Maryland Paystub Generator

Maryland Pay Stub Requirements at a Glance

What Must Be on a Maryland Paystub?

The Eight Required Items

Maryland's Pay Stub and Pay Statement Act took effect October 1, 2024 and amended §3-504 of the Wage Payment and Collection Law. Every written or online paystub issued to a Maryland employee must now show:

• The employer's name as registered with the State of Maryland, plus address and telephone number
• The date of payment and the beginning and ending dates of the pay period
• The total number of hours worked during the pay period (not required for exempt employees)
• The rate of pay
• Gross and net pay for the pay period
• The amount and name of every deduction
• A list of any additional pay included in the check, such as bonuses, commissions or other compensation
• For piece-rate employees, the applicable piece rate and the number of pieces completed

Item one is where most employers fall short. The telephone number is genuinely required and the name must match the registration on file with the state rather than a trade name or DBA.

What Changed in October 2024 and Why Older Guides Are Wrong

Before October 2024, Maryland required only a statement of gross earnings and deductions. That is the version most online guides still describe and several competing paystub sites still list three required items rather than eight.

The 2024 amendment also changed the notice-at-hire rules. Employers must now provide written notice of the rate of pay, the regular paydays and leave benefits at the time of hire and give advance notice before changing wages or paydays. The Maryland Department of Labor publishes an official pay stub template and pay statement instructions for employers who want a compliant reference layout.

Penalties: Up to $500 Per Employee

The Commissioner of Labor and Industry may impose an administrative penalty of up to $500 for each employee who did not receive the required information.

This is separate from the older wage payment remedies. If wages themselves go unpaid, the Wage Payment and Collection Law allows an employee to recover up to three times the unpaid wages plus reasonable attorney fees and a willful failure to pay can be charged as a misdemeanor.

The two exposures stack. A defective statement is an administrative matter enforced by the state; unpaid wages are a private claim with treble damages attached.

Electronic vs. Paper Pay Statements

Maryland permits the statement to be delivered physically, electronically, or both. An online payroll stub satisfies the law as long as the employee can access it each payday and it contains all eight items. If an employee worked no hours in a pay period and receives no wages, no statement is required for that period.

Maryland's Two-Layer Income Tax

Maryland is the reason a national paystub template usually gets Maryland wrong. There are two separate income tax lines on every Maryland wage statement and the second one depends on where the employee lives.

Maryland State Income Tax Brackets (2026)

The 2025 Budget Reconciliation Act added two new top brackets. Maryland now runs ten brackets topping out at 6.5%, not the eight brackets ending at 5.75% that most published tables still show.

Married filing jointly thresholds differ above the 4.75% bracket. The 4.75% band covers most Maryland earners, running from $3,000 all the way to $100,000 of taxable income.

County Income Tax: The Piggyback Rate

All 24 local jurisdictions, meaning 23 counties plus Baltimore City, levy their own income tax on the same taxable income base as the state. There is no opt-out and no separate local return; it is collected on Form 502 alongside the state tax.

Anne Arundel and Frederick are the only two jurisdictions using graduated local schedules rather than a flat rate. Because individual county rates are reset annually and several changed recently, confirm the specific rate against the Comptroller of Maryland's current withholding tables before running payroll.

The spread matters more than it looks. On $80,000 of taxable income, the difference between the lowest rate and the highest is roughly $840 per year for the same salary.

Why Your County of Residence Determines Withholding

The county rate follows where the employee lives, not where they work. A worker who commutes from Frederick to an office in Montgomery County pays Frederick's rate. Two people sitting at adjacent desks earning identical salaries can have different county tax lines on their check stub.

This catches out employers in the DC suburbs constantly. If you employ people across Montgomery, Prince George's, Howard and Frederick, you are running four different local rates through the same payroll.

There is a default rule worth knowing: if an employee has no completed MW507 on file, Maryland requires withholding at the maximum county rate and the Comptroller's 2026 tables default to 3.30%. Collecting the MW507 promptly is not administrative housekeeping, it directly changes what comes out of the employee's pay.

The 2% Capital Gains Surtax

The 2025 Budget Reconciliation Act also introduced a 2% surtax on net capital gains for filers whose federal adjusted gross income exceeds $350,000, applied uniformly across filing statuses. This does not appear on a wage statement, since it is not withheld from payroll, but it affects the annual liability of higher earners and is worth knowing when reconciling withholding against the final bill.

Form MW507 and How Withholding Is Set

Maryland does not use the federal W-4 for state withholding. Employees complete Form MW507, which sets exemptions for both the state and county tax. Employers report and remit using Form MW506 and reconcile annually on Form MW508.

Maryland Payroll Taxes for Employers

State Unemployment Insurance

Maryland has no employee-side unemployment contribution, so SUI must never appear as a deduction line on a wage statement.

