How to read your payslip

Your own sector’s collective agreement says how much you should be paid.

Make sure that your pay is correct

Sometimes mistakes are made when counting wages. You should always keep track of your pay and working hours. When you talk about your pay with your employer, always ask to have everything in writing. You can then later prove what has been agreed.

1. Write down how many hours you have worked.

For example, you can use a paper calendar to write down how many hours you have worked. You can use the calendar to prove your hours even years later. The PAM calendar is a good tool.

2. Always read your payslip.

Your employer (the company) must give you a payslip every time you are paid. Check it and compare it with the hours that you have written down in your calendar. Is the number of hours the same? Have you also got all the extra pay that you have a right to? Keep your payslips safe. There are tips for reading the payslip on this page.

3. Ask your employer to correct any mistakes.

If you notice that you have not been paid in full, or that there are other mistakes, talk to your employer immediately. Usually, mistakes are just human errors that are corrected as soon as you point them out.

4. Ask for help if you need it

If you are not sure if you have been paid the right sum, ask your shop steward (luottamusmies) to help you. If there is no shop steward at the company, contact the union. The union representative or the union experts will help you. Contact us

In the wildest cases, the worker has got thousands of euros of pay later with the help of the shop steward or the union experts. For example, these have been the extra pay for working in the evenings or on midweek holidays.

How to check your payslip

1. Contact information (Yhteystiedot)
   Make sure that your information and the bank account number are up to date.
2. Pay period (Palkanmaksukausi)
   The pay you get now is for the work you have done during this period of time.
3. The wages (Palkka)
   You may have monthly or hourly wages, or you may get piecework pay (urakkapalkka). The minimum wages for the service industries have been agreed in the collective agreements between PAM and the employer associations. You can not agree with the company to work for less than the minimum wage. You can always agree to get better wages. Read the collective agreement of your own sector.
4. Extra pay / premium pay (Työaikalisät)
   Different types of extra pay are an important part of your pay. You can get extra pay for working (regular work or overtime) in the evenings, on Saturdays or Sundays, or on religious holidays. The extra pay is different in different sectors. The time when the extra pay time begins (at what time the evening, Saturday, or night begins) may also be different. Read your sector’s collective agreement to see what has been agreed on extra pay, and how it is counted.
5. Extra time and overtime that gives you the right to higher pay (Lisätyö ja ylityö)
   All the extra work and overtime that you have done must be shown in the payslip. In many sectors, you can get 50% more pay for the hours that come on top of the normal 37.5–40 weekly hours. The collective agreements have different rules about extra work and overtime. Read your sector’s collective agreement to see what has been agreed about the pay for extra work and overtime. You can only do overtime if you agree it with your employer.
6. Taxes (Verot)
   The payslip always shows your tax card’s information. You use the same tax card for your main and side jobs. The tax card has a total income limit for the whole year. If your pay changes, or you think that your total pay for the year will be higher than the limit in your tax card, ask the tax office to send you a new tax card and give it to your employer as soon as possible.
7. Pension insurance contribution (Työeläkemaksu)
   The law says that a pension insurance contribution (TyeL) must be paid in proportion to your pay: the contribution is higher for higher pay, and lower for smaller pay. In private and public industries, the worker and the employer pay the pension insurance contribution together. In 2022, the average pension insurance contribution under the Employees Pensions Act (TyEL) was 24.85% of the pay that was paid to the worker. Of this percentage, workers under 53 or over 63 years old pay 7.15%, and workers between 53 and 62 pay 8.65%. The employer pays an average of 17.40%.
8. Unemployment insurance contribution (Työttömyysvakuutusmaksu)
   The law says that all employers, and all workers between the age of 18 and 64, must pay an unemployment insurance contribution. This contribution is used for the benefits that are paid to people when they have no job: the earnings-related unemployment allowance (ansiosidonnainen päiväraha) that people get from an unemployment fund (työttömyyskassa); and Kela’s basic unemployment allowance (peruspäiväraha) and labour market subsidy (työmarkkinatuki). In 2022, workers paid 1.50% of their wages as unemployment insurance contribution.
9. Union membership fee (Ammattiliiton jäsenmaksu)
   If you have made a collection agreement with your employer, the 1.5% membership fee of PAM will be automatically taken from your wages. The agreement only applies to one employer. If you have more than one job, you must make the agreement for each employer separately. You can deduct the membership fees from your taxable income. This means that you don’t pay tax on the wages that you use to pay the membership fee.
10. Holiday pay, Holiday bonus and Holiday compensation
    When you take annual holiday, the holiday pay (lomapalkka) must be shown in your payslip. The employer must give the worker a calculation sheet that shows how much holiday pay or holiday compensation (lomakorvaus) the worker gets, and how they are calculated.

The collective agreement has rules about the holiday bonus (lomaraha). When the worker takes an annual holiday, the holiday bonus is 50% of the pay for your holiday pay.

If you only work for the company for a short time, or have part-time jobs at more than one company, there may not be time to have a holiday. If you can not have a holiday, your employer will pay you holiday compensation (money). When your job ends, you will also get holiday compensation for any holiday days that you have earned but have not taken.

Read more:

• How are the wages and holiday bonus paid?
• Changing holiday bonus into free time
• Pay security – if your employer can not pay your wages