Hourly to Salary Calculator

Converting an hourly wage to an annual salary sounds straightforward, but real-world compensation involves several moving parts: overtime pay, unpaid days off, paid holidays, and vacation time all affect your true yearly earnings. This hourly to salary calculator accounts for every variable so you get a precise, honest picture of what your hourly rate is actually worth over a full year.

The calculator starts by figuring out how many effective working weeks you have in a year. It takes your chosen weeks per year (typically 52) and subtracts any unpaid days off converted to weeks (unpaid days ÷ 5). That gives you your working weeks.

Next it computes your weekly earnings in two parts. Your regular weekly pay is simply your hourly rate multiplied by your regular hours per week. Your overtime weekly pay is your hourly rate multiplied by the overtime multiplier (commonly 1.5×) multiplied by your overtime hours per week. These two amounts are added together to form your total weekly pay.

Multiplying total weekly pay by working weeks gives you your annual salary equivalent. From that single number the calculator derives all the other pay periods: monthly (÷ 12), bi-weekly (÷ 26), and daily (÷ working weeks ÷ 5).

Finally, the calculator values your paid time off. Each paid holiday or vacation day is worth one day's pay, calculated as your daily rate (hourly rate × hours per week ÷ 5). Adding the paid-time-off value to your annual salary produces your total compensation — a figure that helps you compare offers with different benefit packages on an apples-to-apples basis.

Overtime is one of the most commonly overlooked components when converting hourly wages to annual salary. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), non-exempt employees in the United States are entitled to at least 1.5 times their regular hourly rate for every hour worked beyond 40 in a workweek. Some employers, industries, or states pay double time (2×) for work on certain holidays or after a daily threshold.

If you regularly work overtime, ignoring it can dramatically understate your actual annual income. For example, an employee earning $25 per hour who works just 5 hours of overtime every week earns an additional $187.50 per week at the standard 1.5× rate. Over 52 weeks that adds up to $9,750 in extra annual pay — a significant sum that a simple hourly-to-annual formula (hourly × 2,080) would miss entirely.

This calculator lets you enter both the number of overtime hours you work per week and the multiplier your employer applies. If your overtime varies seasonally, use a reasonable weekly average across the full year to get a realistic annual figure. You can then compare your effective blended hourly rate — total weekly pay divided by total hours worked — to job postings that quote flat hourly or salaried rates.

Keep in mind that salaried positions classified as "exempt" from overtime rules may pay a higher base rate precisely because no overtime premium is offered. Use the calculator's total-compensation figure when evaluating whether switching to a salaried exempt role is financially worthwhile.

Paid time off (PTO) is real money. When an employer pays you for a day you do not work, that is compensation in exactly the same way as your hourly wage. Yet many workers forget to include PTO in their total compensation when comparing jobs or negotiating pay. This calculator makes it easy to quantify what your holidays and vacation days are actually worth in dollars.

The formula the calculator uses is straightforward: each paid day off is worth one day of your normal earnings. Your daily pay rate equals your hourly rate multiplied by your regular hours per week, then divided by 5 (the standard number of workdays in a week). Multiply that daily rate by the total number of paid days off (holidays plus vacation days) to get the annual dollar value of your PTO benefit.

Consider a worker earning $30 per hour on a 40-hour week. Their daily rate is $30 × 40 ÷ 5 = $240 per day. With 10 paid holidays and 15 vacation days (25 days total), the PTO value is $240 × 25 = $6,000 per year. That is $6,000 of compensation that would disappear if they moved to a contract or gig role with no PTO — a critical number to factor into any job comparison.

Unpaid days off work in the opposite direction: they reduce your working weeks and therefore lower your annual salary. If you plan to take an extended unpaid leave, entering those days into the calculator shows you the exact income impact before you commit.

One of the most practical uses of an hourly-to-salary calculator is comparing job offers that are structured differently. Perhaps one employer quotes a $55,000 annual salary while another offers $27 per hour. At face value $27 × 2,080 (40 hrs × 52 weeks) = $56,160, which looks better — but the comparison is incomplete unless you account for benefits, overtime likelihood, and paid time off.

Enter each offer's numbers separately into the calculator. If the hourly offer comes with fewer paid holidays or expects unpaid weeks between contracts, your effective annual pay could be lower than the salaried role even at a nominally higher rate. Conversely, if the hourly position regularly includes overtime, total compensation can far exceed what the headline rate suggests.

The total compensation field — annual salary plus the dollar value of paid time off — is the single best number to compare across offers. Employers in the US typically benchmark total compensation rather than base pay alone, and you should do the same.

Freelancers and independent contractors should pay particular attention to the PTO value. As a self-employed worker you do not receive paid holidays or vacation, so your hourly rate must be high enough to offset both the lost PTO and the self-employment tax (an additional ~15.3% on net earnings) to equal the total compensation of a traditional employee. This calculator helps you determine the minimum hourly rate you need to charge to match a given salaried position.

Understanding how your annual salary translates into each pay period helps with budgeting, tax planning, and cash-flow management. This calculator derives every common pay period automatically from the annual salary figure.

• Monthly pay is annual salary divided by 12. This is useful for budgeting monthly expenses like rent, utilities, and loan payments.
• Bi-weekly pay is annual salary divided by 26. Most US employers pay bi-weekly, making this the number that lands in your bank account most often. Note that two months each year contain three bi-weekly paydays rather than two — a nice cash-flow boost worth planning around.
• Weekly pay is your total weekly pay including any overtime, directly as computed by the formula. Some contractors and gig workers are paid weekly.
• Daily pay is annual salary divided by working weeks multiplied by 5. It tells you what each workday is worth and is handy for valuing a day of unpaid leave or a sick day.

When you negotiate a raise, translating the proposed increase into each pay period can help you evaluate it concretely. A $2-per-hour raise on a 40-hour week adds $80 per week, $3,466 bi-weekly over a year, or $8,320 in annual gross pay — numbers that are easier to assess against your cost of living than an abstract hourly increment.

Freelancers billing clients by the hour can also use these breakdowns to reverse-engineer a target annual income. Decide what monthly net income you need, gross it up for taxes, then use the daily and weekly figures to set realistic billable-hour targets for your business plan.

Whether you are paid hourly or receive a fixed salary has important implications beyond the paycheck amount. Hourly workers in the US who are classified as non-exempt under the FLSA must receive overtime pay for hours beyond 40 per week. This legal protection means that extra hours translate directly into extra money. Salaried exempt employees — typically those in executive, administrative, or professional roles earning above the FLSA salary threshold — do not receive overtime pay regardless of how many hours they work each week.

From a financial planning standpoint, hourly pay is more variable: your income fluctuates with actual hours worked. During slow periods or illness your paycheck shrinks; during busy seasons with overtime it swells. A salaried position provides predictable income, which simplifies budgeting but eliminates the upside of extra-hours pay.

Benefits tend to differ too. Full-time salaried roles more often include employer-sponsored health insurance, retirement contributions, paid parental leave, and other perks. Contract and part-time hourly workers frequently must self-fund these benefits, which is why the total compensation comparison (including PTO value) in this calculator is so important.

When evaluating a move from hourly to salaried work — or vice versa — run both scenarios through this calculator using realistic hours and benefit assumptions. The numbers often reveal that a nominally higher salary is only marginally better in total compensation once overtime and PTO differences are factored in.