Virginia: Pay Stub Requirements
The short answer
Yes: on each regular pay date, a Virginia private employer generally must provide a paystub or online accounting showing the employer's name and address, conditional hours, rate of pay, gross wages, deductions and their purposes, and enough information to determine how gross and net pay were calculated. Agricultural, agribusiness, and forestry employers instead furnish a narrower gross-wage-and-deduction statement on employee request. The employer retains paystubs or online accounting for at least three years.
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This is the general rule in Virginia. Ezel applies current Virginia law to your specific facts and answers with citations to the statutes.
| Governing law and coverage | Va. Code § 40.1-29(A), (D). Private employers using the FLSA employer definition; public bodies generally excluded by § 40.1-2.1. Agriculture/agribusiness/forestry has a request-only narrower rule |
|---|---|
| Must provide a statement and when | Each regular pay date: paystub or online accounting. Agriculture/agribusiness/forestry: written statement on employee request for any pay period (§ 40.1-29(D)) |
| Pay period, employer, and employee identification | Employer name and address. No pay-period beginning/ending dates, payday, employee name/address, employee number, or SSN field stated (§ 40.1-29(D)) |
| Gross earnings, hours, rates, and pay basis | Rate and gross wages; hours if hourly-paid or salaried below the federal overtime-exemption salary level; enough information to determine gross/net calculation. Agricultural request statement: gross wages only (§ 40.1-29(D)) |
| Deductions, net pay, allowances, and other required items | Amount and purpose of deductions; enough information to determine how net pay was calculated. No express allowance, tip, leave-balance, or employer-contribution field (§ 40.1-29(D)) |
| Electronic delivery, consent, printing, and storage | Online accounting expressly allowed; no advance consent, paper opt-out, printing, downloading, saving, or portal-duration condition stated (§ 40.1-29(D)) |
| Employee copy access and employer retention | Employer keeps paystubs or online accounting at least 3 years after work performed; no current/former employee historical-copy procedure, response deadline, or copy fee stated (§ 40.1-29(D)) |
| Enforcement, damages, penalties, and deadlines | Labor Commissioner enforces Title 40.1 (§ 40.1-6(2)); § 40.1-29's stated wage damages and $1,000 civil penalty require unpaid wages, so no statement-only statutory damages or per-stub penalty is stated |
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Requirements one by one
Most private employers provide the statement each payday
Va. Code § 40.1-29(D) requires a written statement “by a paystub or online
accounting” on each regular pay date. The statute uses the federal Fair Labor
Standards Act's employer definition. Virginia's general public-body exclusion
means Title 40.1 does not ordinarily apply to the Commonwealth, its agencies,
political subdivisions, or public bodies unless coverage is specifically
extended.
The statement must let the employee follow the calculation
The listed fields are the employer's name and address, the rate of pay, gross
wages, and the amount and purpose of deductions. Hours also appear when the
employee is hourly-paid or salaried below the federal salary level used for the
executive, administrative, and professional overtime exemption.
The statute adds a functional requirement: the paystub or online accounting
must contain enough information for the employee to determine how gross and net
pay were calculated. It does not separately name pay-period dates, payday,
employee identifiers, leave balances, or employer contributions.
Agricultural employment uses a request-only rule
Agricultural employment, including agribusiness and forestry, is removed from
the automatic every-payday statement. On an employee's request, that employer
must instead furnish a written statement of gross wages for any pay period and
the amount and purpose of deductions.
The agricultural request statement does not carry forward the ordinary rule's
express employer-address, rate, hours, or gross/net-calculation language.
Online records are retained for three years
An online accounting is an express statutory delivery method. Section
40.1-29(D) states no advance consent, paper opt-out, printing, downloading,
saving, or portal-duration condition.
The employer must retain the paystubs or online accounting for at least three
years after the work was performed. The same sentence does not create a
current- or former-employee procedure to demand historical copies.
The Commissioner enforces the title, but wage remedies need unpaid wages
Va. Code § 40.1-6(2) directs the Labor Commissioner to enforce Title 40.1 and
cause violations to be prosecuted. The specified monetary remedies later in
§ 40.1-29 are drafted around an employer's failure to pay wages: § 40.1-29(H)
provides wages, liquidated damages, and interest, while § 40.1-29(I) supplies the
up-to-$1,000 civil penalty for a knowing failure to pay.
The cited text states no separate per-stub damages or fine for a statement-only
violation where the wages were fully paid.
What trips people up
“Salaried” does not by itself remove the hours field. A salaried employee below
the federal exemption salary level is expressly within the hours requirement.
The statute requires enough information to determine the net-pay calculation;
it does not merely require a single unexplained deduction total. Each deduction's
amount and purpose are named fields.
Agricultural employment is not a complete no-statement category. The timing and
content change: the employee must request the narrower statement.
Common questions
May Virginia use an employee portal instead of paper?
Yes. The statute expressly permits “online accounting” and states no paper
opt-out. Separate payroll-system facts may still affect whether the employee can
actually receive the required information.
Must the stub show the employee's name?
Section 40.1-29(D) expressly names the employer's name and address but states no
employee-name or employee-number field.
How long must the employer retain the statement?
At least three years following the date the work was performed.
Statutes and sources
- Va. Code § 40.1-29(A), (D). Coverage, timing, fields, online accounting,
agricultural requests, and three-year retention. Official
text
(accessed July 13, 2026). - Va. Code § 40.1-2.1. General exclusion of Commonwealth and public bodies.
Official text
(accessed July 13, 2026). - Va. Code §§ 40.1-6(2), 40.1-29(H)-(K). Commissioner enforcement and the
unpaid-wage limits on specified remedies. Official Commissioner-powers
text
and official wage-payment
text
(accessed July 13, 2026).
Source links
Every statute quoted above, linked, with the date we checked it.
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