Overtime Pay Calculator

Enter your hourly rate, the regular hours you work in a week and the overtime hours on top, then pick time and a half or double time. The calculator returns the week's overtime pay, the full weekly gross, the annual figure at 52 weeks and the average rate earned across every hour worked. Note that weekly overtime pay is what the extra hours pay in total at the boosted rate, not just the premium above base pay, and the average hourly rate is a blend that always sits between your base rate and your overtime rate.

How the overtime math works

The overtime hourly rate is the base rate times the multiplier, so a 20 rate becomes 30 at time and a half and 40 at double time. Everything else follows from three lines of arithmetic:

overtime pay = overtime hours × rate × multiplier

weekly gross = rate × regular hours + overtime pay

average rate = weekly gross ÷ (regular hours + overtime hours)

The annual figure is the weekly gross times 52, which assumes the same week repeats all year. The tool applies the multiplier to every hour you enter as overtime, so the split between regular and overtime hours is yours to declare. If your contract triggers overtime after 40 hours, put 40 in the regular field and the rest in the overtime field; if your threshold is 37.5 or 38, split the hours there instead.

A worked example

Take the defaults: 20 an hour, 40 regular hours, 5 overtime hours at time and a half. The overtime rate is 20 × 1.5 = 30, so the overtime pay is 5 × 30 = 150. Regular pay is 40 × 20 = 800, making the weekly gross 800 + 150 = 950 and the annual gross 950 × 52 = 49,400. Across 45 hours worked, the average rate is 950 ÷ 45 = 21.11.

Switch the same week to double time and the overtime rate becomes 40, so the extra hours pay 5 × 40 = 200. The weekly gross rises to 1,000, the annual figure to 52,000, and the average rate to 1,000 ÷ 45 = 22.22. The five overtime hours are about 11 percent of the hours worked, yet at double time they carry 20 percent of the week's pay — the premium concentrates earnings into the late hours by design.

How the forty-hour line was drawn

Overtime only means something once a normal week has a defined length, and in the United States employers settled that length before the law did. The Ford Motor Company was an early and influential adopter rather than the inventor. In January 1914 it announced a five-dollar minimum for an eight-hour day for its male factory workers, up from 2.34 dollars for nine hours. On 1 May 1926 it moved its factory workers to a five-day, forty-hour week, and extended the policy to office staff that August. The justification survives in a line whose speaker is disputed: a New York Times report from that March, as cited by one popular history, has Edsel Ford, Henry's son and the company's president, explaining that "Every man needs more than one day a week for rest and recreation", while other accounts give the words to Henry himself. Manufacturers across the country followed, and the Monday-to-Friday week spread plant by plant as a business decision. Federal forty-hour standards arrived piecemeal before any general law: the Department of Labor's own history notes that the Cotton Textile Code of 1933 and the Walsh-Healey Act of 1936 for government contractors each set a forty-hour week.

That law came on Saturday, 25 June 1938, when President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act as one of 121 bills cleared that day to avoid pocket vetoes after Congress had adjourned. In its final form it reached industries employing about one-fifth of the labour force, banned oppressive child labour, set a 25-cent minimum wage and required time-and-a-half pay beyond a maximum week. That ceiling was phased in rather than imposed overnight: the act took effect on 24 October 1938 at 44 hours, dropped to 42 a year later and reached 40 on 24 October 1940, a built-in schedule that the Congressional Research Service's overview of the act records as a scheduled decrease to 40 hours by 1940. The familiar 40-hour trigger therefore dates from 1940 without any later amendment. The same CRS overview gives the premium's Depression-era purpose as spreading work: reducing unemployment by making a new hire cheaper than pushing existing staff past 40 hours. The multiplier this calculator defaults to, 1.5 beyond a 40-hour week, is that 1938 rule still doing its work.

Who the premium actually covers

The FLSA draws its line between non-exempt and exempt workers, not between hourly and salaried ones. A non-exempt worker is owed at least 1.5 times the regular rate for hours beyond 40 in a week, whether paid hourly or on a salary. Section 13(a)(1) of the act exempts employees in a bona fide executive, administrative or professional capacity, along with outside salespeople, and leaves the definitions to Labor Department regulation, which for most white-collar exemptions means a duties test plus a salary floor. That floor is a moving and litigated figure. A 2024 rule would have raised it to 844 dollars a week and then to 1,128, but the Eastern District of Texas vacated the rule on 15 November 2024, and the department restored the 2019 level of 684 dollars a week, with 107,432 dollars a year for highly compensated employees, by a technical amendment effective 15 May 2026. As of September 2026 those are the enforced thresholds; check the current figure before relying on them. A salary therefore does not switch overtime off by itself: a modestly paid salaried employee can be non-exempt and owed the premium, while an exempt employee's sixtieth hour pays nothing extra. The trigger is also weekly, not daily — the federal rule counts hours beyond 40 in a fixed, recurring 168-hour workweek, hours cannot be averaged across weeks, and the act attaches no premium to Saturdays, Sundays or holidays as such. Some states add daily overtime rules; federal law does not.

