Iowa Paystub Generator

Reading an Iowa pay stub, line by line

An Iowa pay stub has exactly four deduction lines — federal income tax, Social Security, Medicare, and one Iowa line — and nothing else. No state unemployment share, no disability insurance, no paid-leave contribution, no city tax. Here is what each line means in 2026:

Iowa State Income Tax ("IA State Tax", "Iowa SIT", "IA Withholding"). Iowa's income tax is one number: a flat 3.8% on all taxable income, every filing status, since tax year 2025 (Iowa Code §422.5, as rewritten by Senate File 2442 of 2024). There is no bracket table to look up. On the return, Iowa taxable income starts from your federal taxable income, so the $16,100 federal standard deduction is the Iowa deduction; instead of personal exemptions Iowa gives you $40 tax credits — $40 for yourself, $40 per dependent, $20 more if you are 65+ or blind.

How the paycheck line is calculated. Your employer runs the Iowa Department of Revenue's four-step 2026 Withholding Formula from your Form IA W-4 (44-019): wages minus a $13,000 withholding deduction (single/"Other"; $19,500 head of household; $26,000 married one earner), times 3.8%, minus your IA W-4 allowances — which are stated in dollars ($40 for yourself, $40 per dependent) and spread across the year's pay periods — plus any extra you asked for. IDR's own example: $2,100 biweekly, single, one $40 allowance → ($2,100 − $500) × 3.8% − $1.54 = $59.26 withheld per check.

Why your stub withholds a little more than you owe. The $13,000 withholding deduction is smaller than the $16,100 standard deduction the return uses — IDR says in its own formula notes that it "is not the same as the federal standard deduction amount." A single filer with one allowance is withheld on about $3,100 more than the return will tax, roughly $118 a year over-withheld. That headroom is deliberate: it covers the school-district surtax that some Iowans owe at filing (see the local section below). Most single Iowans with no surtax get it back as a small state refund.

Bonuses, commissions, and severance. Paid with your regular wages, they run through the formula; paid separately with federal tax taken at the flat supplemental rate, Iowa withholds a flat 3.8% — the same as the regular rate, so there is no bonus "penalty" in Iowa.

What you will NOT see: a state unemployment line (employer-only — Iowa Workforce Development's 2026 taxable wage base of $20,400 applies to your employer, not you), state disability insurance (Iowa has none), a paid family or medical leave contribution (no program), a city or county wage tax (none exist), or the school-district surtax (paid on the IA 1040, never withheld). If your net income is $9,000 or less as a single filer ($13,500 married or head of household), you owe no Iowa tax at all and may write EXEMPT on the IA W-4.

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).

Iowa paycheck facts — 2026

What you actually take home in Iowa (2026 estimates)

Estimated for a single filer taking the standard deduction, including federal income tax, Social Security, Medicare, and Iowa state tax calculated as the return figures it — flat 3.8% after the $16,100 deduction, less the $40 personal credit. No local tax is included because none is withheld anywhere in Iowa:

Where the money goes at $60,000: Iowa state tax is $1,628, or 2.7% of gross. Your stub withholds about $1,746 a year ($67.15 per biweekly check) because the paycheck formula deducts $13,000 rather than $16,100 — roughly $118 comes back at filing unless a school-district surtax absorbs it. Federal income tax ($5,020) and FICA ($4,590) take the other 16%.

Your school district changes the number at filing, not on the stub: a Cedar Rapids resident owes 5% of that $1,628 — about $81 — on the IA 1040, so the refund shrinks to about $36; a Des Moines, Davenport, or Waterloo resident (0%) keeps the full $118 (2025 surtax rates; the 2026 table is not yet published).

At the $7.25 minimum wage a full-time worker grosses $15,080 — below the $16,100 federal standard deduction, so both the federal and Iowa income-tax lines are $0 and only FICA (7.65%) comes out.

Methodology: 2026 federal brackets and $16,100 standard deduction (IRS Rev. Proc. 2025-32), FICA per SSA, Iowa flat 3.8% under Iowa Code §422.5 applied to federal taxable income per §422.7, less the $40 personal credit (2026 Form IA W-4). Paycheck withholding uses IDR's 2026 Iowa Withholding Formula ($13,000 deduction) and will run slightly higher than the annual liability shown. Estimates only — your withholding depends on your IA W-4 allowances, extra withholding, pre-tax benefits, and school district of residence.

What Iowa jobs pay (BLS, May 2025)

Iowa's median hourly wage across all occupations is $23.34 — 4.8% below the national median of $24.51 — and the mean annual wage is $59,830. The flat tax keeps the state's cut small at every level: a software developer at the state median ($114,890) pays about $3,714 in Iowa tax, a registered nurse ($78,630) about $2,336, and a waiter at the $10.10 median (tips included, on a $4.35 cash minimum) owes about $146.

