Do you feel that your paycheck is abbreviated in a foreign language? While you are receiving your paycheck, have you noticed the tiny letters that are printed on your paystub? Most of us fail to notice it, but they all have their own meaning, which is necessary for us to learn and know. Even if you notice it, you will find it hard to understand.

In this article, we will focus on decoding the paycheck stub abbreviation to have a better understanding of the paycheck stub. If you are interested in generating a paycheck, check out the link paystub.

Before starting, let’s have a brief about a paystub.

The summary of your payroll is a pay stub that includes the total earnings, payroll taxes, deducted for the rate per hour and total worked hours, income tax, insurance, etc. 

The Herald:

Some Common Items that a Paycheck Includes

Before going forward to learn about the abbreviations, let us have a small glimpse of all the information a paycheck holds. Paychecks will differ from company to company; some might contain detailed information while the others will be to the point. But there are a few major details that all the paystubs carry according to the law. Some of them are as follows:

Gross Pay

This is the total amount paid to you before the tax deduction.

Net Pay 

This is the total amount paid to you after the tax deduction that is taken away from the gross pay.

Federal Tax Amount 

This conveys the details about the amount taken by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the amount you pay the federal government for the income tax. 

State Tax — This is the tax collected by the state government, but not all states require this.

Local Tax 

This is the tax that is collected by the local government, which is required by a few cities or school districts.

Social Security

This is the amount that is collected as your Social Security taxes, which will be used to fund you when you retire in old age. 

Medicare 

The amount that is collected for Medicare taxes is used as help fund for health benefits for people who are financially unstable. 

Year-to-Date 

Finally, this gives the information about the total sum of your paychecks and all the other deductions that have been done in the year. This will be useful to know how much money that you have earned the whole year.

The Herald:

Header Abbreviations

This is the place in which all the major information about you will be given. It will include your name, address, company that you work for, and social security number. 

Below given are some abbreviations that can be found on the header abbreviation on the paycheck.

Check No. — Check number

SSN — Social Security number

The Herald:

Paycheck Abbreviations on Earnings

Here is the most likely interested part of your paycheck stub, which is about the earnings that you have made. This tells about the amount of money that you are receiving, which most people are concerned about. Some of the abbreviations are:

Add Pay — Additional pay

BRVMT — Bereavement pay

Cmp Pyot — Compensatory time payout

CNT Pay — Contract pay (or your salary)

Hol — Holiday pay

Jury — Jury duty pay

Misc — Miscellaneous pay

Move Rem — Move reimbursement

OnCall — On-call pay

PTO — Personal/paid time off

Sick — Sick pay

SignOn — Sign-on bonus pay

Severance — Severance pay

TuiReimb — Tuition reimbursement

Vac — Vacation pay

YTD — Year-to-date earnings

The Herald:

Paycheck Abbreviations on Deductions 

The deduction is the money that they take away from your earnings which will be familiar to most of you. The amount that is deducted can include taxes, insurance, funds for retirement, health care savings, and others. Below given are some commonly used abbreviations in paycheck stubs regarding tax deductions. 

FICA — Med — This refers to the Federal Insurance Contributions Act — Medicare that you contribute 1.45% of your pay to.

FICA — SS — This refers to the Federal Insurance Contributions Act — Social Security that you contribute mandatory Social Security payments to.

Fed/FWT/FIT/FITW — Federal tax withholding

St Tax/SWT/SIT/SITW — State tax withholding

Local Tax — Local/city tax withholdings

Besides tax deduction, there is something also known as before tax deduction which may appear on your paystub, and those are:

401k/Ret — 401k or retirement withholdings

DCR — Dependent care reimbursement

Den/Dental — Dental premium

INS/MED — Insurance or medical insurance

FSA — Flexible spending account

HCR — Health care reimbursement

HSA — Health saving account

LTD — Long-term disability withholding

STD — Short-term disability withholding

VIS/Vision — Vision premium

The Herald:

Finally, there are some deductions that occur on the paycheck after the taxation, and these are known as after-tax deductions. Below given are the commonly appeared abbreviations on paycheck stubs based on after-tax deduction. 

Bankruptcy — Bankruptcy

CHD SU — Child support

Garn — Garnishment flat rate

Garn % — Garnishment percentage

StdnLoan — Student loan

TX Levy — Tax levy

IRS Levy — Internal Revenue Service levy

So these are the most commonly used abbreviations on a paycheck. We hope that learning these will make you understand your paychecks better.