 22 Del.C. §§901–906 and adopted in the City Charter (§§4-241 to 4-246). It applies to all earned income of city residents wherever they work, and to income non-residents earn for work performed inside the city. Employers located in Wilmington withhold it; employers outside the city must also withhold for employees who live in Wilmington. Non-residents whose employer withheld on all wages can apply for a refund of the days worked outside the city (Form WCWT-5).

At $60,000, a Wilmington resident pays $750 a year in city tax — about $29 per biweekly check — on top of $2,653 of state tax, which takes the state-and-local total to $3,403, or 5.7% of gross.

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

Delaware borders only Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey; Virginia is included as the nearest common comparison. Delaware's state tax at $60,000 ($2,653) is close to Maryland's state-only figure, but Maryland adds a county tax on top — so a Delaware resident keeps roughly $1,300 more than a Marylander in a 3.20% county. The trade-off is that Delaware has no reciprocal agreements: cross the line to work and you pay Delaware on those wages first, then credit it at home.

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