How to Spot a Fake Pay Stub and Verify Proof of Income

To spot a fake pay stub, do not rely on how it looks. Check that its numbers are consistent with each other, then confirm the income with a source the applicant does not control: the employer's HR or payroll department, an employment and income verification service, tax records, or the bank deposits the pay produced. Visual clues justify a follow-up. Independent confirmation settles the question.

This guide is for lenders, landlords and property managers, and HR screening teams in the United States and Canada. It covers pay stubs, W-2 and T4 slips, a worked example, fair-screening duties and a record template. It is not legal advice.

How to spot a fake pay stub: the checks that settle it

A pay stub is a document the applicant controls, so the decisive checks bypass it. These routes produce evidence from the employer, a tax authority or a bank:

Everything on the stub itself is a clue. Arithmetic that fails to reconcile or an address that does not match tells you what to ask and which route to use; it does not prove the stub is fake. A tidy stub proves nothing either, because templates and editing software produce clean, internally consistent figures.

Red flags on a fake pay stub, and why they are only leads

The red flags on a fake pay stub are inconsistencies, and each is weak on its own: legitimate payroll has exceptions, and a careful forgery avoids the obvious ones. Use them to decide what to ask the employer.

Withholding deserves a closer look because the rates are public. In the United States, the employee share is 6.2% Social Security tax on wages up to the 2026 base of $184,500, plus 1.45% Medicare tax on all wages, so a stub that withholds a different rate on ordinary wages needs an explanation. IRS Topic 751 In Canada, the 2026 employee CPP contribution is 5.95% of pensionable earnings above the $3,500 basic exemption, up to $74,600. CRA, CPP rates The federal EI premium is 1.63% of insurable earnings up to $68,900, while Quebec uses a 1.30% EI rate. CRA, EI rates Income tax withholding depends on the employee's elections, so no single rate applies. Treat a mismatch as a question for payroll, because pre-tax benefits and mid-year changes alter the base.

How to verify proof of income in the United States

To verify proof of income in the United States, confirm the stub's claims with the employer or a payroll data source, then corroborate them with tax records or bank deposits.

Employer HR or payroll. Find the phone number or verification portal yourself, from the employer's website, a business registry or an earlier known contact, and not from the stub, the application or a message from the applicant. The FBI gives similar advice for payment requests. FBI guidance Ask HR to confirm employment status, title, start date, pay rate and pay frequency. Many employers route these requests to a verification vendor; record where you sent yours.

An employment and income verification service. The Work Number from Equifax holds employment and income data that employers supply, directly or through payroll providers, and lets credentialed verifiers with a permissible purpose retrieve it. The Work Number The CFPB lists it among consumer reporting companies. CFPB list Coverage depends on whether the employer participates, so no record sends you to another route; it is not a finding. Fannie Mae's DU Validation Service accepts employment, income and asset verification reports from authorized vendors, and tax return transcripts, with the borrower's authorization. Fannie Mae, DU Validation Service

IRS transcripts. The IRS Income Verification Express Service lets participating lenders obtain tax transcripts when the taxpayer consents, through the taxpayer's online IRS account or by signing Form 4506-C. IRS IVES A wage and income transcript shows data from information returns such as Form W-2, displays only returns that have been filed, and generally has current-year information from early February. IRS transcript types Transcripts confirm completed years, not the current job, and a recent hire or an employer that filed late may not appear.

Bank deposits. Payroll deposits should match net pay in amount, frequency and payer name. Fannie Mae accepts statements the borrower downloads, so a PDF alone should not settle a close case; prefer statements obtained from the bank or through an authorized asset verification report. Fannie Mae, deposits and assets

Mortgage rules show the timing discipline to borrow: Fannie Mae requires the most recent paystub to show year-to-date earnings and be dated within 30 days before the application, Fannie Mae, income documentation and employment to be verified no more than 10 business days before the note date. Fannie Mae, verbal verification Income evidence is only as good as its date.

