If you’re on a company’s payroll, the tax form your employer sends you is Form W-2, the Wage and Tax Statement. It reports your gross wages for the year and every tax withheld from your paychecks: federal income tax, Social Security, Medicare, and usually state and local income tax as well. Your employer must get it to you by January 31, and a copy goes to the Social Security Administration, which shares the data with the IRS.1Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 752, Filing Forms W-2 and W-3
One boundary before going further. If you were paid as an independent contractor rather than an employee, you won’t get a W-2. You’ll get a Form 1099-NEC, and no taxes will have been withheld, so the responsibility for paying them falls entirely on you. The rest of this article is about the W-2 and the other forms an actual employee may receive.
What the W-2 Actually Reports
The W-2 splits your compensation across several numbered boxes because different taxes apply to different slices of your pay.2Internal Revenue Service. About Form W-2, Wage and Tax Statement
Box 1 shows taxable wages, tips, and other compensation subject to federal income tax. This number is often lower than your gross pay because it excludes pre-tax deductions such as traditional 401(k) contributions and health insurance premiums. Box 2 shows the federal income tax your employer withheld across the year.
Box 3 reports wages subject to Social Security tax, which is capped at the annual wage base of $184,500 for 2026.3Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 751, Social Security and Medicare Withholding Rates If you earned more than that, Box 3 stops at the cap. Box 5 reports Medicare wages, which have no ceiling and may be higher than both Box 1 and Box 3. Employees earning over $200,000 also see an extra 0.9% Additional Medicare Tax withheld on wages above that threshold.4Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 560, Additional Medicare Tax
Boxes 4 and 6 show the Social Security and Medicare tax withheld. A quick sanity check: Box 4 should be roughly 6.2% of Box 3, and Box 6 should be about 1.45% of Box 5. If the math is off by more than rounding, ask your payroll department to explain it before you file.
Box 12 Codes Worth Reading
Box 12 uses letter codes to flag specific benefits and deductions. A few appear on most W-2s:5Internal Revenue Service. General Instructions for Forms W-2 and W-3 (2026) – Box 12 Codes
- Code D is your pre-tax 401(k) elective deferrals for the year.
- Code AA is Roth 401(k) contributions, which are after-tax and don’t reduce Box 1.
- Code W is employer (and employee pre-tax) contributions to your Health Savings Account.
- Code DD is the total cost of your employer-sponsored health coverage. It’s informational only and is not taxable to you.6Internal Revenue Service. Form W-2 Reporting of Employer-Sponsored Health Coverage
- Code C is the taxable value of employer-provided group-term life insurance above $50,000.
- Code V is income from exercising non-qualified stock options, which is already folded into Box 1 wages.
Three new codes appear starting with the 2026 form: Code TP for cash tips reported to the employer, Code TT for qualified overtime compensation, and Code TA for employer contributions to Trump accounts.7Internal Revenue Service. General Instructions for Forms W-2 and W-3 (2026) – Whats New
Other Forms an Employee May Receive
Health Coverage: Form 1095-B or 1095-C
Under the Affordable Care Act, certain employers and insurers report your health coverage months to the IRS. Applicable Large Employers, meaning those with 50 or more full-time employees, use Form 1095-C to report the coverage they offered, the monthly cost of the lowest-premium option, and which months you were covered.8Internal Revenue Service. Determining if an Employer Is an Applicable Large Employer Insurance companies and smaller employers with self-insured plans use Form 1095-B to confirm you had minimum essential coverage and list everyone in your household who was covered.9Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Forms 1094-B and 1095-B
Here’s the part that trips people up. Starting with tax year 2024, employers and insurers no longer have to automatically mail these forms. They can satisfy the requirement by posting a clear notice on their website telling employees how to request a copy.10Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Forms 1094-C and 1095-C – Alternative Manner of Furnishing Statements If you ask for one, they have to provide it within 30 days or by January 31, whichever is later. So if you need coverage documentation and nothing showed up in the mail, check your employer’s benefits portal or ask HR directly.
Stock Options: Form 3921
If you exercised an incentive stock option during the year, your employer must send you Form 3921 reporting the exercise date, the fair market value of the stock, and the option price.11Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Forms 3921 and 3922 Keep it. You’ll need those figures to calculate your gain when you sell the shares, and the numbers also feed into alternative minimum tax calculations. Non-qualified stock options work differently: the compensation income flows through your W-2 (often flagged with Code V in Box 12), not a separate form.
When Your W-2 Should Arrive
The deadline is January 31 of the year after the wages were paid. That’s both the date your employer must get the W-2 to you and the date it must be filed with the Social Security Administration.12Social Security Administration. Deadline Dates to File W-2s If January 31 falls on a weekend or federal holiday, the deadline moves to the next business day. There is no routine extension for W-2s the way there is for other information returns, so most employers get them out on time.
Delivery can be paper or electronic, but your employer cannot switch you to electronic-only without your consent. If you never opted in, a paper copy has to go in the mail. And the W-2 should never come as an email attachment: the IRS requires electronic delivery to run through a secure portal because of the sensitive information the form contains.
If Your W-2 Doesn’t Arrive or Looks Wrong
Start with your employer. A form that never showed up has usually gone to an old address or been misrouted, and a phone call to payroll or HR resolves most cases in a day. If the W-2 arrived but a figure is wrong, ask the employer to issue a corrected version, called a W-2c. Don’t file until you have the corrected form or a firm plan for handling the discrepancy.
If the employer won’t respond, contact the IRS. They can reach out to the employer and initiate a formal request on your behalf. Have your name and address, the employer’s name and address, your dates of employment, and your best estimate of wages and withholding ready when you call.
Filing Without the W-2
If the filing deadline is closing in and you still don’t have your W-2, you don’t have to file late. Use Form 4852, a substitute for the W-2.13Internal Revenue Service. About Form 4852, Substitute for Form W-2, Wage and Tax Statement, or Form 1099-R Your best source for the numbers is the final pay stub of the year, which normally carries year-to-date figures for gross wages and each tax withheld. If you only have a mid-year stub, multiply the per-period amounts out to a full year, or use a prior-year W-2 from the same employer as a reference if your pay was steady.14Internal Revenue Service. Using Form 4852 When Missing the Form W-2 or 1099-R
Form 4852 asks you to describe what you did to try to get the real W-2, so document your phone calls and emails. If the actual W-2 arrives later and the numbers differ from your estimates, file Form 1040-X to amend your return.