Iowa's workforce in numbers

• 3.24 million residents, civilian labor force of 1.73 million, unemployment 3.2% (Census 2025 estimate; BLS, July 2026 preliminary)
• 228,781 self-employed (nonemployer) businesses (Census, 2023) — about one for every 14 residents, and 2.7 times the number of businesses with employees
• 1.4 million people on employer payrolls at 83,321 establishments, earning $79.8 billion a year (Census County Business Patterns, 2023)
• Mean annual wage: $59,830 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)

Iowa pay rules — the answers people actually need

Final paycheck: next regular payday, whether you quit, were fired, laid off, or suspended. Iowa Code §91A.4 sets one deadline for every kind of separation: all wages earned, less lawful deductions, "not later than the next regular payday for the pay period in which the wages were earned." Commission true-ups (the difference between your draw and what you actually earned) are due within 30 days. Accrued vacation is paid out only if your employer's agreement or policy provides pro-rated accrual — then it is owed for the fraction of the year you worked. Unpaid-wage claims up to $6,500 go to the Department of Inspections, Appeals & Licensing's Wage and Child Labor Unit; larger claims go to court, with liquidated damages available under §91A.8.

Pay frequency: at least monthly, semimonthly, or biweekly, on regular paydays fixed in advance (§91A.3). The payday can be no more than 12 days (not counting Sundays and legal holidays) after the end of the pay period — a written agreement can vary that. Employees hired since July 1, 2005 can be required to take direct deposit unless it would cost them fees or push them below minimum wage; an employer that misses payday is liable for the overdraft charges it causes.

Is a pay stub required? Yes. Under §91A.6(4), on each regular payday your employer must give you a statement showing the hours you worked, the wages you earned, and the deductions made — by mail, secure electronic delivery, in person, or through online access plus free and unrestricted use of a printer. Hours can be left off for FLSA-exempt salaried staff unless they are paid by the hour. The law never requires year-to-date totals. On written request your employer has 10 working days to hand over an itemized statement of earnings and deductions for each pay period with an explanation of how they were computed, and must keep payroll records for three calendar years.

Minimum wage: $7.25, unchanged since January 1, 2008 (Iowa Code §91D.1), with no indexing and no scheduled increase — it moves only if the federal floor does. Tipped employees at restaurants, hotels, motels, and inns who earn over $30 a month in tips can be paid a $4.35 cash wage (tip credit capped at 40% of the minimum, $2.90). Employers may pay a $6.35 initial employment wage for the first 90 calendar days — a training wage most states have abolished. Businesses grossing under $300,000 a year are exempt from the state minimum unless they are in laundering, construction, health care, schools, or public agencies. Iowa has no state overtime law; the federal FLSA's time-and-a-half rule applies.

Deductions your employer can and cannot take. Iowa Code §91A.5 sets the rules — which deductions are lawful and which chargebacks an employer may not make against your wages. We are citing it by reference rather than listing its contents, because we did not read the section this round; if something on your stub is not a tax and you did not sign for it, read §91A.5 before you accept it. Illinois residents working in Iowa are exempt from Iowa withholding under the Iowa–Illinois reciprocal agreement (and Iowans working in Illinois are exempt from Illinois withholding) — the exemption form is filed with the employer.

Local taxes and minimum wages in Iowa (2026): nothing on the stub, one surtax on the return

No Iowa city or county taxes wages, and nothing local is withheld from an Iowa paycheck. Iowa's local governments raise money through property tax and local-option sales tax only. The 2026 Iowa Withholding Formula has no local component at all.

The thing competitors call Iowa's "local income tax" is the School District Income Surtax (Iowa Code §257.21). It is a percentage of your Iowa state income tax — not of your wages — set by voter-approved programs in each school district and capped at 20% of state tax. Six counties (Appanoose, Cass, Pocahontas, Sac, Shelby, Winnebago) add a 1% Emergency Medical Services surtax. You pay it on the IA 1040 (line 19) based on the district where you lived on December 31; employers never withhold it. The 2026 IA W-4 simply suggests you lower your allowances or add extra withholding on line 8 if you live in a surtax district. Of the 369 district entries in IDR's table, 306 impose one. The rates below are the 2025 values — IDR had not posted the 2026 table as of September 2026.

Local minimum wages: none, by law. Since March 30, 2017 (House File 295; Iowa Code §364.3(12) and §331.301(6)), no city or county may set a minimum wage above the state's $7.25, and the earlier ordinances are "void and unenforceable." That wiped out the $10.10-and-up floors that Johnson County (Iowa City), Linn County (Cedar Rapids), Polk County (Des Moines), and Wapello County had adopted in 2015–2016. Whatever city you work in, the legal floor is $7.25.

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

Iowa's flat 3.8% is now among the lowest income-tax rates on its borders: at $60,000 a single filer pays about $1,628 in Iowa, and the only neighbor that takes less is South Dakota, which takes nothing. Illinois residents who work in Iowa pay Illinois, not Iowa, under the reciprocal agreement — and vice-versa.

(Nebraska and South Dakota figures are directional estimates pending those pages' full data workup.)

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