How to verify proof of income in Canada

To verify proof of income in Canada, start with the employer, then compare the pay stub with the applicant's T4 slips and CRA documents and with deposits in the bank account. Lenders typically ask for one or more of a CRA proof of income statement, tax information slips, a notice of assessment and a statement of income and deductions. CRA mortgage consultation The Financial Consumer Agency of Canada adds a recent pay stub, the job title and time with the employer, and two years of notices of assessment for self-employed applicants. FCAC, mortgage preapproval

• Employer. Confirm the employment letter or pay stub by phone with HR, using a number you found independently.
• CRA documents. Applicants can view the tax slips the CRA has received and processed in My Account, CRA, tax slips and get a proof of income statement online, by mail or through an automated phone line. CRA, proof of income statement These remain files the applicant hands over.
• Known weakness. The CRA's consultation names fake or altered documents as the main fraud trend in income disclosure and says it is still evaluating a secure digital tool for lenders. Compare documents with each other and with bank deposits.

How to spot a fake W-2, and the Canadian T4 equivalent

To spot a fake W-2, compare it with the IRS wage and income transcript for the same tax year. The transcript reflects what the employer filed, so it is the authority; the form the applicant hands over is not. Where they disagree, ask the employer whether a corrected form was filed.

The form itself offers only leads. Box 4 should equal 6.2% of Box 3, and Box 6 should equal 1.45% of Box 5, though Box 6 can be higher where the 0.9% Additional Medicare Tax applied. Box b should show an employer identification number, formatted XX-XXXXXXX, that belongs to the employer you identified independently. Totals should reconcile with the last pay stub of the year, allowing for pre-tax deductions that lower Box 1. IRS instructions for Forms W-2 and W-3 If the transcript shows no record, do not conclude the W-2 is fake: the IRS displays only information returns that have been filed, and employers sometimes file late. Ask the employer to confirm the figures.

In Canada, the T4 plays the same role. Box 14 reports employment income, box 16 the employee's CPP contributions (Quebec employees use box 17 for QPP), box 18 the employee's EI premiums and box 22 the income tax deducted. CRA, T4 slip Compare the slip with the copy in the applicant's CRA My Account and with the notice of assessment for the same year.

What file analysis adds, and where it stops

When a pay stub arrives as a PDF, Fileverity document verification records what the file says about itself: the creating and saving software, created and modified dates, incremental saves and whether a digital signature is present. It also reads scanned pages, checks up to 15 embedded photos and assesses passages that read as AI-written in letters that accompany a stub, such as an employment letter. A pay stub is mostly tables and figures, which the writing assessment does not cover.

These observations point to questions. A stub created with a general-purpose PDF editor, modified long after its creation date, or carrying incremental saves is worth a call to the employer. Payroll systems and email clients also re-save PDFs, and a file made from scratch can carry ordinary metadata; the PDF edit-checking guide covers these fields.

Fileverity does not verify wages, employer identity or amounts, and it does not compare a stub with payroll records. A negative result never clears a document. The guide to document fraud detection helps match tools to tasks, and a sample document report shows what it contains.

Worked example: two pay stubs, one year-to-date mismatch

Consider a hypothetical rental application. The property manager's written policy requires verified gross income of at least three times the US$1,900 monthly rent, or US$5,700. The applicant submits two consecutive biweekly pay stubs from a fictitious employer, Northline Logistics. All amounts are hypothetical.

Each stub adds up, so arithmetic raises no flag; the year-to-date jump and the phone number are the leads. The manager records both as observations, does not call the number on the stub, and instead asks HR, through the main number on the employer's own website, to confirm employment, start date, pay rate, pay frequency and the year-to-date total through Oct. 23. The answer decides the next step:

• Employer confirms the figures. HR confirms employment and the rate, and a $2,700 bonus earlier in the year explains the higher total. The income test is met on verified data; approve and record the confirmation.
• Employer contradicts part of the stub. HR confirms employment and the rate but gives a year-to-date total of $56,700 and no bonus. The verified rate meets the income test, but the stub is unreliable. Follow the written policy exactly as for every applicant: approve on the employer-confirmed rate, or require a corrected stub or employer-issued verification first. Record the discrepancy in neutral terms.
• Employer denies employment or cannot be reached. Ask for other evidence by a stated date, such as an employer-confirmed offer letter, bank-sourced deposit records or a tax transcript. If none arrives, decline because income could not be verified, record that reason and send any required notice. The record states what could not be verified; it does not accuse the applicant of forgery.

