Working 48 hours at $25 an hour with a 40-hour threshold pays $1,300 gross: $1,000 of regular pay plus 8 overtime hours at the $37.50 time-and-a-half rate.
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Overtime isn't a multiplier applied to a whole paycheck. It's a premium on the hours past a threshold, usually 40, in a single fixed workweek, and nowhere else. Everything below the threshold pays at your regular rate; only the hours above it get the boost.
Multiply the hours over your threshold by your regular rate, then by the multiplier, and add that to your regular pay. Everything below the threshold stays at the regular rate.
The Fair Labor Standards Act bars averaging hours across two or more weeks to dodge overtime. A 30-hour week followed by a 50-hour week still owes 10 hours of overtime in that second week alone, full stop, regardless of how light the first week was. The FLSA also doesn't require extra pay for nights, weekends or holidays as such, only for hours worked past the 40-hour line.
Take 48 hours at a $25 regular rate with a 40-hour threshold and a 1.5 multiplier. The first 40 hours pay at $25, for $1,000. The remaining 8 pay at $25 times 1.5, or $37.50 each, for $300. Gross pay is $1,300. Switch the multiplier to 2 for a double-time arrangement and those same 8 hours pay $50 each instead, for $400, bringing the total to $1,400.
| Regular rate | Time and a half (1.5×) | Double time (2×) |
|---|---|---|
| $15.00 | $22.50 | $30.00 |
| $20.00 | $30.00 | $40.00 |
| $25.00 | $37.50 | $50.00 |
| $30.00 | $45.00 | $60.00 |
Federal law never requires it. Double time exists only where a state or an employer's own policy adds it on top of the FLSA baseline. California is the best-known example, requiring double time past 12 hours in a single workday and for hours worked past 8 on a seventh consecutive workday. A handful of states also set their own daily overtime threshold below the federal 40-hour weekly mark, which is exactly why this tool lets you change the threshold field instead of locking it to 40.
The multiplier applies to your regular rate, and that rate isn't always just the number on your pay stub. Nondiscretionary bonuses and shift differentials, pay tied to hitting a target or working a particular shift, legally belong in the regular rate used for overtime, which pushes the true rate above a base-wage-only guess. If bonuses or differentials apply to your job, enter the adjusted rate above rather than your plain hourly wage.
A salary settles how you are paid, not whether the overtime rules apply to you. The FLSA exemptions turn on job duties plus a salary threshold, and a salaried employee who fails either test is nonexempt, overtime and all. For a salary that covers a standard 40-hour week, the conversion is one division: weekly salary over 40 gives the regular rate, and this tool takes it from there. Say the salary is $780 a week and the timesheet shows 46 hours.
| Item | Calculation | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Regular rate | $780 / 40 | $19.50/hr |
| Overtime rate | $19.50 x 1.5 | $29.25/hr |
| Salary, first 40 hours | $780.00 | |
| Overtime pay, 6 hours | 6 x $29.25 | $175.50 |
| Week's gross pay | $955.50 |
Paid semimonthly or monthly? Convert the salary to a weekly figure first (annual salary divided by 52), because overtime always settles week by week, never by pay period.
The number that belongs in the hours field is hours worked, and federal rules are picky about which minutes qualify. A bona fide meal period, ordinarily 30 minutes or longer with the employee fully relieved of duty, is not work time. Short breaks of roughly 5 to 20 minutes are work time and must be paid. So a 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. shift with an unpaid half-hour lunch is 9.5 hours worked, not 10, and across five days that half hour decides whether the week lands at 47.5 hours or 50. The trap runs the other way too. If payroll auto-deducts a lunch you actually worked through, those minutes were still hours worked, and past the threshold they are overtime minutes. The definitions live in DOL Fact Sheet 22, Hours Worked Under the FLSA.
Timekeeping systems are allowed to round punches to the nearest quarter hour, and the split falls at seven minutes: an 8:07 punch rounds back to 8:00, an 8:08 punch rounds forward to 8:15. Federal regulations (29 CFR 785.48) accept the practice only when it averages out neutrally over time. A system that always rounds in the employer's favor does not qualify. Rounding matters more in an overtime week because each quarter hour in play pays at the premium rate, $9.38 instead of $6.25 at a $25 regular rate.
The federal threshold counts hours worked, and only hours worked. Vacation, sick time and paid holidays add to the check without moving you toward 40. Take a week with a paid Monday holiday followed by five 8-hour days, Tuesday through Saturday: 48 paid hours, but only 40 worked, so federal law owes no overtime premium on any of them. Some employers count PTO toward the threshold anyway. That is a policy choice layered above the legal floor, so read the handbook before assuming it applies to you.
Set the rate to $18, hours to 60 and leave the threshold at 40. The results panel shows 40 regular hours worth $720, then 20 overtime hours at $27 for another $540, $1,260 in total. Worth noticing: those 20 extra hours are a third of the week's time but 42.9 percent of its pay. That lopsidedness is the entire point of the premium. Congress set it in 1938 partly to make long schedules expensive enough that employers would hire another worker instead, and the arithmetic still pushes in that direction.
Pay stubs display overtime two ways, and both are correct. Some show a single overtime line at the full 1.5 rate, matching this tool's output directly. Others show every hour at the straight rate on one line and a half-rate premium line for the overtime hours below it; add the premium line to the straight-time line covering those hours and you get the same total. What should never appear is an overtime line computed on fewer hours than your timesheet shows past the threshold. If the stub's overtime hours and your own count disagree, the gap usually traces back to an auto-deducted break or a rounding pattern, both covered above.
Sources: U.S. Department of Labor, Overtime Pay, DOL Fact Sheet 23, Overtime Pay Requirements of the FLSA.
No. The Department of Labor does not permit averaging hours across two or more workweeks. A 30-hour week followed by a 50-hour week still owes 10 hours of overtime in the second week alone.
It can. The FLSA regular rate used to calculate overtime can include certain nondiscretionary bonuses and shift differentials, not just your posted hourly wage, which raises the true overtime rate for workers who receive those extras.
Not on its own. Federal law measures overtime against 40 hours in the workweek, not hours in a single day, so four 10-hour days at 40 total hours owes no federal overtime. Some states add their own daily thresholds that could still apply.
Because not every schedule uses the federal default. Some states set a daily threshold, and some union or company agreements set their own, so the threshold field lets you model whichever number actually applies to your situation.
No. Double time means 2 times your regular rate, while time and a half means 1.5 times it. Federal law never requires double time; where it exists, it comes from state law or an employer policy layered on top of the FLSA baseline.
Not under federal law. The threshold counts hours actually worked, so a week with 8 holiday hours and 36 worked hours owes no federal overtime even though 44 hours were paid. Some employers count paid leave toward the threshold by policy, which is more generous than the law requires.
Yes. The FLSA requires pay, including overtime, for all hours an employer suffers or permits an employee to work, approved or not. An employer can discipline someone for working unauthorized overtime, but it cannot refuse to pay for it.
No. A biweekly paycheck covers two separate workweeks, and each one settles on its own. A 44-hour week followed by a 36-hour week owes 4 overtime hours from the first week even though the two-week total is exactly 80.
Slightly, yes. Quarter-hour rounding is permitted under 29 CFR 785.48 as long as it averages out neutrally over time. A system that consistently rounds punches in the employer's favor fails that test and can create back-pay liability for the rounded minutes.