Your first payday at a new developer job arrives, and two things surprise you. The deposit is smaller than the offer letter seemed to promise, and the stub is a grid of short labels and numbers. For many F-1 students in new OPT jobs, it's the first U.S. pay stub they've ever held.
Fact-checked against the official sources on 23 October 2026.
Think of a stub like a log file for your pay. Every line answers one of three questions: what did you earn, what was taken out, and what reached your bank? Read it slowly once, and every later stub takes a minute.
Know whether a stub is required
Federal law doesn't promise you one. The Department of Labor says the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the main federal pay law, makes employers "keep accurate records of hours worked and wages paid." But the FLSA "does not require an employer to provide employees pay stubs." The Department also notes that some states have their own laws on matters the federal act leaves out. So check your state's labor department for pay statement rules where you work. In practice, most payroll systems still give you a stub, on paper or in an online portal.
Start at the top of the stub
The top block says who paid whom, and for which days.
- Pay period: the first and last day of the work this check covers.
- Pay date: the day the money is paid. It usually comes after the pay period ends.
- Hours and rate: shown if you're paid by the hour. A salaried stub shows a fixed amount per period instead.
- Gross pay: everything you earned this period, before anything comes out.
If the hours or the rate look wrong, raise that first. Every number below gross pay is built on it.
Find the federal income tax line
This line may say "Federal income tax", "Fed W/H" or "FIT". Labels differ between payroll systems.
The amount comes from the Form W-4 you gave payroll on your first day. The IRS says to complete Form W-4 "so that your employer can withhold the correct federal income tax from your pay." It also suggests a new W-4 "each year and when your personal or financial situation changes."
Payroll turns your W-4 into a dollar amount with the methods in IRS Publication 15-T. That publication tells payroll staff to send nonresident alien employees to Notice 1392, the extra W-4 instructions for them, before they fill in the form. "Nonresident alien" is a tax status, not a visa type.
Look for the two payroll tax lines
Social Security and Medicare are the two. For a limited time, some F-1 students owe neither of these taxes. This IRS page lists the conditions.
Where they apply, your share is 6.2% of wages toward Social Security, plus 1.45% toward Medicare. Two limits matter later in a career:
- Social Security stops at a cap. The IRS tax topic on these taxes puts the 2026 wage base limit, the most pay the tax applies to, at $184,500. The Social Security Administration has already published $192,300 for 2027. Once your pay for the year passes the cap, that line drops to zero until January.
- Medicare has no cap, and one extra layer. The same IRS page says employers withhold an Additional Medicare Tax of 0.9% on wages "in excess of $200,000 in a calendar year," starting in the pay period when pay passes that amount.
Check the running totals
"Year to date" (YTD) is a running total since January 1. It should grow by exactly this period's amount each payday. A YTD figure that jumps or shrinks is worth a question.
After the year ends, your employer sends you a Form W-2 with the year's totals. The IRS instructions for Form W-2 name the boxes: Box 2 is federal income tax withheld, Box 4 is Social Security tax withheld and Box 6 is Medicare tax withheld. Put your last stub of the year next to the W-2 and compare those three numbers.
Look at the other deductions
Below the taxes, you may see lines for things you signed up for, such as a health plan. Each one should match a form you filled in or a choice you made. If you can't tell what a line is, ask payroll to name it. That's a normal question.
Check that net pay matches the deposit
Net pay is gross pay minus every line above. It should equal what landed in your bank account, to the cent.
Work through a made-up stub
These numbers are invented to show the arithmetic. They aren't real pay or a real tax amount.
Gross pay 2,500.00
Federal income tax -210.00 (made up; depends on your W-4)
Social Security (6.2%) -155.00
Medicare (1.45%) -36.25
Health plan -40.00 (made up)
---------------------------------------
Net pay 2,058.75
If you're exempt from Social Security and Medicare tax, those two lines would read 0.00, and net pay would rise by $191.25.
Where we stand at DevGrid Staffing LLC
At DevGrid Staffing LLC, we sponsor our own employees. We don't handle tax or immigration paperwork for people who don't work here.
A lawyer didn't write these steps, and they aren't legal advice from DevGrid Staffing LLC. For a real answer on your own case, talk to an immigration attorney, or to the Designated School Official (DSO) who keeps your student record.
For tax questions, use the IRS pages linked above or a tax professional.
One thing to try today
Take your newest pay stub and a pen. Circle gross pay, each tax line and net pay. Then add up every deduction and check that gross pay minus that total equals net pay.
From the DevGrid Staffing LLC notebook · devgridstaffing.com
Top comments (0)