Fair and lawful income screening

Apply the same verification steps and the same income standard to every applicant, and write them down before screening begins. The Fair Housing Act prohibits housing discrimination based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status and disability, so extra scrutiny for some applicants and not others creates exposure. HUD, Fair Housing Act Lenders have parallel duties under Regulation B: notify the applicant of the action taken within 30 days of a completed application, and state specific reasons or the right to request them. CFPB, Regulation B

If you use a consumer report, such as an employment and income verification, the Fair Credit Reporting Act applies. A landlord that denies an application, requires a co-signer or asks for a larger deposit based even partly on a screening report must send an adverse action notice naming the reporting agency and explaining the right to dispute errors and to get a free report within 60 days. FTC, landlords Employers must give a standalone written disclosure and get written authorization before obtaining a consumer report for employment purposes, and must send a pre-adverse action notice with a copy of the report before acting. FTC, employers

In Canada, PIPEDA governs how private-sector organizations collect, use and disclose personal information in commercial activities; its principles include consent and limiting collection, and Alberta, British Columbia and Quebec have their own substantially similar laws. Privacy Commissioner, PIPEDA in brief Collect only what the decision needs: a CRA proof of income statement displays the full Social Insurance Number, so decide whether to keep it.

Reporting suspected loan or mortgage fraud

Reporting duties depend on who you are. In the United States, FinCEN requires non-bank residential mortgage lenders and originators to file suspicious activity reports. FinCEN notice The SAR rule for loan or finance companies sets a $5,000 threshold, a 30-day filing period from initial detection, and confidentiality: never tell the applicant a SAR exists. 31 CFR 1029.320 Other organizations should report suspected fraud to law enforcement.

In Canada, mortgage administrators, brokers and lenders became FINTRAC reporting entities on October 11, 2024, FINTRAC, mortgage sector and must file a suspicious transaction report once they have reasonable grounds to suspect a transaction is related to a money laundering or terrorist activity financing offence. FINTRAC, suspicious transactions That threshold concerns laundering, not every income misstatement. Suspected fraud can be reported to local police and the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre. Competition Bureau, reporting fraud

A reusable income verification record

Keep observation, inference and corroboration separate, and store sensitive identifiers in the controlled record, not in free-text notes.

"Year-to-date total did not match the prior stub" is an observation. "Employer confirmed $56,700 through Oct. 23" is corroboration. "Declined because income could not be verified" is a decision. Collapsing them into "fake pay stub" discards the facts a second reviewer needs.

Common questions

Can you tell if a pay stub is fake just by looking at it?

Not reliably. Inconsistent totals, dates or withholding can show a stub is wrong, but templates and editing software produce clean figures, so a stub that looks right proves nothing. Confirm the income with the employer, a verification service, tax records or bank deposits.

How do landlords verify pay stubs?

Landlords verify pay stubs by confirming employment and pay with the employer through an independently found phone number or a verification service, and by comparing the stubs with bank deposits or tax records, which is also how they catch fake pay stubs. A screening report that includes employment or income data brings Fair Credit Reporting Act notice duties.

Is it illegal to use a fake pay stub?

Often, yes. In the United States, knowingly making a false statement to influence a bank, credit union or mortgage lending business on a loan application is a federal crime under 18 U.S.C. § 1014, punishable by up to 30 years in prison and a fine of up to $1,000,000. 18 U.S.C. § 1014 In Canada, making a false document knowing it to be false, with intent that it be acted on as genuine, is forgery under section 366 of the Criminal Code. Criminal Code, section 366 Defrauding a person of money or services by deceit or falsehood is fraud under section 380, which carries up to 14 years when the value exceeds $5,000. Criminal Code, section 380 Rental and job applications depend on state or provincial law and the facts; ask counsel.

What counts as proof of income in Canada?

Lenders typically accept one or more of a CRA proof of income statement, T4 and other tax slips, a notice of assessment and a statement of income and deductions, with a recent pay stub and employer confirmation for current pay. Each lender sets its own list.

By Yang Zheng · Reviewed by Bill Liu