Overtime Pay Calculator
The regular rate, then the multiplier
Your result will appear here
Fill in the fields on the left and this updates as you type.
Know what this estimate is based on
- Jurisdiction
- General mathematical model
- Scope and limitations
- Planning indicator only. It does not assess every part of a household's finances or replace individualized professional advice.
- Source links checked
- Jul 30, 2026
Built and regression-tested by Smart Tools Lab. It has not been individually reviewed by a licensed financial, tax, or legal professional.
How to use
- 01
Enter your stated hourly rate and the hours you actually WORKED this week. Hours worked, not hours paid — the trigger is work, so a week of 40 worked hours plus 8 hours of holiday pay is not a 48-hour week.
- 02
Add the three kinds of pay that go INTO the rate before the multiplier ever appears: a nondiscretionary bonus (anything promised, announced or expected — attendance, production, safety, retention), a shift differential for nights, weekends or hazard, and any commission earned in the same week.
- 03
If you worked a second hourly rate in the same week, enter that rate and its hours. The page switches to the weighted average, which is what the FLSA requires absent a prior agreement.
- 04
Set the weeks a year you work a week like this, then open Advanced for the pay that stays OUT of the rate: paid holiday, vacation and sick hours, a genuinely discretionary bonus, and any hours a state law or contract pays at double time.
- 05
Read the regular rate first, then the stat labelled "Left on the table by using your stated rate". The overtime threshold and both multipliers are editable — California pays daily overtime over 8 and double time over 12, Colorado over 12, Nevada over 8 below one and a half times the minimum wage.
Formula
Regular rate = (straight-time earnings at every rate worked + nondiscretionary bonus + shift differential + commission) ÷ hours actually worked. Overtime hours = hours worked − threshold (FLSA 40). Any double-time hours come out of those first. Premium = overtime-only hours × regular rate × (multiplier − 1) + double-time hours × regular rate × (double-time multiplier − 1). Note it is the PREMIUM: the straight-time half of each overtime hour is already inside the includable pay. Gross = includable pay + premium + excluded pay, where excluded pay = paid leave hours × hourly rate + discretionary bonus. Excluded pay is paid to you but never enters the numerator. The stated-rate comparison runs the same premium formula with your hourly rate in place of the regular rate; the shortfall is the difference, and the annual figure multiplies it by the weeks you work.
Example
$22.00 an hour, 50 hours actually worked, and a $200 nondiscretionary weekly bonus. Straight time is $1,100, so includable compensation is $1,300 and the regular rate is $1,300 ÷ 50 = $26.00 an hour — the offer letter's $22.00 is not the number overtime is owed on. Ten hours cross the 40-hour line, and the premium is the extra half: 10 × $26.00 × 0.5 = $130. The overtime rate itself is $39.00 against the $33.00 an employer reaches by multiplying the stated rate. Gross for the week is $1,430. Multiplying the stated rate instead pays $110 of premium — $20.00 short this week and $960 across 48 weeks. The ladder underneath shows why the answer is not linear: at 55 hours the same $200 bonus is spread across more hours, so the regular rate falls to $25.64 while the premium rises to $192 and gross reaches $1,602.
Definitions
- Regular rate
- Total includable compensation for the workweek divided by the hours actually worked. Not your stated hourly rate, not an average of your rates, and the only number the overtime multiplier is lawfully applied to.
- Nondiscretionary bonus
- A bonus promised, announced or expected in advance, or tied to a formula — attendance, production, safety, retention. Includable in the regular rate whatever the plan document calls it.
- Discretionary bonus
- One where the employer kept discretion over both the fact and the amount until at or near the end of the period, with nothing promised beforehand. Excluded from the rate under section 7(e)(3)(a).
- Workweek
- A fixed and recurring period of 168 hours — seven consecutive 24-hour periods. The employer picks when it starts and may change it, but not to evade overtime. It is the unit for overtime, and the pay period is not.
- Weighted average
- Total straight-time earnings across all rates divided by total hours worked, used as the regular rate when two or more rates were worked in one week.
- Overtime premium
- The extra half (or extra full, at double time) owed on hours past the threshold. The straight-time portion of an overtime hour is already counted in ordinary wages.
