Time And A Half Calculator

What this time and a half calculator does

You worked late. Or you picked up the weekend shift, or the holiday nobody else wanted. Now you are trying to work out what that week is worth before payday tells you, and the multipliers are making it awkward.

So this one keeps it simple. You tell it your hourly rate and then split your hours into four buckets: standard, time and a half, double time, and triple time. It prices each bucket and totals them.

Notice that it does not decide for you which hours belong in which bucket. That is deliberate, because the rules differ by country, by state and by contract, and a calculator that guesses will confidently get it wrong for most people. You bring the rules, it brings the arithmetic. The section on when overtime is owed will help you sort your hours out.

The tool labels its fields in $, but the arithmetic is currency blind, so read the examples below in whatever you are paid in. Everything runs in your browser and nothing is stored.

How to use it

1. Standard Pay Rate. Your normal hourly rate. Read the regular rate section first if you get bonuses, commission or a shift differential, because your base rate may not be the right number to type here.
2. Standard Hours Worked. Hours paid at your normal rate.
3. Hours at Time and a Half. Hours paid at 1.5 times.
4. Hours for Double Time. Hours paid at 2 times.
5. Hours for Triple Time. Hours paid at 3 times. Rare, but some union agreements and holiday policies use it.

Put zero in any bucket that does not apply. All five fields want a number, so leaving one blank will stop it.

Press Calculate. Press Reset to clear it.

What 1.5x, 2x and 3x actually mean

The multiplier applies to your hourly rate, not to your whole paycheck. So at $20 an hour:

There is a useful way to think about the 1.5 that makes the rest of this page easier. Split it in two. The first 1.0 is the straight time you were always going to be paid for that hour. The extra 0.5 is the premium, the bit that exists purely because the hour was overtime.

So six overtime hours at $20 is $180. That is $120 of straight time plus $60 of premium. Payroll systems and the law both think in those two pieces rather than one lump, and once you see it that way the regular rate business further down stops being confusing.

A worked example: a 48 hour week

Say you are on $20 an hour. You worked 40 standard hours, 6 at time and a half, and 2 at double time. No triple time this week.

Standard: 20 × 40 = $800.00

Time and a half: 20 × 1.5 × 6 = $180.00

Double time: 20 × 2 × 2 = $80.00

Triple time: 20 × 3 × 0 = $0.00

Total: $1,060.00

Worth pausing on the shape of that. You worked 48 hours, which is 20 percent more than 40. But you earned $1,060 against a straight time week of $960, which is only about 10 percent more than the $960 you would have made at a flat rate for those same 48 hours. The premium is real, but overtime is a worse deal per hour of your life than the headline multiplier suggests, because the multiplier is only paid on the extra hours, not on all of them.

All figures are gross, before tax.

When time and a half is actually owed

This is the part the calculator cannot do for you, so here is what decides it.

The federal rule in the United States

Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, a covered non exempt employee must be paid at least one and a half times their regular rate for hours worked over 40 in a workweek. That is the floor and it applies nationwide.

Three details in there do a lot of work. It is 40 in a week, not 8 in a day, so a 12 hour Monday followed by a short Friday may produce no federal overtime at all. The workweek is any fixed recurring 168 hour period your employer defines, and it does not have to start on Monday. And hours do not carry between weeks, so 35 one week and 45 the next means overtime on the second week only, no averaging.

Federal law does not require extra pay for weekends, holidays or night shifts as such. If you get it, it is because your employer or your contract says so.

States that go further

Several states add daily thresholds on top. California is the strictest and the one most people are asking about: 1.5 times after 8 hours in a workday, and double time after 12 hours in a workday or after 8 hours on the seventh consecutive day of a workweek. Alaska, Nevada and Colorado also run daily overtime rules with their own thresholds.

So if you are in California, a 13 hour day splits into 8 standard, 4 at time and a half, and 1 at double time. That is exactly the sort of split this tool is built to price once you know it.

Whether you are eligible at all

Overtime protection depends on being classified as non exempt. Executive, administrative and professional employees above a salary threshold are generally exempt, and the test is about actual job duties rather than job title. Being salaried does not automatically make you exempt, and a lot of misclassification cases turn on precisely that.

