Hourly to Salary Calculator

The quick conversion, and where 2,080 comes from

A full-time year is conventionally 40 hours a week for 52 weeks: 2,080 hours. Multiply an hourly rate by 2,080 and you have the annual figure. $15 an hour is $31,200 a year; $20 is $41,600; $25 is $52,000; $30 is $62,400; $40 is $83,200; $50 is $104,000.

The mental shortcut is to double the hourly rate and add three zeros, which treats the year as 2,000 hours: $20 an hour becomes about $40,000. It is quick and about 4% low, which is fine for a rough comparison and not for a budget.

The calculator starts from the same 40 hours, 5 days and 52 weeks, and lets you change each one. Part-time hours, a four-day week or a seasonal job that runs 40 weeks a year all change the answer, and the formula list under the table shows exactly how.

Monthly, semi-monthly and bi-weekly are not the same

On $52,000 a year, monthly pay is $52,000 ÷ 12 = $4,333.33. Semi-monthly pay — twice a month, usually on the 15th and the last day — is ÷ 24 = $2,166.67. Bi-weekly pay — every other week — is ÷ 26 = $2,000. They sound similar and are different amounts, because there are 26 bi-weekly paydays in a year but only 24 semi-monthly ones.

A common budgeting mistake is turning weekly pay into monthly pay by multiplying by four. A month averages 52 ÷ 12 = 4.33 weeks, so ×4 understates monthly income by about 8%. The other side of the same arithmetic is that bi-weekly earners get three paychecks in two months of most years, which is a useful thing to plan for.

Paid and unpaid time off

Whether your days off are paid changes the annual figure more than people expect. Many hourly workers are paid only for hours worked, and in the US there is no federal requirement to pay for vacation or public holidays at all. Ten unpaid days at $25 an hour and 8 hours a day removes $2,000: the year is 50 paid weeks, and $52,000 becomes $50,000.

Enter your days off and choose whether they are paid or unpaid. Unpaid days reduce the paid weeks, so the annual, monthly and semi-monthly figures fall. Paid days keep the pay the same but mean you work fewer hours for it, so the calculator also shows what you earn per hour actually worked.

Rules differ by country. In the UK, for example, most workers — hourly workers included — are entitled to 5.6 weeks of paid holiday a year, so the paid option is the right one for most UK jobs.

Overtime at time and a half

In the US, the Fair Labor Standards Act requires non-exempt employees to be paid at least one and a half times their regular rate for hours over 40 in a workweek, and some states add daily overtime — California, for example, after 8 hours in a day. Other countries leave the overtime rate to the employment contract; in the UK there is no legal right to an overtime premium.

Enter your usual overtime hours per week and the multiplier. On $25 an hour, 5 hours of overtime at 1.5× is $37.50 an hour, $187.50 a week and $9,750 over a 52-week year, taking the annual total from $52,000 to $61,750. Overtime is counted only in the weeks you actually work, so unpaid or paid time off reduces it too.

These are gross figures, not take-home pay

Everything here is pay before deductions. In the US, income tax is withheld at federal and often state level, and Social Security (6.2%) and Medicare (1.45%) are taken from most wages; retirement and health-insurance contributions may come out too. Other countries have their own equivalents.

For a take-home estimate, the salary calculator applies a deduction percentage you choose. Your payslip is the most reliable source for that percentage: divide total deductions by gross pay.