Pennsylvania Paystub Generator

Reading a Pennsylvania pay stub, line by line

Pennsylvania stubs confuse more workers than almost any other state — not because rates are high, but because there are more lines: PA is one of only three states where employees pay unemployment tax, and virtually every PA municipality taxes your paycheck locally. Here's the full decoder for 2026:

PA / PA SIT (state income tax). A flat 3.07% on every dollar of compensation — Pennsylvania has no standard deduction and no personal exemption, so unlike federal tax, it starts from your first dollar. (Low earners can claim Tax Forgiveness at filing time.)

PA UC-EE (also shown as PA SUI or PA UC). The employee share of unemployment compensation: 0.07% of gross wages in 2026 — 70 cents per $1,000, with no cap. Only Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Alaska charge employees for unemployment insurance.

Local EIT (often shown with your town or collector's name — e.g., "Berkheimer," "Keystone"). Under Act 32, nearly every PA municipality and school district levies an Earned Income Tax that your employer must withhold. The typical combined rate is 1%; big cities run higher (Pittsburgh residents 3%, Scranton 3.4%). Your Box 20 on the W-2 carries a 6-digit PSD code identifying your tax jurisdiction.

LST (Local Services Tax). That odd $1–$2 per check: a flat local levy capped at $52 per year total, withheld pro-rata each pay period. Earn under $12,000 in the jurisdiction? You can claim an exemption or refund. (On old stubs this was called OPT or EMST.)

Philadelphia Wage Tax (Philly workers and residents). Separate from Act 32: 3.735% for residents, 3.425% for non-residents as of July 1, 2026 — the city is stepping the rate down annually, so double-check any stub still showing 3.74%/3.43%.

Plus the standard federal lines: federal income tax, Social Security (6.2% up to $184,500), Medicare (1.45%). From January 1, 2027: Social Security 6.2% up to $192,300.

Pennsylvania paycheck facts — 2026

What you actually take home in Pennsylvania (2026 estimates)

Estimated for a single filer taking the federal standard deduction, including federal tax, Social Security, Medicare, PA tax, PA UC-EE, a typical 1% local EIT, and the $52 LST:

Philadelphia residents (3.735% wage tax instead of the 1% EIT):

Living in Philadelphia costs a $60,000 earner about $1,641 a year more in paycheck taxes than a typical PA town — the wage tax is the single biggest line difference in the state.

Methodology: 2026 federal brackets and $16,100 standard deduction (IRS Rev. Proc. 2025-32), FICA per SSA, PA flat 3.07% with no state deduction, UC-EE 0.07%, LST $52. Estimates only — your local EIT rate may differ (check your PSD code); withholding depends on your W-4, credits, and pre-tax benefits.

What Pennsylvania jobs pay (BLS, May 2025)

Pennsylvania's median hourly wage across all occupations is $23.89 (national: $24.51).

Pennsylvania's workforce in numbers

• 13.1 million residents, civilian labor force of 6.6 million (Census 2025 estimate; BLS, June 2026)
• 955,359 self-employed (nonemployer) businesses (Census, 2023) — nearly a million Pennsylvanians earning without an employer pay stub
• Mean annual wage: $65,730 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)

Pennsylvania pay rules — the answers people actually need

Final paycheck: due by the next scheduled payday whether you quit, were laid off, or were fired (Wage Payment and Collection Law). Same rule in all three cases — simpler than California's or Texas's split deadlines.

Pay frequency: wages must be paid on regular paydays designated in advance, and the gap between the end of a pay period and payday can't exceed 15 days (or the contractual/customary norm).

Is a pay stub required? Yes. PA requires a statement with each pay period showing hours worked, pay rate, gross wages, tax deductions, other authorized deductions, and the pay-period dates. With five-plus tax lines on a typical PA stub, that itemization matters more here than almost anywhere.

Why your PA neighbor's stub looks different from yours

Two PA workers with identical salaries can have visibly different paychecks — the local layer does it:

• Most of the state: ~1% EIT (0.5% township + 0.5% school district) + $52 LST
• Pittsburgh residents: 3% (1% city + 2% school district)
• Scranton residents: 3.4%
• Philadelphia: 3.735% city wage tax replaces EIT entirely — and commuters into Philly from anywhere (even out of state) still pay 3.425%

Your 6-digit PSD code (W-2 Box 20) is what determines your rate. Wrong PSD code = wrong tax — one of the most common PA payroll errors, and worth checking on every new job's first stub.

