The decoder

Final-Paycheck Decoder

Five inputs. Your state, termination type (voluntary or involuntary), separation date, hourly rate, and whether your employer disputed the wages in good faith. The decoder returns your statutory deadline plus an estimated maximum waiting-time penalty in the states that have one — California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Nevada, Oregon, and others.All logic runs client-side. No data leaves your browser. No login. No tracking of inputs.

Privacy-first — your inputs never leave your browser

State, termination type, hours, willful-failure standard. Get your statutory deadline + waiting-time-penalty estimate with primary-source statute cite. Informational, not legal advice.

Your state

Termination type

Date of separation

Hourly rate (USD)For salaried, divide annual by 2,080Typical hours per day

Did your employer dispute the wages owed in good faith?In CA-class states, the waiting-time penalty applies only if the employer willfully fails to pay. A good-faith dispute over the amount may waive the penalty.

I'm not sureYes, they had a real disputeNo — they just didn't pay

If your wages are unpaid past the deadline

File a wage claim — start here

Federal: DOL Wage & Hour Division (1-866-487-9243). Free, no attorney needed.
State: Find your state's labor agency claim form. Often faster than federal for in-state employers.
Larger or willful claims: consult a licensed employment-law attorney. State-bar lawyer-referral services are the standard starting point. How to choose.

Some links above are referral-partner affiliate links once vetted; the federal and state government links are not. Lawyer referrals are subject to state-bar advertising rules in your jurisdiction.

Legal review

Pending

Reviewer credential verification in progress

We are retaining a US employment-law attorney to review every state page on this site before it leaves the dev preview. Once retained, the reviewer's name, bar number, state of admission, and signoff date will appear on every state page and on /about. Until then, treat statute citations as informational, not legal advice. Last data verification: May 8, 2026.

Notes on the math

Daily-wage estimate = hourly rate × hours per day. For salaried workers, divide annual salary by 2,080 (40 hours × 52 weeks).

Maximum penalty = daily-wage × statutory cap (commonly 30 days in CA-class states). Actual penalty = daily-wage × number of days the wages remain unpaid, subject to the cap. The decoder shows the cap; the real number depends on when payment actually arrives.

Indeterminate output: if you said your employer disputed the wages in good faith, the decoder returns "indeterminate" rather than a fabricated number. Whether a dispute counts as "good faith" is fact-intensive — courts decide case-by-case.

Waiting-time vs. unpaid wages. The penalty is on top of the underlying unpaid wages. You are still owed the wages themselves, regardless of whether the penalty applies.