Michigan: Pay Stub Requirements
The short answer
Yes. A Michigan employer must furnish a wage statement at the time wages are paid showing hours worked, gross wages, the pay period, and separately itemized deductions; a hand harvester paid by piece work also receives total harvested units. Specified executive, administrative, professional, elected, and political-appointee workers are exempt only from the hours-worked statement field. Employers retain the underlying records at least three years. An employee may complain to the Department within 12 months, and an Act violation can support a civil penalty up to $1,000 and misdemeanor liability.
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This is the general rule in Michigan. Ezel applies current Michigan law to your specific facts and answers with citations to the statutes.
| Governing law and coverage | Mich. Comp. Laws §§ 408.471, 408.479. Employers with 1+ employees, public or private, including State/local bodies; franchisee generally sole employer of its workers |
|---|---|
| Must provide a statement and when | Furnish each employee a statement at time wages are paid (§ 408.479(2)) |
| Pay period, employer, and employee identification | Identification of pay period. No payment date, employer/employee name or address, employee number, or SSN field stated on statement (§ 408.479(2)) |
| Gross earnings, hours, rates, and pay basis | Hours worked and gross wages; piece-work hand harvester also total units harvested. Specified executive/administrative/professional, elected, and political-appointee workers exempt from hours field (§ 408.479(2), (4)) |
| Deductions, net pay, allowances, and other required items | Separate itemization of deductions. No net-pay, deduction-purpose, allowance, tip, leave-balance, or employer-contribution field stated (§ 408.479(2)) |
| Electronic delivery, consent, printing, and storage | Statute says furnish a statement but does not specify paper/electronic medium, consent, opt-out, printing, downloading, or storage (§ 408.479(2)) |
| Employee copy access and employer retention | Employer keeps § 408.479 records at least 3 years, open to Department inspection; no current/former employee old-statement copy right, response deadline, or copy fee stated (§ 408.479(3)) |
| Enforcement, damages, penalties, and deadlines | Written Department complaint within 12 months (§ 408.481(1)); Department civil penalty up to $1,000 for Act violation (§ 408.488(4)); violation is misdemeanor (§ 408.484). Wage-based payment/exemplary remedies cover §§ 2-8, not § 9 statement |
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Requirements one by one
The statement comes with each wage payment
Mich. Comp. Laws § 408.479(2) requires the employer to furnish the statement at
the time wages are paid. MCL § 408.471(c)-(d) defines employer broadly to
include private entities with at least one employee and State and local public
bodies.
The core list covers hours, gross pay, period, and deductions
The statement shows hours worked, gross wages paid, identification of the pay
period, and a separate itemization of deductions. A hand harvester paid on a
piece-work basis also receives the total number of units harvested.
The employee-facing list states no net-pay, deduction-purpose, payday, party
name or address, employee number, Social Security number, hourly or overtime
rate, leave balance, allowance, tip, or employer contribution.
Some workers are exempt only from the hours field
MCL § 408.479(3)-(4) supplies the retention duty and exempts specified bona
fide executive, administrative, and professional employees, elected
officeholders, and political appointees from the statement of hours worked. The
text does not remove the remaining gross-wage, pay-period, and deduction fields
for those workers.
The statute does not define electronic delivery
Section 408.479 says to furnish a statement but does not specify paper or
electronic medium. It also states no consent, paper opt-out, printing,
downloading, or storage condition.
Payroll records last at least three years
Under § 408.479(3), the employer must preserve the records required by the
section for at least three years and make them available for Department
inspection. The section states no current- or former-employee old-statement
copy right, response deadline, or reproduction fee.
Complaints, civil penalties, and misdemeanor liability apply
Section 408.481(1) gives an employee 12 months after an alleged Act violation to
file a written Department complaint. Section 408.488(4) permits a civil penalty
up to $1,000 against an employer that violates the Act, and § 408.484 makes an
employer violation a misdemeanor.
Do not import § 408.488(1)-(4)'s wage-based payment, annual-penalty, exemplary-
damages, or cost provisions into a statement-only claim. Subsections (1)-(3)
expressly limit those remedies to violations of sections 2 through 8; the
statement rule is section 9.
What trips people up
The three-year record contains more than the employee-facing statement. Section
408.479(1) requires retained identity, rate, wage, deduction, and fringe-benefit
details, but subsection (2) has the narrower list furnished to the employee.
The hours exemption does not erase the whole stub. Section 408.479(4) says the
specified employers need not furnish “wage statements of hours worked”; it does
not exempt gross wages, pay-period identification, or deductions.
The hand-harvester addition is units harvested, not a universal piece-rate field
for every Michigan piece worker.
Common questions
Must the statement show net pay?
No net-pay field appears in § 408.479(2). It requires gross wages and separately
itemized deductions.
Must deductions be itemized separately?
Yes. The employee-facing statement must contain a separate itemization of
deductions.
Does every statement violation produce double damages?
No. Section 408.488's exemplary-damages provision is expressly limited to
sections 2 through 8. The section 9 statement violation can support the general
Department civil penalty, but the cited text does not extend exemplary damages
to it.
Statutes and sources
- Mich. Comp. Laws §§ 408.471, 408.479. Coverage, statement fields, hours
carveouts, and three-year records. Official Act
(accessed July 13, 2026). - Mich. Comp. Laws § 408.481(1). Written complaint and 12-month deadline.
Official text
(accessed July 13, 2026). - Mich. Comp. Laws §§ 408.484, 408.488. Misdemeanor, general civil penalty,
and limited wage-based remedies. Official Act
(accessed July 13, 2026).
Source links
Every statute quoted above, linked, with the date we checked it.
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