How Pennsylvania compares (take-home on $60,000, 2026 est.)

PA's flat 3.07% looks low, but the local layer narrows the gap with bracket states: a typical PA worker's total state+local bite at $60k (~4.2%) lands close to New York's state tax alone.

FAQ

How Pennsylvania taxes your wages (2026)

Pennsylvania taxes wages at a flat 3.07% with no standard deduction and no personal exemption, and almost every Pennsylvanian also pays a local Earned Income Tax on top of it.

Pennsylvania's state income tax is the simplest arithmetic in the country and the most misleading headline. The rate is a flat 3.07% of compensation under the Tax Reform Code — no brackets, no marginal rate to work out. But there is also no standard deduction and no personal exemption, so unlike almost every other state the tax starts at the first dollar. A Pennsylvanian earning $25,000 pays the same 3.07% on every dollar as one earning $250,000.

Two further lines are specific to Pennsylvania:

• An employee unemployment deduction that is genuinely legal here. Pennsylvania is one of a very small number of states where employees contribute to the unemployment fund, so a PA UC line on the stub is correct rather than an error. The employee contribution rate is set annually by the Department of Labor & Industry and is a fraction of one percent.
• Local Services Tax (LST). Many municipalities levy a flat dollar amount per year for local services, withheld at the work location and spread across pay periods rather than charged as a percentage. It appears as a small fixed deduction, not a rate.

Pennsylvania also taxes compensation on a narrower base than the federal government: some items that reduce federal taxable wages do not reduce Pennsylvania compensation, which is why the state wage box on a W-2 often exceeds the federal one.

Pennsylvania pay-stub and pay-frequency law

Is a pay stub required in Pennsylvania?

Pennsylvania requires a pay statement, and the content rules live in regulation rather than the statute itself. Under 34 Pa. Code §231.36, made under the Minimum Wage Act, the employer must furnish each employee with a statement each pay period showing the hours worked, the rates paid, the gross wages, the allowances claimed as part of the minimum wage, the deductions, and the net wages.

The Wage Payment and Collection Law (43 P.S. §260.1 et seq.) is the enforcement route for wages themselves, and §260.3 also requires the employer to notify employees at hire of the time and place of payment, the rate of pay, and any fringe benefits.

How often must you be paid in Pennsylvania?

Under the Wage Payment and Collection Law, wages must be paid on regular paydays designated in advance. Where no time is set by agreement, 43 P.S. §260.3 requires wages earned in a pay period to be paid within fifteen days of the end of that period. Pennsylvania does not impose a weekly or semi-monthly rule of the kind New York and California use — the constraint is the fifteen-day lag and the requirement that the schedule be fixed in advance, not the frequency.

City and local taxes in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania's local tax is not an edge case — it is the defining feature of a Pennsylvania stub. Under Act 32, virtually every municipality and school district outside Philadelphia levies an Earned Income Tax (EIT), identified by a six-digit PSD code for the residence and for the workplace. The employee pays the higher of the resident rate or the work-location non-resident rate; the work locality withholds and the resident locality is credited. This is why Pennsylvania payroll asks for two addresses rather than one, and why a local tax line on a PA stub cannot be worked out from the state alone.

Philadelphia is its own regime. The Philadelphia City Wage Tax sits outside Act 32 and applies at a resident rate of 3.75% and a non-resident rate of 3.44% on wages, administered by the city's Department of Revenue. It follows the work location for non-residents and residence for residents, and unlike the state tax it has no floor and no exemption. The worked example below is built on the Philadelphia resident rate, so the local line in it is a real one.

Pittsburgh runs an ordinary Act 32 EIT at a 3% resident rate with a 1% non-resident rate, plus a $52-a-year Local Services Tax.

A Pennsylvania pay stub, worked through line by line

A $68,000 salary paid every two weeks, a single filer living and working in Philadelphia (PSD 510101), with $160 of pre-tax deductions per period.

The local line is the Philadelphia resident wage tax at 3.75%, resolved from the PSD code against the PA DCED dataset. The PA UC employee contribution sits outside this calculation.

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 Pennsylvania stub, and where to go next

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

• state income tax — the term as it appears on the stub
• local municipal tax — the term as it appears on the stub
• state unemployment insurance — the term as it appears on the stub
• taxable wages — 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.