Hourly to Salary Calculator

An hourly to salary calculator turns a per-hour wage into the numbers people actually budget around - a yearly salary, a monthly paycheck, a weekly deposit. If you earn $25 an hour on a standard full-time schedule (40 hours a week, all 52 weeks), that is $52,000 a year, about $4,333 a month, and roughly $2,000 in every bi-weekly paycheck before taxes. The same tool works in reverse: enter a salary and it tells you the equivalent hourly rate, so you can compare an hourly job offer against a salaried one on a level playing field.

The formula

Converting between hourly and annual pay is straightforward multiplication and division:

Everything else is a slice of the annual figure. Once you know the yearly total, the other pay periods follow directly: divide by 12 for monthly, by 24 for semi-monthly, by 26 for bi-weekly, and by 52 for weekly. The product of hours per week and weeks per year is your total working hours - 2,080 for a classic full-time year.

Definitions and key terms

• Hourly rate: the amount you are paid for one hour of work, before taxes.
• Annual salary: total gross pay for a full year of work at that rate and schedule.
• Hours per week: your typical scheduled hours; 40 is full-time in the U.S.
• Weeks per year: how many weeks you are actually paid. Use 52 if your time off is paid; fewer if some weeks are unpaid.
• Bi-weekly: paid every two weeks, 26 checks a year.
• Semi-monthly: paid twice a month, 24 checks a year.
• Gross vs. net: gross is before deductions; net (take-home) is what lands in your account after tax and withholding.

How to use this calculator

You need only two or three numbers to get a realistic figure. Work through the fields in order:

1. Pick a direction: use the toggle to choose "Hourly → Salary" or "Salary → Hourly" depending on which number you already know.
2. Enter the known amount: type your hourly rate or your annual salary. The quick-pick buttons fill common values.
3. Set hours per week: 40 for full-time; lower it for part-time. Half-hours are allowed (for example 37.5).
4. Set weeks per year: 52 if your PTO is paid; 50 or 48 if you take unpaid time off.
5. Read the result: the big number at the top is your converted pay, and the table below breaks it into every pay period.

Worked example 1: $20/hr full-time

You are offered $20 an hour for a full-time role (40 hours, 52 weeks). The math is $20 × 40 × 52 = $41,600 per year. Split across pay periods that is about $3,467 monthly, $1,600 bi-weekly, and $800 weekly - all gross. After a rough 22% withholding, take-home lands near $32,400 a year. This is the number to compare against a salaried offer, not the headline $20.

Worked example 2: part-time, unpaid weeks off

Now suppose you work 30 hours a week at $28/hr but take four unpaid weeks off, so you are paid for only 48 weeks. The annual total is $28 × 30 × 48 = $40,320 - noticeably less than a full-time year at the same rate, because both the reduced hours and the unpaid weeks pull the total down. This is exactly why the weeks-per-year input matters: leaving it at 52 would overstate your real pay by about $3,360.

Worked example 3: salary back to hourly

You hold a $78,000 salaried job and want to know your effective hourly rate. In "Salary → Hourly" mode, dividing by a standard 2,080 hours gives $78,000 ÷ 2,080 = $37.50 per hour. But if you actually work 50-hour weeks, the real rate is $78,000 ÷ (50 × 52) = $30.00 per hour. Adjusting hours per week to match reality is the most honest way to compare a demanding salaried role against an hourly one.

Quick reference: $/hour to yearly salary

Common hourly rates at a full-time 40-hour, 52-week schedule (2,080 hours), gross:

Who this calculator is for

• Job seekers comparing an hourly offer to a salaried one - convert both to annual gross to compare apples to apples.
• Hourly and gig workers who want to know their realistic yearly income given their actual hours and weeks.
• Freelancers and contractors setting a rate: work backward from a target salary to the hourly rate you need to charge.
• Budgeters translating a yearly number into the weekly or bi-weekly amount that hits their bank account.
• Employers and recruiters sanity-checking how a posted rate reads as an annual figure.

Gross vs. take-home pay

Every number this tool produces is gross - before taxes and deductions. Real take-home pay is lower because of federal income tax, state income tax (in most states), Social Security and Medicare (FICA, currently 7.65% on most wages), and any health insurance or retirement contributions. The calculator shows a rough take-home figure using a flat 22% combined withholding, which is only a ballpark; a low earner in a no-income-tax state keeps far more, while a high earner in a high-tax state keeps less. For a precise paycheck, use the Paycheck Calculator or the Income Tax Calculator.

Tips for an accurate estimate

• Match weeks to your pay reality: 52 for paid PTO, fewer for unpaid time off.
• Use your true average hours, including consistent extra hours - but model overtime separately if it is paid at a premium.
• Compare on annual gross, the one figure that works across hourly, salaried, weekly, and monthly offers.
• Count benefits too: employer-paid insurance, retirement match, and paid leave are real compensation a bare hourly rate hides.

