Pay Stub Requirements in Michigan
At a glance
| 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 |
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 § 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 August 16, 2026).
- Mich. Comp. Laws § 408.481(1). Written complaint and 12-month deadline. Official text (accessed August 16, 2026).
- Mich. Comp. Laws §§ 408.484, 408.488. Misdemeanor, general civil penalty, and limited wage-based remedies. Official Act (accessed August 16, 2026).
Source links
Every statute quoted above, linked, with the date we checked it.
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