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Form W-2

Form W-2 paystub meaning: Your employer's year-end report of what it paid you and what it withheld — the boxes, not your salary, are what the IRS matches to...

Your employer's year-end report of what it paid you and what it withheld — the boxes, not your salary, are what the IRS matches to your return.

Form W-2, Wage and Tax Statement, is what your employer files with the Social Security Administration and gives to you so you can file your return. For 2026 wages, copies B, C and 2 must be furnished to you, and copy A filed with SSA, by February 1, 2027 — the usual January 31 date moves because it lands on a Sunday. Read it as three groups. Federal wages and tax: box 1 Wages, tips, other compensation; box 2 Federal income tax withheld; box 3 Social security wages; box 4 Social security tax withheld; box 5 Medicare wages and tips; box 6 Medicare tax withheld; box 7 Social security tips; box 8 Allocated tips. Extras: box 10 Dependent care benefits; box 11 Nonqualified plans; boxes 12a through 12d for coded amounts; box 13's three checkboxes — Statutory employee, Retirement plan, Third-party sick pay; box 14a Other; and, new on the 2026 form, box 14b, Treasury Tipped Occupation Code(s). State and local: box 15 State and Employer's state ID number, box 16 State wages, tips, etc., box 17 State income tax, box 18 Local wages, tips, etc., box 19 Local income tax, box 20 Locality name. Box 12 is where most confusion lives. Code D is elective deferrals to a 401(k). Code DD is the cost of employer-sponsored health coverage — reported, not taxed. Code W is employer contributions to your HSA. Three codes are new for 2026: TP, total cash tips reported to the employer; TT, qualified overtime compensation; and TA, employer contributions under a section 128 Trump account contribution program. Box 3 stops at the Social Security wage base, $184,500 for 2026. Box 5 has no ceiling.

Tax-form labels must be interpreted using the form for the correct year and its official instructions. A paystub draft is not a filed tax form and does not replace an employer, payer, payroll provider, or agency record.

When this term appears on a statement, read its label, current amount, year-to-date amount, pay-period context, and any adjacent rate or hours together. Resolve a mismatch with the original issuer or the cited authority rather than changing a record to force a preferred result.

Example

$80,000 of gross wages in 2026, with $8,000 deferred to a traditional 401(k) and $3,000 of health premiums paid through a section 125 cafeteria plan. Box 1: $80,000 − $8,000 − $3,000 = $69,000 Boxes 3 and 5: $80,000 − $3,000 = $77,000 (The 401(k) deferral is generally exempt from income tax withholding but taxable for Social Security and Medicare, so it comes out of box 1 and stays in boxes 3 and 5.) Box 4: $77,000 × 6.2% = $4,774.00 Box 6: $77,000 × 1.45% = $1,116.50 Box 12, code D: $8,000 Box 1 sits $8,000 below box 3 and every figure on the form is correct. That $8,000 gap is the single most common reason a W-2 looks wrong and is not.

Source: IRS — General Instructions for Forms W-2 and W-3 (2026)

Related terms

  • Form W-4 — The IRS form you give your employer that sets your federal income tax withholding — since 2020 it uses dollar amounts, not allowances.
  • Year-to-Date (YTD) — The running total of a pay stub line from January 1 through this check — the column that reconciles to your W-2, and usually won't match Box 1.
  • Federal Income Tax (FIT) — A running prepayment of your federal tax bill, calculated from your W-4 and your pay frequency — an estimate, not the tax itself.
  • Form 1099-NEC — The form a business files for a contractor it paid $2,000 or more in 2026 — gross amounts, nothing withheld, and no pay stub behind it.