Overtime Pay Calculator
Federal overtime turns on one threshold: hours worked beyond forty in a single workweek. Under 29 CFR 778.101, forty hours is "the maximum number that an employee subject to its provisions may work for an employer in any workweek without receiving additional compensation", and 29 CFR 778.107 sets that compensation at "not less than one and one-half times the regular rate".
Enter your rate, the hours you worked this week and the multiplier your employer applies. The result separates straight time from the premium so you can check a pay stub line by line rather than accepting a single total.
Calculate this week overtime
One workweek at a time — federal overtime is computed per week and never averaged across two.
The workweek is the unit, and it is fixed
Overtime is calculated within a workweek, which 29 CFR 778.105 defines as "a fixed and regularly recurring period of 168 hours — seven consecutive 24-hour periods". It need not match the calendar week and may begin on any day and at any hour, but once set it stays set regardless of how the schedule moves.
The same regulation allows a single workweek for an establishment as a whole or different workweeks for different employees or groups. An employer may change the starting point, but only if the change is "intended to be permanent and is not designed to evade the overtime requirements of the Act".
This is why fifty hours one week and thirty the next produces ten hours of overtime rather than none. Averaging two weeks to reach eighty is not permitted; each week stands on its own.
Ask when your workweek begins if you do not know. A Thursday-start workweek splits a Monday-to-Sunday schedule in a way that changes which hours are premium.
What federal law does not require
A great deal of what people expect to be overtime is not required federally at all. 29 CFR 778.102 is explicit: the Act "does not generally require... that an employee be paid overtime compensation for hours in excess of eight per day, or for work on Saturdays, Sundays, holidays or regular days of rest".
So a twelve-hour Saturday in a thirty-eight-hour week carries no federal premium. What it may carry is a premium owed under something else, and the same section preserves those obligations: nothing in the Act relieves an employer of any duty "assumed by contract or... imposed by other Federal or State law" to pay premium rates.
| Situation | Federal FLSA position |
|---|---|
| 45 hours in one workweek | Overtime owed on 5 hours |
| 12-hour day, 38-hour week | No federal overtime |
| Work on a public holiday | No federal premium required |
| Sunday or seventh consecutive day | No federal premium required |
| 50 hours then 30 hours | Overtime owed on 10 hours — no averaging |
State law is where daily overtime usually lives, and several states require it. Check your own state rules before concluding that a long day earns nothing.
The regular rate is often higher than your base rate
The multiplier applies to the regular rate, not automatically to the hourly figure on your contract. Under 29 CFR 778.109 the regular rate is found by "dividing his total remuneration for employment (except statutory exclusions) in any workweek by the total number of hours actually worked by him in that workweek".
Total remuneration is broader than base pay. A nondiscretionary bonus, a shift differential or a production incentive earned that week generally forms part of it, which raises the regular rate and therefore the value of every overtime hour. An employee paid $20 an hour who also earned a $100 attendance bonus in a forty-five-hour week does not have a $20 regular rate.
The calculator uses your base rate, because it cannot know what else you were paid. Where extra remuneration is in play, treat the result as a floor and check the stub against a regular rate that includes it.
Paid time off does not count toward the forty
The threshold counts hours worked. Hours paid but not worked are treated differently, and this catches people out in weeks containing a holiday.
29 CFR 778.218 covers payments for "occasional periods when the employee is not at work due to vacation, holiday, illness, failure of the employer to provide sufficient work, or other similar cause". Such payments "may be excluded from the regular rate of pay" and, the regulation continues, "no part of such payments may be credited toward overtime compensation due under the Act".
The practical effect: eight hours of holiday pay plus thirty-six hours worked is a forty-four-hour paycheck with no overtime in it, because only thirty-six hours were worked. A pay stub showing forty-four hours and no premium is usually correct rather than an error, though it rarely feels that way.
Checking a stub, and what to do when it is wrong
Work through it in order. Confirm which days fall in your workweek, add only the hours actually worked, subtract forty, and multiply the remainder by the regular rate and the multiplier. Compare that against the premium line on the stub.
- Establish the workweek start, since it decides which hours belong to which week.
- Separate hours worked from hours paid — holiday, vacation and sick hours sit outside the forty-hour test.
- Rebuild the regular rate from total remuneration for that week, including any nondiscretionary bonus or differential.
- Apply the multiplier to hours beyond forty only, and check the straight-time and premium lines separately rather than the gross total.
- Keep your own contemporaneous record of hours. Where records are disputed, the employee who wrote the hours down each week is in a materially stronger position.
This page explains the federal baseline and is not legal advice. State rules and union agreements frequently require more, and both can be enforced alongside the federal minimum.
Frequently asked questions
Hours worked beyond forty in a workweek are paid at not less than one and a half times the regular rate, under 29 CFR 778.107. At $22 an hour for forty-eight hours: forty hours of straight time is $880, and eight overtime hours at $33 is $264, giving $1,144 gross.
Not under federal law. 29 CFR 778.102 states the Act does not generally require overtime for hours beyond eight per day, or for Saturdays, Sundays, holidays or rest days. Several states do require daily overtime, and a contract or union agreement can require it anywhere.
No. The threshold counts hours actually worked. Under 29 CFR 778.218, pay for idle hours such as holiday, vacation or illness is excluded from the regular rate and cannot be credited toward overtime owed. Thirty-six hours worked plus eight holiday hours is not an overtime week.
No. Each workweek stands alone, and a workweek is a fixed, regularly recurring 168-hour period under 29 CFR 778.105. Fifty hours followed by thirty produces ten overtime hours, even though the two-week average is forty.
A nondiscretionary bonus generally does, because 29 CFR 778.109 computes the regular rate from total remuneration for the workweek divided by hours actually worked. Including such a bonus raises the regular rate and the value of every overtime hour in that week.