UK Payslip Generator

What a UK payslip must legally show

The right to an itemised pay statement comes from the Employment Rights Act 1996, sections 8 and 9. From 6 April 2019 that right was extended so it covers all "workers" (not only employees), and a new requirement to show hours was added where pay depends on the amount of time worked. A compliant payslip must include:

• Gross pay — total earnings for the period before any deductions.
• Net pay — the amount actually payable to you after all deductions.
• Variable deductions — the amount and purpose of each deduction that can change from one period to the next (for example Income Tax, National Insurance, pension contributions and student-loan repayments), itemised separately.
• Fixed deductions — either the amount and purpose of each fixed deduction shown on the payslip, or a single total for fixed deductions backed by a separate standing written statement that breaks them down (given before the first payslip and reissued at least once a year).
• Hours worked, where pay varies by time worked — mandatory since 6 April 2019; the hours may be shown as one figure or split by rate or type of work.
• Where the net wages are paid in more than one way or part, the amount and method of each part-payment.
• The statutory basis and plain-English guidance are set out at gov.uk/payslips and in the legislation itself at ERA 1996 s.8 and ERA 1996 s.9. Acas also publishes free guidance at acas.org.uk/payslips.

How to read your payslip and create one

Whether you are checking a payslip you have received or building one for an employee, work through it in the same order. The generator above mirrors these steps so nothing statutory is missed.

1. Confirm the header details: employer name, your name, the pay date and the pay period (for example "Month 1 · Apr 2026"), plus your payroll number and National Insurance number where used.
2. Check your tax code (commonly 1257L for someone with the standard Personal Allowance) and, on some payslips, your National Insurance category letter — these drive how much PAYE and NI are deducted. Verify your code against your latest tax-code notice at gov.uk/tax-codes.
3. Read the earnings (payments) section: basic pay, plus any overtime, bonus, commission or statutory pay. These add up to your gross pay.
4. Where your pay varies with time worked, check the hours shown — this has been mandatory since April 2019 and is the field generic templates most often omit.
5. Read the deductions section line by line — Income Tax (PAYE), National Insurance, workplace pension and student loan — and confirm each has a stated purpose.
6. Check the net pay equals gross pay minus total deductions, and that it matches the amount received in your account.
7. Review the year-to-date (YTD) totals to confirm your cumulative pay and tax look right across the tax year (6 April to 5 April).

Every payslip line explained

Each line on a UK payslip has a specific meaning. Understanding them makes it far easier to spot an error before it compounds over the tax year.

• Gross pay — everything you have earned this period before deductions: basic salary or wages plus overtime, bonuses, commission and any statutory pay.
• Income Tax (PAYE) — tax collected by your employer on HMRC's behalf, based on your tax code and cumulative earnings so far this year. See gov.uk/income-tax.
• National Insurance — contributions that build entitlement to the State Pension and certain benefits; the amount depends on your earnings and NI category letter. See gov.uk/national-insurance.
• Workplace pension — under auto-enrolment most workers are automatically enrolled, with your contribution deducted from pay and your employer adding its own. See gov.uk/workplace-pensions.
• Student loan — repayments are taken automatically once you earn above the threshold for your repayment plan. See gov.uk/repaying-your-student-loan.
• Net pay (take-home) — gross pay minus all deductions; the amount actually paid to you.
• Year to date (YTD) — running totals of pay, tax, NI and other deductions since 6 April, which reconcile with your end-of-year P60.
• To sense-check what your net pay should be for a given salary, use our take-home pay calculator.

Who is entitled, and are electronic payslips allowed?

Since April 2019 the right to an itemised pay statement applies to all workers, not just employees — so agency workers, casual and zero-hours staff are generally covered as well as permanent employees. Genuinely self-employed contractors invoicing for their services are not "workers" for this purpose and are not entitled to a payslip.

Payslips may be provided on paper or electronically — for example as a PDF or through an online payroll portal — provided the worker can access and, in practice, keep or print them. There is no legal requirement for a wet-ink paper slip. What the employer cannot do is skip the statement altogether or leave off a mandatory item.

• Mandatory items: gross pay, net pay, the amount and purpose of variable deductions, the treatment of fixed deductions, and hours where pay varies by time worked.
• Standard in practice but not named in s.8: tax code, National Insurance number, employer/employee names, pay period and year-to-date figures — expected on a compliant UK payslip and needed to make the PAYE and NI figures intelligible.
• A worker who is not given a compliant itemised pay statement can bring a claim to an employment tribunal — see the guidance at gov.uk/payslips.

UK specifics most generators leave out

Many payslip templates are little more than repurposed US pay stubs and miss requirements that are specific to UK law. Getting these right is what separates a compliant payslip from a lookalike.

• Tax code — the code (such as 1257L, BR or K-prefixed codes) determines how the Personal Allowance is applied; showing it lets the employee check their PAYE is correct.
• National Insurance category letter — the NI category (A being the most common) affects the contribution rate, yet is absent from most generic templates.
• Hours for variable pay — the 2019 addition to ERA 1996; where pay depends on time worked, the hours must appear, shown as one figure or broken down by rate or type of work.
• Fixed versus variable deductions — UK law treats these differently, allowing a standing statement for fixed deductions. US-style stubs have no equivalent concept and so blur the distinction.

Legitimate use — an honest note

This generator is intended for genuine payroll use: employers documenting real wages, sole directors paying themselves, or workers reconstructing a lost payslip from figures they already hold. A payslip is a factual record of pay that has actually been made.

Creating a payslip that misstates income — for example to obtain a loan, tenancy, mortgage or visa on false pretences — is fraud and can be a criminal offence. If you are an employer running real payroll, you must also report figures to HMRC in real time and follow the guidance at <a href="https://www.gov.uk/paye-for-employers">gov.uk/paye-for-employers</a>. Nothing you enter here is stored; the document is produced entirely in your browser.