FAMLI: What to Know Before January 2027

Maryland's Family and Medical Leave Insurance program, created by the Time to Care Act, has been delayed three separate times. The current position:

• Payroll contributions begin January 1, 2027. There is no FAMLI deduction in 2026.
• Benefits begin January 3, 2028.
• Employers remit the first payment to the state trust fund in April 2027.
• The program is funded by employers and employees, with the employer share applying to businesses with 15 or more employees. Smaller employers withhold the employee share but owe no employer contribution.
• The statute caps total contributions at 1.2% of wages. The launch rate has been indicated at 0.90%, split evenly between employer and employee, but the Secretary of Labor sets the operative figure by regulation, so confirm the published 2027 rate before configuring payroll.

Practical implication: any Maryland paystub dated in 2026 should have no FAMLI line at all. If a template shows one, it is running ahead of the law. Employer registration is expected to open through the state's paid leave portal ahead of the contribution start date.

Federal Payroll Taxes

The Social Security wage base rose from $176,100 in 2025 to $184,500 in 2026.

How to Create a Maryland Pay Stub in Under Two Minutes

Step 1: Enter Employer Information

Name, address and telephone number. All three are required by §3-504 and the name must be the entity as registered with the State of Maryland. This is the single most commonly omitted requirement.

Step 2: Add the Pay Period, Hours and Rates

Enter the payment date plus the beginning and ending dates of the pay period. "Week of March 3" does not satisfy the statute. Add total hours worked for non-exempt employees and enter each rate of pay separately if more than one applied.

Step 3: Itemize Deductions by Name and Purpose

Every deduction needs both an amount and a name. Generic labels like "misc" or "other" fail the requirement. Bonuses, commissions and any other additional pay included in the check must be listed separately rather than folded into base wages.

Step 4: Preview Free and Download Your PDF

Check the preview against the eight required items, confirm the state and county tax lines both appear, then download. No account is needed to preview.

Maryland Pay Stub Example: Gross Pay to Net Pay

Here is a full monthly stub for a salaried single-filer employee in Baltimore earning $408,000 a year, or $34,000.00 a month, with 160 hours and no overtime for the period.

Federal and state withholding depend on the employee's W-4 and MW507 elections, so treat those two lines as illustrative. Social Security stops for the year once YTD wages cross the $184,500 wage base, which is why the current-period line reads $0.00 here. Additional Medicare applies once wages cross $200,000 for the year.

Why Maryland Statements Carry Two State-Level Tax Lines

Most states have one. Maryland has two and they must be shown separately because they are separate taxes with separate rates, even though they are collected together and computed on the same base. A paystub that merges them into a single "state tax" figure gives the employee no way to verify either one.

How to Read Your Maryland Pay Stub Fields

• Gross pay: everything earned before deductions
• MD State Tax or MD PIT: the state income tax line
• MD Local or County Tax: the piggyback rate for the employee's county of residence
• OASDI: the Social Security line, 6.2%
• Net pay: what reaches the bank account
• YTD columns: running calendar-year totals beside each line

What YTD Totals Should Show

Each statement's year-to-date figure should equal the previous one plus the current period, without exception. YTD accuracy is what lets an employee reconcile against the annual Form 502 in April and it is the first thing a lender checks when a set of statements is submitted as proof of income. It also flags when Social Security withholding stops, once cumulative wages pass $184,500.

Maryland Minimum Wage in 2026

The Statewide Rate

Maryland's minimum wage is $15.00 per hour for employers of every size, effective January 1, 2024 under the Fair Wage Act of 2023.

The tiered structure that used to apply to employers with 14 or fewer employees was eliminated by that act. Several online guides still list a lower small-employer rate; that schedule no longer exists. There is no automatic inflation adjustment in Maryland, so the rate holds until the legislature changes it.

County Minimum Wages

Three jurisdictions set rates above the state floor:

Montgomery County changes on July 1, not January 1, which is easy to miss. Howard and Prince George's change on January 1.

Tipped Employees and the $3.63 Cash Wage

Tipped employees earning more than $30 a month in tips must receive at least $3.63 per hour in direct wages, with tips bringing total compensation to the full minimum wage. The maximum tip credit is therefore $11.37 at the state rate. If tips fall short in a pay period, the employer covers the gap.

Cash wage and reported tips should appear as separate earnings lines so the tip credit calculation is visible.

Youth Wage

Employees under 18 may be paid 85% of the applicable minimum wage, which works out to $12.75 at the state rate.

Maryland Wage and Hour Rules

Overtime

Maryland follows the federal standard: 1.5x the regular rate after 40 hours in a workweek. There is no daily overtime requirement. Certain industries, including some agricultural and amusement operations, have modified thresholds.

Pay Frequency

Employers must pay employees at least semi-monthly, meaning twice per month. Weekly and biweekly schedules also satisfy the rule; monthly does not, except for executive, administrative and professional employees.

Final Paycheck

Wages are due on or before the next regular payday following separation, covering all work performed before termination. Accrued leave is paid out only if the employer's written policy provides for it and only if the employee was properly notified of the policy's terms.

Earned Sick Leave

Under the Maryland Healthy Working Families Act, employers with 15 or more employees must provide paid sick and safe leave and smaller employers must provide unpaid leave. Accrual is one hour for every 30 hours worked, up to 40 hours per year. Many employers display the available balance on the statement even though it is not one of the eight required items.

