Final paycheck laws by state

Have a date in mind? The final paycheck due date calculator takes the state, how the job ended and the last day worked, and shows the deadline with the state's own wording.

Final paycheck deadlines in all 50 states and DC

Select a column heading to sort. "Fired" covers a discharge or layoff where the state treats them alike. "Not stated" means the official page we read didn't address it.

Want payroll set up right? Payroll and leave tracking for New Jersey employers, or employer registration in another state.

New Jersey's rule (next regular payday, quit or fired) is on our New Jersey layoff checklist.

How the deadlines are written

States phrase final pay in a handful of ways, and the phrasing decides the date. "Next regular payday" means the payday that would have come anyway. "Whichever is earlier" pairs a payday with a day count, as Louisiana (15 days), Nebraska (two weeks) and Idaho (10 days, not counting weekends) do; Kentucky (14 days) and Tennessee (21 days) go the other way: "whichever last occurs." Working-day rules, like Alaska's three and Oregon's next business day, skip weekends. Minnesota starts its 24 hours when the fired employee asks to be paid.

Vacation, commissions and how the check arrives

Vacation payout splits states three ways on the pages we read: paid as wages (California, Colorado, Illinois, and Maine for most employers with more than 10 employees), paid when a policy or agreement provides for it (Texas, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Iowa), or left to the policy with conditions (North Dakota, Wyoming, Maryland). Commissions are usually due once they can be calculated. On delivery, several states let the employee ask for the check by mail (Kansas, Pennsylvania by certified mail, North Carolina by trackable mail), and Utah counts a mailing postmarked the next day as on time.

General information checked November 2026 against each state's labor agency or statute site, linked in the table, not legal advice. We are not lawyers, and MCC Solutions is not a law firm. Laws, union contracts and written employment agreements can change a deadline; the state labor agency or an employment attorney can tell you how a rule applies to one person.

Common questions

Related: Final paycheck due date calculator · New hire reporting by state · Laid off in New Jersey