Double time has no place in the federal statute. The FLSA floor is 1.5, and anything above it — on Sundays, on holidays, or after long shifts — comes from a contract, a union agreement or an employer's own policy. The option here simply doubles the rate; whether those terms apply to you is a question for your agreement.

Overtime beyond the United States

The 40-hour trigger and the 1.5 multiplier are US federal constructs, and other jurisdictions handle overtime differently. In the United Kingdom there is no statutory right to overtime pay: gov.uk states that employers do not have to pay workers for overtime, only that average pay across the total hours worked must not fall below the National Minimum Wage, so any premium comes from the contract. The European Union regulates hours rather than pay. The Working Time Directive of 2003, which replaced a 1993 directive, caps average weekly working time including overtime at 48 hours and guarantees at least four weeks of paid annual leave, but sets no wage premium; member states may add one in national law. Because both the threshold and the premium vary by jurisdiction and contract, this tool encodes neither: you declare the split and choose the multiplier, and the arithmetic is the same for a UK contract paying time and a half past its contractual hours as for a US non-exempt role.

Assumptions and caveats

Every figure is gross pay, before income tax, payroll deductions and anything else withheld. The annual number multiplies the weekly gross by 52, which bakes in two assumptions worth noticing: that every week of the year is paid, and that the overtime you entered recurs every week. Overtime is rarely that regular, so treat the annual line as a run-rate rather than a forecast. Annualizing base pay with unpaid weeks and other schedules is the job of the salary converter.

The form accepts up to 80 regular and 80 overtime hours a week, all regular hours are assumed to pay the same base rate, and the multiplier applies to every overtime hour entered from the first. A worker paid at two or more rates in the same week has a regular rate under the FLSA that is a weighted average of them, which this tool does not compute. Results are computed at full precision and rounded only for display, so the average hourly rate may carry hidden decimals — the 21.11 in the worked example is really 21.111 repeating.

These figures follow from your own inputs and the multiplier you chose; they are not a determination of what any law or contract owes you. See the site disclaimer.

Frequently asked questions

What is time and a half for 20 dollars an hour?

Time and a half multiplies the base rate by 1.5, so 20 an hour becomes 30 for each overtime hour. Five overtime hours at that rate add 150 to a regular 40-hour week of 800, for a weekly gross of 950. Double time would make the overtime rate 40 and the same five hours worth 200.

How do I calculate overtime pay?

Multiply the overtime hours by your hourly rate and by the overtime multiplier. In the US, non-exempt employees earn at least 1.5 times their regular rate for hours beyond 40 in a week under the FLSA, so 6 overtime hours at an 18 rate come to 6 times 18 times 1.5, which is 162 on top of regular pay.

Who is entitled to overtime pay in the US?

Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, non-exempt workers are owed the overtime premium whether they are paid hourly or on a salary. Exempt workers must pass a duties test and, for most white-collar exemptions, earn a salary of at least 684 dollars a week, the 2019 level the Labor Department enforces as of 2026 after a 2024 increase was vacated in court. Once classified exempt they are owed nothing extra for a long week. Being salaried by itself does not remove the right to overtime.

When did the 40-hour overtime threshold start?

President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act on 25 June 1938, and the weekly ceiling was phased in rather than imposed at once: time and a half applied beyond 44 hours when the act took effect in October 1938, 42 a year later, and 40 from October 1940 onward. The 40-hour trigger has stood since then.

What is double time and when does it apply?

Double time pays twice the base rate, so a 20 rate becomes 40 per overtime hour. The federal FLSA floor is 1.5 times the regular rate for hours beyond 40 in a week; a higher multiplier such as double time comes from a contract, a union agreement or an employer's own policy, so check your terms before selecting it here.

Does overtime change my average hourly rate?

Yes. At 20 an hour with 40 regular and 5 overtime hours at time and a half, the week pays 950 for 45 hours worked, an average of 21.11 per hour. The average always sits between the base rate and the overtime rate, moving toward the overtime rate as the share of overtime hours grows.