Good to know
The regular rate is the whole of it
Overtime is not time and a half of your hourly rate. It is time and a half of the REGULAR RATE, and the two are the same number only in the special case where your hourly rate is the entirety of what you were paid for the week. The regular rate is defined as an average: total includable compensation for the workweek divided by the hours actually worked. So the arithmetic runs in an order most payslips never show — everything includable is added up first, the division produces a rate, and only then does the multiplier appear. DOL Fact Sheet 56A names three things that belong in that numerator and that people routinely leave out: nondiscretionary bonuses, shift differentials and commissions. The Department's own worked example is worth memorising because it is the shape of almost every real case: $20 an hour plus a $200 nondiscretionary weekly bonus over 50 hours gives $1,200 of includable pay, a regular rate of $24.00, and a premium owed on $24.00 rather than on $20.00. The default week on this page is the same shape one notch up. $22.00 an hour for 50 worked hours is $1,100 of straight time; add the $200 bonus and includable compensation is $1,300; divide by the 50 hours actually worked and the regular rate is $26.00. The overtime rate is $39.00, not the $33.00 that multiplying the stated rate produces. Ten hours cross the line, so the premium is 10 × $26.00 × 0.5 = $130 against $110 — $20.00 a week, $960 across 48 weeks, and about $1,920 across the ordinary two-year reach-back before liquidated damages are considered. One detail in the arithmetic that confuses people the first time: the premium is only the EXTRA half. The straight-time portion of each overtime hour is already inside the $1,300, which is why the page reports $130 rather than $390 and why gross for the week comes to $1,430.
Nondiscretionary is a legal test, not a label
The single most common defence to an unpaid-overtime claim is that the bonus was discretionary, and it fails far more often than employers expect, because section 7(e)(3)(a) sets a two-part test and both parts must hold. The employer must retain discretion over THE FACT of the payment — whether to pay it at all — and over ITS AMOUNT, and must retain both until at or near the end of the period. On top of that, the payment must not have been promised, announced or expected. That last clause does most of the work. A bonus announced in advance is nondiscretionary however the plan describes it: an attendance bonus posted on the break-room wall, a production bonus with a published formula, a safety bonus for a quarter without an incident, a retention bonus in an offer letter, a per-piece or per-delivery incentive. All of them are includable, and all of them raise the regular rate for every workweek they cover. What genuinely stays out is narrow. A surprise payment at year end with nothing said beforehand qualifies. So do gifts on special occasions where the amount is not measured by hours worked or production. Section 7(e)(2) separately excludes payments for occasional periods when no work is performed — holiday, vacation and sick pay — along with expense reimbursements and benefit contributions, which is why this page gives paid leave and a discretionary bonus their own fields and keeps them out of the numerator while still counting them in gross. Two practical consequences follow. First, a bonus that covers more than one week has to be apportioned back over the weeks it was earned in, with additional overtime paid on each of them — a quarterly production bonus can generate a small overtime correction across thirteen separate weeks. Second, the label on the payroll code is evidence of nothing at all; what matters is what was communicated, when, and whether anybody could have predicted the payment.
Hours worked, and the week they are counted in
Two boundaries decide whether overtime is owed at all, and both are narrower than intuition suggests. The first is the unit. Overtime is measured on the WORKWEEK: a fixed and recurring period of 168 hours, seven consecutive 24-hour periods, which the employer may position wherever it likes and may change, but not for the purpose of evading overtime. It is emphatically not the pay period. Hours are never averaged across the two weeks of a biweekly period, so 50 hours one week and 30 the next owes ten hours of overtime even though the average is exactly 40 and the total is exactly 80. The second boundary is what counts as an hour. The trigger is hours WORKED, and paid-but-not-worked hours are excluded twice over: they never count toward the 40, and under section 7(e)(2) they never enter the regular-rate numerator. A week of 32 worked hours plus 8 hours of holiday pay is 40 hours of pay and 32 hours worked, and no overtime is owed on it. This page therefore keeps paid leave in its own advanced field, where it lands in gross pay and nowhere else. Beyond the federal floor the picture fragments completely. There is no federal daily overtime, no federal double time, and no federal premium for a night, a weekend or a holiday — every one of those is state law or a contract term. California pays daily overtime past 8 hours and double time past 12; Colorado pays past 12 in a day; Nevada pays past 8 in a day for anyone earning under one and a half times the minimum wage. That is precisely why the threshold, the multiplier and the double-time multiplier ship as editable fields on this page rather than as constants: a hardcoded 40 and 1.5 would be quietly wrong for millions of workers, and a page that looks authoritative while being wrong is worse than one that asks.
