Payroll Register
Reviewed for 2026 ·
Short answer
A payroll register is the employer's internal record of a single pay run: every employee, their gross pay, each deduction, and the net paid, totalled across the whole payroll. It is not given to employees — that is the pay stub, which shows one person their own figures. The register is what reconciles to the bank debit and to the quarterly tax filings, and it is the document an auditor asks for first.
Register or pay stub?
They contain the same arithmetic viewed from opposite ends. A pay stub is one employee's column, handed to that employee. A register is every column side by side with a totals row, kept by the employer.
That totals row is the reason the register exists. It is what you reconcile against the money that actually left the account, and against the tax deposits you remit. If a payroll is wrong, the register is where the discrepancy is visible.
Employees have a statutory right to their own stub in most states. Nobody has a right to the register — it contains everyone's pay, and sharing it is a serious confidentiality problem.
What a register must show
There is no single federal format. What matters is that it supports the figures you filed and the money you moved, which in practice means these columns.
- Pay period and pay date
- The dates worked and the date paid. These differ, and tax liability follows the pay date rather than the period worked.
- Employee identifier
- Name and payroll ID. Registers are retained for years and names change; an ID keeps history joinable.
- Hours and gross pay
- Regular hours, overtime hours, and any additional earnings broken out — bonus, commission, reimbursements — because they are taxed differently.
- Each withholding as its own column
- Federal income tax, Social Security, Medicare, state tax, and any local tax. A single 'taxes' figure cannot be reconciled against a deposit.
- Voluntary and post-tax deductions
- Health premiums, retirement contributions, garnishments. Pre-tax items must be visibly separate from post-tax ones, since only the former reduce taxable wages.
- Net pay and payment method
- What each person received and how. This is the column that must total to the bank debit.
- Employer-side taxes
- The employer's matching FICA and unemployment liability. Not deducted from anyone's pay, but incurred by the same run and needed for the filings.
A worked example
Three employees on one fortnightly run. The totals row is the point of the document — every figure in it should be traceable to something else.
| Employee | Gross | Fed. tax | FICA | Other | Net |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A. Reyes | $2,400.00 | $236.00 | $183.60 | $120.00 | $1,860.40 |
| J. Whitfield | $1,850.00 | $152.00 | $141.53 | $0.00 | $1,556.47 |
| M. Okafor | $3,100.00 | $372.00 | $237.15 | $210.00 | $2,280.85 |
| Totals | $7,350.00 | $760.00 | $562.28 | $330.00 | $5,697.72 |
Illustrative figures. The net total is what should leave the bank; federal tax plus both halves of FICA is what should reach the IRS on the deposit schedule you are assigned.
How long to keep it
Federal rules pull in different directions, so the practical answer is the longest of them. The Fair Labor Standards Act requires payroll records for three years and the underlying time and earnings records for two. The IRS asks that employment tax records be kept four years after the tax is due or paid.
Several states require longer, and some require specific formats. Keeping the register for at least four years satisfies the federal floor; check your own state before deleting anything.
Common questions
What is the difference between a payroll register and a pay stub?
A pay stub shows one employee their own figures and is given to them. A payroll register shows every employee side by side with a totals row and is kept internally by the employer. Same arithmetic, opposite ends.
Do I have to give employees the payroll register?
No, and you should not. It contains every colleague's pay. Employees are entitled to their own itemised statement — the pay stub — in most states, not to the register.
How long should a payroll register be kept?
At least four years. The FLSA requires payroll records for three years and supporting time records for two; the IRS asks for employment tax records four years after the tax was due or paid. Some states require longer.
Does a payroll register include employer taxes?
It should. The employer's matching Social Security and Medicare, plus federal and state unemployment liability, are incurred by the same run and are needed to reconcile the filings even though they are not deducted from anyone's pay.
The stubs that go with the run
Every employee on the register is entitled to their own itemised statement. Our generator produces one from the figures you enter — the same gross, deductions and net that appear in their row.
Open the pay stub generator