Overtime Pay Calculator

How this is calculated

TIME-AND-A-HALF MEANS THE BASE RATE PLUS HALF OF IT AGAIN, so only the HALF is the premium. On a $20 rate, an overtime hour pays $30 - of which $20 is what any hour pays and $10 is the overtime itself. Separating those two is the point of this page, because the premium is the part people over-estimate. ⚠️ MORE HOURS DILUTE THE MULTIPLIER FASTER THAN PEOPLE EXPECT. Eight overtime hours on a forty-hour week is twenty percent more time, at one and a half times the rate - and it lifts your EFFECTIVE hourly rate from $20 to $21.67, which is 8.3%. The multiplier applies to the extra hours only, and those hours are averaged across the whole week. A week that feels like it should pay half as much again does not. ⚠️ OVERTIME RULES ARE LAW AND THEY VARY, WHICH IS WHY NOTHING HERE IS FIXED. The threshold at which overtime starts, the multiplier, whether it is counted daily or weekly, which workers are exempt, and how public holidays are treated all differ by country and often by state or province - and by your own contract or collective agreement on top. This tool does arithmetic on the numbers YOU supply. It does not know your jurisdiction and cannot tell you what you are entitled to. WHICH MEANS IT IS FOR CHECKING A PAYSLIP, NOT FOR SETTLING A DISPUTE. If the figure here differs from what you were paid, that is a reason to ask a question - not evidence of anything by itself. Your employer may be applying a rule you did not know about, or a mistake may have been made, and both start the same way: with a polite question and the payslip in front of you. THE PREMIUM FIGURE IS THE ONE TO WATCH OVER TIME. Gross pay rises with any extra hour worked, so it tells you little on its own. The premium - what the overtime RULE earned you above ordinary pay for the same time - is the number that shows whether the arrangement is worth it, and it is the one to compare against what the hours cost you elsewhere. THIS IS ALL GROSS. Tax, national insurance or social security, pension contributions and student loan repayments all come off afterwards, and in some systems a larger gross in one period can be taxed at a higher marginal rate or push you past a threshold. What lands in your account will be less, and by a proportion this page cannot know. GENERAL INFORMATION, NOT FINANCIAL OR EMPLOYMENT ADVICE. For anything contested, a qualified adviser, your union, or the relevant labour authority is the right place to take it.

Common questions

What does time-and-a-half actually mean?

The base rate plus half of it again, so only the HALF is the overtime premium. On a $20 rate an overtime hour pays $30, of which $20 is what any hour pays and $10 is the overtime itself. That distinction sounds pedantic and turns out to matter, because when people judge whether extra hours are worth it they tend to think of the whole $30 as the reward for staying late, when the part attributable to the overtime rule is $10. The tool separates the two for exactly that reason.

Why is my effective rate so much lower than the multiplier?

Because the multiplier applies only to the extra hours, and those get averaged across everything you worked. Eight overtime hours on a forty-hour week is twenty percent more time at one and a half times the rate, and it lifts the effective rate from $20 to $21.67 — an uplift of 8.3%. A week that feels like it should pay half as much again does not, and this is the single most common misjudgement about overtime. The more base hours you have, the more diluted the premium becomes.

Does this tell me what I am legally owed?

No, and it deliberately does not try. The threshold at which overtime starts, the multiplier, whether it is counted daily or weekly, which workers are exempt and how public holidays are treated all vary by country and frequently by state or province — and your own contract or collective agreement can change them again. Everything here is a number you supply. What the tool does is arithmetic on your figures, which is useful for checking a payslip and useless as a statement of entitlement.

My payslip does not match. What now?

Treat it as a reason to ask a question rather than as evidence of anything. The most common explanations are dull: a threshold counted daily rather than weekly, a different definition of which hours qualify, a shift premium handled separately, or an ordinary mistake. All of them start the same way — a polite question with the payslip in front of you and the hours you believe you worked. If the answer does not resolve it and the amount matters, your union, a qualified adviser or the relevant labour authority is the next step rather than a calculator.

Should I take the overtime?

That is not really an arithmetic question, but the premium figure is the right input to it. Gross pay rises with any extra hour, so it tells you little on its own — the number that matters is what the overtime RULE earned you above ordinary pay for that same time. Weigh that against what the hours actually cost: rest, family, the second job you could not do, and the fact that tired hours in the following days are worth less. The tool reports the premium separately so that trade is visible instead of hidden inside a bigger gross.

Is this before or after tax?

Entirely before. Tax, national insurance or social security, pension contributions and student loan repayments all come off afterwards, and the proportion depends on your circumstances in ways this page cannot see. Worth knowing too that in some systems a larger gross in a single period can be taxed at a higher marginal rate, or push you past a threshold that changes something else — so the take-home from an unusually big overtime week is sometimes a smaller share than usual. Check a payslip rather than assuming the same percentage applies.

What about a second, higher tier?

That is what the second pair of inputs is for — Sundays, public holidays, or hours beyond a further threshold, wherever a higher multiplier applies. Set the hours and choose the multiplier and it is included in the gross and, importantly, in the premium figure. If your arrangement has more than two tiers, run it twice and add the premiums together. The structure varies enough between employers and jurisdictions that two adjustable tiers covers most cases without pretending to model any particular system.

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 Overtime Pay Calculator at https://www.bfcbrilliance.com/tools/overtime-pay-calculator.

What I entered:
- Your base hourly rate ($): ___
- Hours at the base rate (h): ___
- Hours at the overtime rate (h): ___
- Overtime multiplier: ___
- Hours at a second, higher tier (h): ___
- That tier's multiplier: ___

What it calculated:
- Gross pay for the period: ___
- What the overtime RULE earned you: ___
- Your effective rate across all hours: ___
- How much that beats your base rate: ___
- Pay from the overtime hours: ___

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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