Understanding your payslip

Your employer must provide you with a pay slip giving information about your salary. This includes information on how your wage is calculated and what amounts have been withheld. The employer must provide this at the first salary payment and again if something changes. Examplese of such changes include a payrise or a change in the contents of related matters, like pension premium, inclome tax or social premiums.

Information on the payslip

The pay slip must the following information must be provided:

• the gross wage sum 
• net wage sum (amount you actually receive after all deductions) 
• the contents of your wage (i.e. base wage, plus overtime or other bonuses, etc) 
• a listing of the deductions taken (i.e. social security premiums, taxs with held)
• the valid legal minimum (youth) wage 
• the minimum vacation allowance 
• the name of the employer
• name and address of the employee 
• the agreed work duration
• sofi or BSN of the employee
• the period of payment (i.e. the month of June)
• the number of hours that you work per week

Using the information on your pay slip, you can verify yourself that everything is in order with your pay. For this reason, we recommend that you learn how to read your pay slip and keep them for your records. 

If something is not right

If you notice that something doesn’t make sense with your wages, bring this to the attention of your employer or salary administration department as soon as possible. If you discover later that you have received less wages than earned, you still have plenty of time to get back what you are entitled to. You must put in any requests within five years of the erroneous pay period. If you have received too little holiday pay, you have two years to demand correction from your employer.

More information

Websites of FNV and CNV. These are both trade union federations. They guard and advocate employees’ rights in matters related to collective labour agreements, social security, and pensions. They can answer any questions you have about work and income and help you if you have problems with your wages.