Two rates, exempt status, and what to do with a shortfall
Three loose ends, each of which decides real money. When two hourly rates are worked in one week — a different rate for a second role, a training rate, a higher rate on one site — the regular rate is the weighted average: total straight-time earnings divided by total hours worked, with half of that owed for each overtime hour. It is not the rate you happened to be on when the 40th hour passed, and it is not the higher of the two. The FLSA does allow an alternative, paying the premium at the rate applicable to the work actually performed during the overtime hours, but only where the employee agreed or understood that BEFORE the work was done; a decision made in the payroll office afterwards does not qualify. Exempt status is the second loose end, and salary alone never establishes it. The threshold is $684 a week, or $35,568 a year — the 2024 rule that would have raised it to $844 and then $1,128 was vacated nationwide by the Eastern District of Texas on 15 November 2024, and the Department published a technical amendment on 15 May 2026 restoring the 2019 text. Highly compensated employees sit at $107,432. Above either figure a duties test must still be satisfied, and California and Colorado set their own thresholds far higher and index them annually. The third is what to do when the numbers on this page do not match the payslip. Unpaid overtime is recoverable for two years under 29 U.S.C. 216(b), three where the violation was wilful, and liquidated damages can double the award — so a $20.00 weekly gap is a four-figure question rather than a rounding complaint. Start by asking payroll which base rate the overtime line was computed on, because the answer is usually a candid "the hourly rate field" and the correction is arithmetic rather than adversarial. Keep your own copy of the payslips and the bonus announcements; the announcement is what proves the bonus was nondiscretionary.
Frequently asked questions
Is overtime just 1.5 times my hourly rate?
Only if your hourly rate is your entire compensation for the week. Overtime is owed on the FLSA regular rate, which is total includable compensation for the workweek divided by the hours actually worked. At $22 an hour for 50 hours with a $200 nondiscretionary weekly bonus, the regular rate is $1,300 over 50 hours — $26.00, not $22.00. The overtime rate is $39.00, not $33.00, and the premium owed is $130 rather than $110.
Does a bonus really change my overtime pay?
A nondiscretionary one does, and DOL Fact Sheet 56A is explicit about it. Attendance, production, safety, retention and any bonus tied to a formula are all includable compensation, so they are added to the week's earnings before the division that produces the regular rate. Shift differentials and commissions go in the same way. This is where nearly every underpayment comes from, and it is usually honest: payroll software takes the hourly rate from one field and the bonus from another and never introduces them.
What makes a bonus genuinely discretionary?
Section 7(e)(3)(a) sets a two-part test and both parts must hold. The employer must retain discretion over the FACT of the payment and over its AMOUNT until at or near the end of the period, and the payment must not have been promised, announced or expected. A bonus announced in advance is nondiscretionary whatever the plan document calls it — the word on the cheque decides nothing. A genuine surprise at year end, with nothing said beforehand, stays out of the rate.
Do my holiday and vacation hours count toward the 40?
No. The trigger is hours WORKED, so paid-but-not-worked hours never count toward the threshold and, under section 7(e)(2), never enter the regular rate either. A week of 32 worked hours plus 8 hours of holiday pay is 40 hours of pay and 32 hours worked, and no overtime is owed however the payslip totals it. Turn it round and 40 worked hours plus 8 hours of holiday pays those 8 at straight time. Plenty of employers pay overtime on such weeks anyway as policy — that is generosity, not law.
Do I get overtime for a long day, a Saturday or a holiday?
Not under federal law. There is no federal daily overtime, no federal double time and no federal weekend, night or holiday premium — the FLSA counts hours worked over 40 in the workweek and nothing else. Everything else is state law or your own contract, which is why the threshold, the multiplier and the double-time multiplier are all fields you can overwrite here rather than constants.
What if I worked two different rates in the same week?
The premium runs on the weighted average, not on whichever rate you happened to be on when the 40th hour passed: total straight-time earnings divided by total hours worked, then half of that per overtime hour. The FLSA does permit an alternative — paying the premium at the rate applicable to the work performed during the overtime hours — but only with the employee's agreement or understanding reached BEFORE the work is done. Absent that, the weighted average governs.
I am on a salary. Does any of this apply to me?
A salary does not by itself make you exempt, and the bar is lower than most people assume. The threshold stands at $684 a week, or $35,568 a year — the 2024 rule that would have raised it to $844 then $1,128 was vacated nationwide on 15 November 2024, and the Department published a technical amendment on 15 May 2026 restoring the 2019 text. Highly compensated employees sit at $107,432. Above either figure a duties test still has to be met, and a job title is not a duty.
How far back can unpaid overtime be claimed?
Two years under 29 U.S.C. 216(b), three where the violation was wilful, and liquidated damages can double the recovery. On the default week here the shortfall is $20.00 — trivial on its own, $960 across 48 weeks, and roughly $1,920 across the ordinary two-year reach before any doubling. That is the reason a $20 weekly arithmetic error is worth checking rather than shrugging at.