Record Retention

Payroll records must be kept for at least three years. Records supporting wage range transparency compliance must also be retained for three years from the date a position is filled.

Pay Stubs for Every Type of Maryland Worker

Hourly and Non-Exempt Employees

Total hours worked is mandatory and each rate that applied during the period needs its own line with matching hours. Overtime cannot be blended into a single average rate.

Salaried and Exempt Employees

Genuinely exempt employees are the only workers for whom the hours field can be omitted. Salary alone does not create exempt status; the duties test applies too. A salaried non-exempt employee's statement must still show hours.

Independent Contractors and 1099 Workers

Contractor statements show gross pay with no withholding, no FICA and no county tax, because a contractor pays self-employment tax and files their own Maryland return. Our contractor mode removes those lines automatically. Because Maryland's combined state and county rate runs high, accurate documentation matters more here than in most states for calculating quarterly estimated payments.

Cross-Border Workers in the DC, Maryland and Virginia Triangle

This is the most confused area in Maryland payroll.

• Maryland residents working in DC or Virginia: Maryland has reciprocity agreements with the District of Columbia, Virginia, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. A Maryland resident generally has Maryland state and county tax withheld rather than the other jurisdiction's tax.
• Non-Maryland residents working in Maryland: a flat 2.25% nonresident rate applies in place of a county rate.
• Which county rate applies: the employee's county of residence, determined as of December 31 of the tax year.

If you employ people across the DC metro area, the county field on each employee's MW507 is the field that drives the whole calculation.

Federal Contractors and Government Employees

Maryland's economy carries an unusually large federal and federal-contractor workforce, concentrated in Montgomery, Prince George's and Anne Arundel counties. These employees frequently need consistent statements for security clearance financial reviews, mortgage applications and benefits verification, where consistency across a set matters as much as any single document.

Five Maryland Paystub Mistakes That Trigger Penalties

1. No employer telephone number. Required since October 2024 and routinely omitted. Name, address and phone are all three mandatory.
2. One combined "state tax" line. State and county tax are separate taxes and must be shown separately.
3. Vague pay period labels. The statute requires the payment date plus the beginning and ending dates of the period.
4. Generic deduction labels. Every deduction needs an amount and a name. "Misc" and "other" do not comply.
5. Bonuses folded into base wages. Additional pay such as bonuses and commissions must be listed as its own item.

How Maryland Compares to Neighboring States

Maryland and Pennsylvania are the two states in the region with widespread mandatory local income tax, but Maryland's is universal across all 24 jurisdictions and sits at materially higher rates.

Maryland Pay Stub Templates

Choose from professional layouts, each of which lays out the eight required items and calculates both state and county tax automatically. Unlike a generic paystub maker built on a national template, every layout here reserves a separate line for the county tax. Preview any of them free before downloading.

• Modern: clean two-column layout, good for digital delivery
• Classic: traditional payroll format, prints cleanly
• Detailed: expanded YTD columns, best for multi-rate employees
• Compact: minimal layout for straightforward hourly statements

Why Choose Online Paystub for Maryland

• Both tax layers calculated automatically: the state bracket and the correct one of Maryland's 24 county rates, never blended into a single "state tax" line.
• All eight items required under the Pay Stub and Pay Statement Act, including the employer phone number most templates skip.
• The 2026 ten-bracket schedule topping out at 6.5%, not the eight-bracket table most competing tools still publish.
• No premature FAMLI deduction. Contributions do not start until January 2027 and the 2026 statements reflect that.
• A contractor mode that drops FICA and withholding automatically for 1099 work.
• Multiple layout choices, from a compact single-rate stub to a detailed version with full YTD columns.
• Your information stays private. We never sell or share what you enter with anyone else.

Maryland Payroll Glossary

Additional pay: bonuses, commissions and other compensation that must be listed separately under §3-504. FAMLI: Family and Medical Leave Insurance, Maryland's paid leave program. Contributions begin January 2027. Form MW507: Maryland's employee withholding certificate, the state counterpart to the federal W-4. It sets both state and county exemptions. Form MW506 / MW508: the employer withholding return and the annual reconciliation. Gross wages: total earnings before any deduction. Net wages: take-home pay after all deductions. Non-exempt employee: an employee entitled to overtime and whose hours must appear on the wage statement. OASDI: Old-Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance, the formal name for the Social Security payroll tax. Piggyback tax: the common name for Maryland's county income tax, so called because it rides on the state tax base. PIT: Personal Income Tax, Maryland's state income tax withholding. SUI: State Unemployment Insurance, employer-paid, on the first $8,500 of wages. Tip credit: the amount an employer may count from tips toward the minimum wage. Up to $11.37 in Maryland. Wage statement: Maryland's legal term for the document this page calls a paystub. YTD: year-to-date, the running calendar-year total for an earnings or deduction line.

Disclaimer

This page is general information, not legal, tax, or accounting advice. Rates and rules change and the correct treatment depends on your circumstances. Verify current figures with the Comptroller of Maryland, the Maryland Department of Labor and the IRS, or consult a qualified professional.

Always enter accurate information that reflects real earnings. Our tools are for legitimate payroll and income documentation.