Keep pay stubs for about a year. The FTC's current consumer advice (June 2025) lists pay stubs in its "keep for a year" group, and its older shredding guide put it even more simply: "Pay stubs – Shred 'em after checking them against your W-2."
That's the answer for the stack of ordinary stubs. In the US, generally, a few individual stubs earn a longer life, because they prove something to the IRS, to Social Security or to your employer. The table sorts them.
Which pay stubs to keep, and for how long
| Pay stub | Keep for | Why / source |
|---|---|---|
| Regular pay stubs | About a year, until your W-2 matches | FTC (2025): "keep for a year"; older FTC guide: shred after checking against the W-2 |
| Year-end or final stub showing deductible items withheld (such as medical insurance premiums) | With that year's tax records, generally at least 3 years after you file | IRS Publication 17: keep it as proof of payment |
| A stub showing a payroll charitable gift | With that year's tax records | IRS Publication 526: a pay stub showing the date and amount can support the deduction |
| Stubs for a year your W-2 or Social Security earnings look wrong | Until the record is fixed | Social Security asks for W-2s and pay stubs as evidence |
| Stubs for pay you think is missing or wrong | Until the question is settled | U.S. Department of Labor: keep your own record of each payday |
| The latest few stubs while you apply for a loan or lease | No official rule; common practice is to keep the most recent ones handy | Lenders and landlords often ask for proof of income |
Check each stub, then let it go
A pay stub's main job happens the day it arrives: catching mistakes while they're easy to fix. A quick look covers it. Are the hours right? The rate? Did the reimbursement you were promised show up? Do the deductions for benefits and retirement match what you signed up for?
If a stub looks off, raise it with payroll now and keep that stub until it's sorted. If it looks fine, it has done its job, apart from one last check at the end of the year.
The year-end check against your W-2
In January your W-2 arrives, summarizing a year of pay and withholding. Put it next to your last pay stub of the year. If the totals line up, the stubs have nothing left to prove, and the W-2 becomes the document that counts. (If the numbers don't match, talk to payroll before you file.)
The W-2 then needs a much longer life than any stub. The IRS instructions on the form say to keep it until you start receiving Social Security benefits; how long to keep W-2s and 1099s explains why.
Stubs that become tax records
Two kinds of stub belong with your tax records instead of the shredder:
- Year-end stubs showing deductible expenses withheld. If your employer took something deductible out of your pay, such as medical insurance premiums, Publication 17 says: "You should keep your year-end or final pay statements as proof of payment of these expenses."
- Stubs showing a payroll charitable gift. If you give through payroll deduction, Publication 526 accepts a pay stub, a W-2 or another employer document that shows the date and amount of the gift as part of your proof.
Those stubs follow that year's tax records, which in the US is generally three years after you file and longer in a few specific cases. The master retention chart has the full tax picture.
Social Security and pay disputes
Social Security keeps its own record of your earnings. If a year is wrong, it will "first ask if you have any evidence of your earnings such as forms W-2, pay stubs, etc." Ordinarily, a year can only be corrected up to 3 years, 3 months and 15 days after the year the wages were paid. If your W-2 is missing or wrong, the stubs for that year are your backup evidence, so keep them until the record is fixed.
Pay disputes work the same way. The Department of Labor's advice to workers whose employer has no record of their hours or pay is to start one: "Write down every time you get paid, with the date and how much pay you received." Your pay stubs are that record, already written. If you think you've been underpaid, keep every stub from the period in question until it's resolved.
Where to keep them, and how to get rid of them
Many employers post pay stubs as PDFs on a payroll site, which is handy until you change jobs and lose the login. Download the ones you plan to keep. On an iPhone, save them to a folder in the Files app; for paper stubs, open Files, tap the More button, choose Scan Documents, then tap Save and pick the folder.
If you scan regularly, Paperlock can take over the filing: it reads each stub you save, including the employer, the date and the amounts, so "what was my take-home in March?" gets an answer with the stub attached.
When a stub's time is up, shred it rather than tossing it whole. It carries your name, your employer and your pay, and the FTC's shredding guide names pay stubs specifically. The pay stub glossary entry explains every line you're about to shred, in case one ever puzzled you.