Oregon Pay Stub Requirements: Deductions, Format, and 2026 Rules

Every employer in Oregon must give you a written, itemized pay statement each time you are paid, and ORS 652.610 sets out exactly what that statement must contain. The Oregon pay stub requirements cover your pay rate, hours worked, gross and net wages, and the amount and purpose of every deduction, along with specific identifying information about you and your employer. Overtime and piece-rate workers get additional line items. A stub that leaves any of this out is noncompliant, and you have two separate ways to enforce the rule.

What Every Oregon Pay Stub Must Show

ORS 652.610 requires each itemized statement to include the following:

The date of payment and the dates of the work period the payment covers.
Your name.
The employer’s name, business registry or business identification number, address, and telephone number.
Your rate of pay and whether you are paid by the hour, shift, day, week, salary, piece, or commission.
Your gross wages before deductions.
The amount and purpose of each deduction, including federal and state income tax withholding, Social Security, Medicare, and Oregon-specific items such as Paid Leave Oregon contributions and the transit tax.
Any allowances the employer claims as part of the minimum wage, such as meals or lodging.
Your net wages after deductions.

All of these items are mandatory. The employer address and phone number are the ones most often missing from stubs generated by generic payroll templates, but the statute requires both.¹ A stub that shows only a corporate name and EIN does not meet the rule.

Extra Requirements If You Work Overtime

If you are eligible for overtime, your pay statement must separately show your regular hourly rate, your overtime rate, the number of regular hours worked with the pay for those hours, and the number of overtime hours with the pay for those hours. Salaried employees who qualify for an overtime exemption under federal, state, or local law are the only workers excused from this breakdown.¹

Extra Requirements If You Are Paid Piece Rate

Piece-rate workers have their own line items. The pay stub must list each applicable piece rate, the number of pieces completed at that rate, and the total pay earned at each rate. Many piece-rate jobs apply different rates to different tasks or products, and the breakdown is how you confirm you have been credited correctly for each.²

If you are a non-exempt piece-rate worker, the statement must also show your regular and overtime hours so you can check your effective hourly rate against Oregon’s minimum wage. From July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2026, the minimum wage is $15.05 per hour in standard counties, $16.30 in the Portland metro area, and $14.05 in non-urban counties.³ If your piece-rate earnings divided by your hours come in below the applicable minimum, your employer owes a makeup payment.

Workers who harvest perishable agricultural products are covered by a separate statute, ORS 652.640, which also requires an itemized written statement of total payment and each deduction at every regular pay period or upon termination.⁴

Which Deductions Can Legally Appear

Because every deduction has to be listed with its purpose, it helps to know which deductions are actually allowed in the first place.

Legally required withholdings need no consent from you: federal and state income tax, Social Security, Medicare, and Oregon payroll taxes. On top of those, an employer can deduct for things that benefit you personally, such as health insurance premiums or retirement contributions, but only if you have given written authorization and the deduction is recorded in the employer’s books.⁵

What an employer cannot do, even with a signed authorization, is deduct for things that effectively flow back to the business. Oregon prohibits deductions for cash register shortages, equipment damage, inventory losses, training costs, unpaid customer tabs, and alleged theft. If the money benefits the employer rather than you, the deduction is invalid no matter what the paperwork says.⁵

Electronic Pay Stubs vs. Paper

Oregon lets employers deliver pay statements electronically only when two conditions are met: you have expressly agreed to electronic delivery, and you can print or store the document at the time you receive it.¹ If you never agreed, your employer owes you a paper stub. If you agreed and want to switch back, revoke the consent in writing and ask for paper going forward.

State government employees sit under a slightly different arrangement. State agencies provide electronic statements by default but must give access to employees without regular workplace computer access, and state workers who want paper statements or a check instead of direct deposit can request them through the Department of Administrative Services.²

New in 2026: Written Explanation of Your Pay Stub

Starting January 1, 2026, SB 906 requires every Oregon employer to give new hires a written explanation of their pay statement. The notification has to cover the employer’s regular pay period, every pay rate type the employee might earn (hourly, salary, shift differential, piece rate, commission), every type of deduction that could apply and its purpose, any allowances claimed toward minimum wage, and a description of every payroll code used on the stub.⁵

Employers must review and update the notification each year by January 1. BOLI has published templates in English and Spanish. The practical effect is that abbreviated codes like “OR PFL” or “TRI-MET” should come with a plain-language key when you are hired, rather than leaving you to decode them later.

What to Do If Your Pay Stub Is Missing Required Information

Oregon gives you two independent enforcement routes, and they can run at the same time.

Civil Lawsuit Under ORS 652.615

You can sue for a violation of ORS 652.610(3) and recover actual damages or $200, whichever is greater. The court can award reasonable attorney fees to the prevailing party.⁶ Federal courts interpreting the statute have treated the $200 as a single amount per type of violation, not per pay period, even if the same deficiency repeats across many paychecks.

BOLI Civil Penalty

The Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor and Industries can assess a civil penalty of up to $1,000 for each violation of ORS 652.610(4).⁷ This administrative penalty is separate from the private lawsuit, so an employer can face both a BOLI penalty and a court judgment on the same facts.

Filing a BOLI Complaint

You can file a wage complaint directly with BOLI through its online complaint system, at no cost. Oregon’s statute of limitations for wage claims is six years, but the sooner you file the easier the evidence is to reconstruct, especially when the missing records are the pay stubs themselves.

1
Oregon State Legislature. Oregon Revised Statutes 652.610 – Itemized Statement of Amounts and Purposes of Deductions
2
Oregon Public Law. Oregon Code 652.610 – Itemized Statement of Amounts and Purposes of Deductions
3
Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries. BOLI – Oregon Minimum Wage – For Workers
4
Oregon Public Law. Oregon Code 652.640 – Itemized Statement of Compensation and Deductions Required
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Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries. BOLI – Paycheck Deductions
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Oregon State Legislature. Oregon Revised Statutes 652.615 – Remedy for Violation of ORS 652.610
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Oregon Public Law. Oregon Code 652.900 – Civil Penalties