Hourly Wage Calculator
Convert any salary into an hourly wage and every other pay period in seconds. Enter your gross pay (in any period), the hours you work each week, your holidays and vacation days, and optionally your overtime hours to see what you truly earn per hour, per day, per week, biweekly, monthly, and annually, both unadjusted and adjusted for time off.
Formula
Worked example
A $52,000 annual salary at 40 hours/week: 40 × 52 = 2,080 hours, so $52,000 / 2,080 = $25.00/hr. With 11 holidays and 10 vacation days (21 days off), actual workdays = 260 - 21 = 239. Adjusted hourly = $52,000 / (239 × 8) = $27.20/hr. Add 5 hours of overtime/week at 1.5x: $25 × 1.5 × 5 × 48 weeks = $9,000 overtime, totalling $61,000.
How salary-to-hourly conversion works
The fundamental conversion is a division: take your annual salary and divide it by the total number of hours you work in a year. The standard full-time figure is 40 hours per week across 52 weeks, giving 2,080 hours. A $52,000 salary divided by 2,080 hours equals exactly $25.00 per hour. The calculator handles any input pay period, whether you know your hourly rate, your weekly paycheck, your bi-weekly stub, your monthly retainer, or your total annual compensation. It converts everything to an annual figure first by multiplying by the appropriate factor (for example, multiply a bi-weekly amount by 26 pay periods), and then divides by annual hours to get the hourly rate.
Unadjusted versus adjusted rates
An unadjusted rate treats the year as 52 full weeks with no interruption, and is what most salary-to-hourly tools show. The adjusted rate is more realistic: it subtracts your paid holidays and vacation days from the total working days to find the days you actually sit at your desk. Your hourly rate rises when you account for time off, because the same annual salary is now spread over fewer hours of genuine work. For planning purposes, the adjusted rate is the more accurate measure of what your employer is paying for each hour of your labor. The difference is often several dollars per hour once holidays and a couple of weeks of vacation are counted.
Overtime and total compensation
US federal law (the Fair Labor Standards Act) requires that most hourly employees earn at least 1.5 times their regular rate for any hours above 40 in a workweek. Many salaried employees, particularly those classified as non-exempt, also qualify. Toggle the overtime section to enter your typical weekly overtime hours and the multiplier your employer applies. The calculator then estimates your extra earnings across the weeks you actually work (excluding time off), adds them to your base salary, and shows you the blended rate that results. Even a modest five hours of overtime per week at $25/hr adds nearly $9,750 to a standard year, a raise of almost 19 percent.
Using hourly rates to compare job offers
Salary figures are difficult to compare directly when jobs have different hours, different holiday allowances, or different overtime norms. Reducing every offer to a single hourly rate and an adjusted annual total puts them on the same footing. Enter each offer in turn, adjusting the hours per week and the paid time off to match what the employer has told you. A higher headline salary that demands 55-hour weeks and offers little vacation can deliver a lower adjusted hourly rate than a modest salary with a 37-hour contract and generous time off. The monthly breakdown table shows how pay flows through the calendar year, which is useful for budgeting around lower-hour months such as summer or December.
Common pay period conversion factors
| Pay period | Periods per year | Multiply hourly by (at 40 hrs/week) |
|---|---|---|
| Hourly | - | 1 |
| Daily (5-day week) | 260 | 8 |
| Weekly | 52 | 40 |
| Bi-weekly | 26 | 80 |
| Semi-monthly | 24 | approx. 86.67 |
| Monthly | 12 | approx. 173.33 |
| Quarterly | 4 | 520 |
| Annual | 1 | 2,080 |
Multiply or divide your pay by these factors to convert between periods (based on a 52-week year).
Frequently asked questions
How many work hours are in a year?
A standard full-time schedule is 40 hours per week for 52 weeks, giving 2,080 hours per year. If you take unpaid leave, work part-time, or have a non-standard week, multiply your actual weekly hours by the number of weeks you work to find your own total. The calculator does this automatically based on what you enter.
What is the difference between unadjusted and adjusted hourly rate?
The unadjusted rate is your salary divided by the theoretical maximum hours in a 52-week year, ignoring any time off. The adjusted rate divides the same salary by only the hours you actually work after subtracting holidays and vacation days. The adjusted rate is always higher because each hour you genuinely work carries more of your annual pay. The difference is typically two to four dollars per hour for someone with two weeks of vacation and ten public holidays.
Is this my take-home hourly rate?
No. Every figure here is a gross rate before income tax, social security, Medicare, pension contributions, health insurance premiums or any other deduction. Your net hourly take-home rate is always lower. For a rough estimate, multiply the gross hourly rate by 0.7 to 0.8 if you are in a typical US tax bracket, though your exact net depends on your filing status, withholdings and benefit elections.
How does the overtime calculation work?
The calculator multiplies your base hourly rate by the overtime multiplier (usually 1.5 times) and then by the number of overtime hours per week and by the number of weeks you actually work (your 52 weeks minus the equivalent of your time-off days). For example, five overtime hours per week at 1.5 times $25 per hour over 48 working weeks adds $9,000 to a base salary of $52,000, bringing total compensation to $61,000.
How do I account for paid holiday when converting salary to hourly?
If your holidays are paid, keep your salary the same and enter the holiday count in the "Public holidays per year" field. The calculator will use that to compute your adjusted working days and adjusted hourly rate. Do not reduce your weekly hours or your pay amount: you are paid for those days even though you are not working, so the base salary stays correct and only the adjusted rate changes.
Can I enter an hourly rate to find the annual salary?
Yes. Change the pay period selector to "Hourly" and type your hourly rate into the gross pay field. The calculator will multiply it by your weekly hours and 52 weeks to derive the annual figure, then show all other pay periods from there. This is the reverse-solve mode and it works for any pay period: entering a monthly amount will produce the equivalent annual, biweekly, weekly and hourly figures.