Hourly to Salary Calculator

How this is calculated

A week's pay is the hours worked times the rate. If overtime is switched on, only the first 40 hours are paid at the rate and everything past 40 is paid at one and a half times it - which is what the US Fair Labor Standards Act requires for non-exempt hourly employees. At 40 hours or fewer the switch changes nothing, because there is no overtime to pay. The annual figure is that week multiplied by the number of weeks you are PAID for: 52 minus the unpaid weeks you enter. This is the whole difference between this calculator and the usual shortcut. Multiplying an hourly rate by 2,080 assumes 52 paid weeks of 40 hours, which describes someone who never takes an unpaid day - not most hourly workers. The monthly figure is the annual divided by twelve. Note that this is an average rather than a paycheck: if you are paid every two weeks you receive 26 payments a year, and two months out of twelve contain three of them. The two-week paycheck figure is simply a full week's pay doubled. It does NOT subtract unpaid time - the unpaid weeks you enter only affect the annual and monthly figures. So if you had unpaid days inside a particular fortnight, the paycheck you actually receive for it will be lower than the figure shown here. Everything here is GROSS - before tax, before national insurance or FICA, before health insurance, retirement contributions or any other deduction. Take-home is meaningfully lower and depends on where you live and how you file, which no general calculator can know.

Common questions

Why is this lower than my rate times 2,080?

Because 2,080 is 52 weeks of 40 hours, and it assumes every single one of them is paid. For a salaried employee with paid holiday that is roughly right. For an hourly worker who takes two unpaid weeks a year it overstates the annual figure by exactly those two weeks of pay - which is the number the calculator shows as the cost of your unpaid time off.

What should I put for unpaid weeks?

Add up everything you are not paid for over a year: holidays you take without pay, sick days beyond what is covered, plant or office shutdowns, and gaps between contracts if you work that way. Two weeks is a common starting point. If your time off is fully paid, enter 0 - the calculator then gives you the full 52-week figure.

How does the overtime switch work?

With it on, the first 40 hours of the week pay your base rate and every hour past 40 pays one and a half times it - the US federal rule for non-exempt hourly employees. At 40 hours or fewer it makes no difference at all, so leaving it on is harmless. Turn it off if you are paid a flat rate for every hour regardless, which some contract and salaried-hourly arrangements do.

Is this take-home pay?

No. Every figure here is gross - before income tax, before FICA or national insurance, before health insurance, pension or retirement contributions and any other deduction. What actually reaches your account is meaningfully lower and depends on where you live, how you file and what your employer deducts. No general calculator can tell you that number.

Why doesn't the monthly figure match my paycheck?

Because a month is not four weeks. If you are paid every two weeks you get 26 paychecks a year, so ten months contain two and two months contain three. The monthly figure here is the annual divided by twelve - the right number for budgeting a monthly bill, and never the number on any single paycheck.

I'm comparing an hourly job to a salaried offer. What else should I count?

The annual figure is only the cash. A salaried role usually comes with paid holiday, paid sick leave and often better health and retirement contributions - and those are worth real money that never appears in an hourly rate. Work out the annual figure first, then add what the benefits are worth, then compare. An hourly job frequently has to pay noticeably more to come out level.

Take it further with AI

Copy this into ChatGPT or Claude with your own numbers filled in. It hands over the figures this calculator worked out, so the answer is built on real arithmetic instead of a guess.

I used the Hourly to Salary Calculator at https://www.bfcbrilliance.com/tools/hourly-to-salary-calculator.

What I entered:
- Hourly rate ($ an hour): ___
- Hours a week (hours): ___
- Unpaid weeks off a year (weeks): ___
- Time and a half over 40 hours: ___

What it calculated:
- A year, before tax: ___
- A month, on average: ___
- A week you work: ___
- A two-week paycheck: ___
- If every week were paid: ___

Use those figures as given — they are already worked out, so please don't recalculate or estimate your own. Help me turn them into a plan: what to buy or do, in what order, roughly what it should cost, and the mistakes people most often make with this job.

Keep this general and do not give financial advice — flag where I should talk to a qualified adviser.

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