Outside the United States none of the above applies. Overtime multipliers come from national labour law or your employment contract, so check the rule that governs you and then use the buckets accordingly.

The rate you type may not be your regular rate

Here is the thing almost no overtime calculator mentions, and it is the one most likely to cost you money.

US overtime is not calculated on your base hourly rate. It is calculated on your regular rate, which the Department of Labor defines like this:

Regular rate = total compensation for the workweek, minus statutory exclusions, ÷ total hours actually worked

That total includes more than your hourly wage. Nondiscretionary bonuses count. Production, attendance and safety bonuses count. Shift differentials count. Commissions count. Anything you were promised in advance and could plan on counts.

What does not count includes gifts on special occasions, paid vacation and holiday pay, reimbursed business expenses, and genuinely discretionary bonuses where both the fact and the amount were decided by your employer at the last minute.

What that is worth in money

Take our $20 an hour worker. This week they worked 46 hours and earned a $100 attendance bonus that was announced in advance.

Straight time earnings are 20 × 46 = $920. Add the bonus and total compensation is $1,020. Divide by the 46 hours actually worked and the regular rate is $22.17, not $20.00.

The overtime premium is the extra half on the 6 hours over 40. At the regular rate that is 22.17 × 0.5 × 6 = $66.52. At the base rate somebody might have paid 20 × 0.5 × 6 = $60.00.

So the week is short by $6.52. Small on its own. Happening every week for a year, it is about $339, and it is the kind of error that turns up across an entire payroll rather than one person.

If you get regular bonuses or differentials, work out your regular rate first and type that into the tool rather than your base rate. If your payslip has never done this, it is a reasonable thing to raise.

Overtime rates at common hourly pay

For quick reference, without typing anything:

The last column is the one worth knowing by heart. A regular Saturday shift at time and a half adds roughly a fifth again to a normal week's pay, which is a decent chunk when you are deciding whether to say yes.

Questions people ask

What is time and a half of $20 an hour?

$30.00 an hour. Multiply your rate by 1.5. Eight hours at that rate comes to $240.00.

Do I get overtime after 8 hours in a day?

Under federal US law, no. The trigger is 40 hours in a workweek. Some states including California, Alaska, Nevada and Colorado add daily thresholds, so it depends where you work.

Is double time required by law?

Not federally. California requires it beyond 12 hours in a day and beyond 8 hours on the seventh consecutive workday. Everywhere else in the United States it comes from your contract or your employer's policy.

Can salaried employees get overtime?

Yes, if they are non exempt. Exemption depends on both a salary threshold and the actual duties of the job, not the job title and not simply being paid a salary.

Does holiday pay count towards the 40 hours?

Generally no under federal law. Overtime is owed on hours actually worked, so a paid holiday you did not work does not usually push you over the 40 hour line.

What if I work two different jobs at two rates for the same employer?

Then overtime is normally calculated on a weighted average of the two rates for that week. Work that average out first and use it as your rate here.

I am not in the United States. Does this still work?

The arithmetic does. The rules do not. Find the multiplier your own law or contract sets, then sort your hours into the right buckets and the tool will price them.

References

A note on sourcing. The overtime threshold, the definition of the workweek and the requirement to pay one and a half times the regular rate all come from the Fair Labor Standards Act as administered by the Wage and Hour Division of the US Department of Labor. The regular rate formula and the list of what may be excluded from it are taken directly from the Department's own fact sheets and the underlying regulations at 29 CFR Part 778. California's daily overtime and double time rules come from the state Department of Industrial Relations.

1. U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, Fact Sheet #23: Overtime Pay Requirements of the FLSA. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/23-flsa-overtime-pay
2. U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, Fact Sheet #56A: Overview of the Regular Rate of Pay Under the Fair Labor Standards Act. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/56a-regular-rate
3. U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, Fact Sheet #56C: Bonuses Under the Fair Labor Standards Act. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/56c-bonuses
4. U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, Fact Sheet #22: Hours Worked Under the Fair Labor Standards Act. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/22-flsa-hours-worked
5. U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, State Labor Laws. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state
6. California Department of Industrial Relations, Hiring and Administering Employees, Overtime. https://www.dir.ca.gov/smallbusiness/HiringAndAdministeringEmployees.htm