Salaried vs. hourly: which pays more?

At the same headline rate, a salaried and an hourly job are rarely equal once you account for how each one treats time and risk. A salaried role usually pays you for all 52 weeks - vacation, sick days, and the occasional slow week are all covered - which is why salaried workers normally use 52 weeks in this calculator. Hourly work typically pays only for hours actually clocked, so an unpaid week, a cut shift, or a slow season directly trims the annual total. That makes hourly income more variable: a great month and a thin month can sit side by side.

Hourly work has one structural advantage, though - overtime. Under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), most non-exempt hourly employees must be paid at least time-and-a-half (1.5×) for hours over 40 in a week. A salaried, exempt employee who works 55-hour weeks earns nothing extra for those 15 hours, while an hourly worker at the same base rate would. To compare two offers honestly, convert each to annual gross at realistic hours, layer in expected overtime for the hourly role with the Overtime Calculator, and only then add the value of benefits like health insurance and a retirement match.

Annual working hours, PTO and the 2,080 convention

The figure 2,080 - 40 hours × 52 weeks - is the standard "full-time year" that payroll and HR use to translate salaries into hourly equivalents. It is a convention, not a law of nature. Two adjustments commonly bend it. First, many full-time schedules are 37.5 hours (a 40-hour week minus an unpaid half-hour lunch each day), which yields 1,950 paid hours and a noticeably higher effective hourly rate on the same salary. Second, paid time off does not reduce the 2,080 figure because you are still paid for those weeks; only unpaid time off should lower your weeks-per-year input. A federal-style schedule of about 11 paid holidays plus two or three weeks of paid vacation still counts as a full 52-paid-week year. The practical rule: change hours per week for your real schedule, and change weeks per year only for weeks you are genuinely not paid.

What changes your real take-home the most

Two people converting the same $30/hr to a salary can end up with very different cash in the bank. The biggest levers, roughly in order of impact:

• Hours and weeks worked: the inputs that scale the gross figure directly - a 25% cut in hours is a 25% cut in pay.
• State income tax: nine states levy no wage income tax at all, while top combined rates elsewhere exceed 10%; on the same salary that swing alone can be thousands a year.
• Filing status and dependents: standard deduction, brackets, and credits differ for single, married, and head-of-household filers, so the flat 22% estimate here over- or under-states many people's real rate.
• Pre-tax deductions: 401(k) contributions, HSA deposits, and pre-tax health premiums lower taxable income and shrink the tax bite - which the gross-only view does not capture.
• Overtime and bonuses: extra earnings push some income into a higher bracket and change the effective rate. After a raise, the Pay Raise Calculator shows the new annual and per-period figures.

Reading the pay-period table

Once the annual gross is set, the table breaks it into the rhythms real paychecks follow. Weekly (52 checks) and monthly (12 checks) are intuitive, but the two that confuse people are bi-weekly and semi-monthly. Bi-weekly means every two weeks - 26 checks a year - so two calendar months always contain three paychecks, and each check is the annual figure divided by 26. Semi-monthly means twice a month, almost always 24 checks, so each is the annual divided by 24 and the dates (often the 15th and last day) stay fixed. Bi-weekly checks are slightly smaller per check but you get two "extra" ones a year; semi-monthly checks are a touch larger but never include a third paycheck in a month. Knowing which schedule your employer uses is what makes the per-check number on this page match your actual deposit. To convert a finished salary straight into per-period pay without the hourly step, the Salary Calculator covers the same breakdown.

Related concepts and calculators

This page answers "what does my hourly rate add up to (or vice versa)?" For neighboring questions, a sister tool fits better:

• To compute premium pay for hours over 40, use the Overtime Calculator.
• To see your new pay after a percentage increase, use the Pay Raise Calculator.
• For an estimated after-tax paycheck, use the Paycheck Calculator; for full-year tax, the Income Tax Calculator.
• To split a known salary into pay periods directly, use the Salary Calculator.
• For business pricing, the Margin, Markup, and Profit Margin calculators convert between cost, price, and profit the same way this one converts between pay periods.

Limitations and assumptions

This calculator is a quick planning estimate, not a payroll system. Keep its assumptions in mind:

• Every hour is assumed to be paid at the same base rate; overtime, shift differentials, tips, commissions, and bonuses are not modeled.
• The take-home figure uses a flat 22% withholding as a rough placeholder - it does not reflect your filing status, state, brackets, or pre-tax deductions.
• Pay-period counts are the standard 52 / 26 / 24 / 12; an employer on an unusual cycle may differ slightly.
• It assumes a steady schedule across the year, so highly seasonal or variable-hours work is best modeled by lowering weeks per year to your true paid weeks.
• Results are gross estimates only and are not tax, legal, or financial advice.

Sources

• U.S. Department of Labor - Overtime Pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
• Internal Revenue Service - Tax Withholding Estimator.
• Social Security Administration - FICA / Social Security and Medicare contribution rates.