Texas Paystub Generator

Reading a Texas pay stub, line by line

A Texas pay stub is the simplest in the country to read — and that's official policy. Texas has no state income tax (it's banned by the Texas Constitution, Article 8, Section 24-a), no state disability insurance, no paid-leave deduction, and no city or local income taxes anywhere in the state.

That leaves exactly three involuntary deductions on a standard Texas stub:

• Federal income tax — withheld per your W-4
• Social Security — 6.2% of wages up to $184,500 (2026) From January 1, 2027: 6.2% of wages up to $192,300.
• Medicare — 1.45% of all wages (+0.9% above $200,000)

What you should never see: an "unemployment tax" deduction. Texas unemployment insurance is 100% employer-paid, and Labor Code §204.003 makes it illegal for an employer to deduct any part of it from your wages. If a Texas stub shows an employee-paid SUI or UI line, something is wrong.

Everything else on a Texas stub — health premiums, 401(k), garnishments — is either voluntary or court-ordered, and each deduction must be listed with its purpose (that's state law; see below).

Texas paycheck facts — 2026

What you actually take home in Texas (2026 estimates)

Estimated for a single filer taking the standard deduction — only federal tax, Social Security, and Medicare come out:

A $75,000 earner keeps about $3,900 more per year in Texas than in California and about $3,800 more than in New York — the no-income-tax advantage in real dollars.

Methodology: 2026 federal brackets and $16,100 standard deduction (IRS Rev. Proc. 2025-32), FICA per SSA. Estimates only — your withholding depends on your W-4, credits, and pre-tax benefits.

What Texas jobs pay (BLS, May 2025)

Texas's median hourly wage across all occupations is $23.38 (national median: $24.51) — but with no state tax, Texas net pay at the median beats many higher-wage states.

Texas's workforce in numbers

• 31.7 million residents, civilian labor force of 15.9 million — second largest in the nation (Census 2025 estimate; BLS, June 2026)
• 3,092,631 self-employed (nonemployer) businesses (Census, 2023) — third most in the US, behind California and Florida. That's roughly 1 for every 10 Texans, and none of them get an employer pay stub
• 670,878 employer establishments (Census, 2023)
• Mean annual wage: $65,750 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)

Texas pay rules — the three answers people actually need

Final paycheck: Faster than most states when you're let go. Fired or laid off in Texas, your final check is due within 6 calendar days (Labor Code §61.014). If you quit, it's due on the next regularly scheduled payday. Unpaid? File a wage claim with the Texas Workforce Commission — but the deadline is short: 180 days from when the wages were due.

Pay frequency: Non-exempt employees must be paid at least twice a month in roughly equal periods; exempt employees at least monthly. If an employer never designates paydays, Texas law sets them automatically: the 1st and 15th (LC §61.012).

Is a pay stub required? Yes — despite what many websites claim. Labor Code §62.003 requires a written earnings statement at the end of each pay period showing your name, pay rate, total pay, each deduction and its purpose, net pay, and hours worked (or piece-rate units). It can be electronic or printed on the check voucher, but it must exist.

One rate statewide

Texas preempts city minimum wages for private employers (LC §62.151) — Austin, Houston, and Dallas can set higher pay only for their own city workers and contractors. Private-sector pay floors are identical in all 254 counties, and no Texas city or county taxes your paycheck. What you see on a Texas stub in El Paso is what you see in Houston.

How Texas compares with big-state rivals (take-home on $60,000, 2026 est.)

Texas and Florida paychecks are identical at the same salary — the difference between the two comes down to cost of living, not withholding.

FAQ

Texas has no state income tax — what that means on the stub

Texas has no state income tax on wages, so a Texas pay stub carries no state withholding line at all.

Said plainly: Texas has no state income tax on wages. This is not a low rate or an exemption you have to claim — the Texas Constitution, Article 8, Section 24-a, forbids a personal income tax unless the voters approve one at a statewide referendum, and they have not. Texas is one of nine states in that position.

What that actually means on the stub, line by line:

• There is no state withholding line — not a zero, not a blank labelled "TX SIT". A correctly-built Texas stub simply does not have the row.
• There is no state withholding certificate. Most states pair their income tax with their own W-4 equivalent; Texas has none, so your federal Form W-4 is the only withholding election you make.
• Every dollar of the difference lands in net pay, not in a refund next April. Because nothing is withheld, there is nothing to reconcile and no Texas return to file.
• Your FICA lines are unchanged. Social Security and Medicare are federal and identical in all fifty states — no-income-tax states get no discount on them.

The one state-side line some people expect and should never see is an employee unemployment deduction. Texas unemployment insurance is entirely employer-funded, and Texas Labor Code §204.003 makes deducting any part of it from wages unlawful. If a Texas stub shows an employee SUI line, it is wrong.

Texas pay-stub and pay-frequency law

Is a pay stub required in Texas?

Texas does require a pay stub — despite how often the internet says otherwise. Texas Labor Code §62.003 requires the employer to give every employee a written earnings statement at the end of each pay period, and the statute lists what has to be on it: the employee's name, the pay rate, the total pay earned in the period, each deduction and the purpose of that deduction, the net pay, and the number of hours worked (or the units produced, for piece rate).

It may be delivered electronically or printed on the cheque voucher — the statute sets content, not format. The "each deduction and its purpose" clause is the useful one: an unlabelled or bundled deduction on a Texas stub is not compliant, and you can ask for it to be itemised.

How often must you be paid in Texas?

Texas Labor Code §61.011 sets a floor. Employees exempt from the federal overtime provisions must be paid at least once a month; everyone else must be paid at least twice a month, in pay periods that are as nearly equal in length as practicable. If an employer never designates paydays at all, §61.012 designates them for it: the first and fifteenth of each month.

City and local taxes in Texas

No Texas city, county or school district taxes wages. There is no Houston earnings tax, no Dallas city wage tax, no Austin payroll deduction — the local tax row that appears on an Ohio or Pennsylvania stub has no Texas equivalent anywhere in the 254 counties. Local government in Texas is funded from property and sales tax instead.

The same preemption runs through the wage floor: Labor Code §62.151 stops a Texas city from setting a minimum wage for private employers, so a city ordinance can only raise pay for that city's own employees and contractors.

A Texas pay stub, worked through line by line

$24.00 an hour, 80 regular hours and 4 overtime hours in a two-week period, a single filer in Texas, with $120 of pre-tax deductions.

There is no state row because Texas has no wage income tax. The three deduction lines above are the complete involuntary set on a Texas stub.

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 Texas stub, and where to go next

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

• no-income-tax states — the term as it appears on the stub
• state income tax — the term as it appears on the stub
• state unemployment insurance — the term as it appears on the stub
• FICA — 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.