Final Paycheck Check
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My employer refuses to pay my final check. What actually works, in order.

Start with the free checker

Your state, your last day, your rate — and the verdict prints your owed-by date, the penalty in dollars, your vacation verdict, and one total-owed number. Free, and nothing leaves your browser.

Run the free money verdict

First, know that this is common — and that the law priced it

"My employer hasn't paid me in a month, do I have any rights" is one of the most searched sentences in this whole area of law, and the answer is yes — specific ones, with dates and dollars attached. Your state set a deadline for the check, priced being late in many states, and runs a free claim process. The system works when it is fed in the right order.

The order that works

  1. Fix the deadline. Everything counts from the day the check was legally due — which depends on your state and on whether you were fired, laid off, or quit. The checker computes it from the statute.
  2. Demand in writing. In trigger states (Colorado, Minnesota, Missouri, Utah, Louisiana, Maine) the written demand starts the penalty clock; in every state it starts the paper trail. Send it provably — certified mail, receipt kept.
  3. Let the clock run visibly. A penalty that accrues daily is a reason for payroll to call you. The kit's Penalty Clock one-pager exists for this message: the dated count, forwarded, usually ends the stall.
  4. File the free claim before its window closes. Every state claim has a deadline; Texas gives 180 days from the due date, Colorado two years, New York six. The claim costs nothing and the agency does the collecting conversation for you.
  5. Assemble the file while it pends. Final pay stubs, the schedule, the offer letter with your rate, time records, your resignation or termination paper, the demand letter and its receipt — in date order. Claims are decided on documents, and memories fade faster than windows close.

What not to do

Do not agree to "wait until the next payroll run" four times. Do not sign a release of wage claims in exchange for money already owed without understanding it — the wages were never theirs to bargain with. And do not let the claim window close while being patient: patience is free for them and expensive for you, by the day, at exactly the penalty rate your state published.