Work out what your overtime hours are worth at time-and-a-half or double-time, and what lands in your account once tax comes out.
| Regular hours | — |
| Overtime | — |
| Gross this week | — |
| Estimated taxFederal, FICA and state | — |
Under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, non-exempt employees must be paid at least one and a half times their regular rate for hours worked beyond 40 in a workweek. The workweek is a fixed, recurring 168-hour period — your employer defines when it starts, but it cannot be shifted around to avoid paying overtime.
There is no federal requirement for daily overtime. Working twelve hours on Monday and four on Tuesday produces no overtime if the week totals 40. Several states do impose daily rules on top of the federal weekly one — California requires time-and-a-half beyond eight hours in a day and double-time beyond twelve, and Alaska, Nevada and Colorado have daily provisions of their own.
Exempt employees — generally salaried workers above a threshold performing executive, administrative or professional duties — are not entitled to overtime at all. Job title alone does not determine exemption; the duties test and the salary threshold both have to be met.
This catches people out. The FLSA calculates overtime on your regular rate, which includes non-discretionary bonuses, shift differentials and commissions — not just your base hourly figure.
If you earn $20 an hour plus a $200 production bonus in a 50-hour week, your regular rate is not $20. It is total straight-time pay divided by hours worked, which raises the rate your overtime premium is calculated against. Employers get this wrong frequently, and it is one of the more common wage claims.
This calculator uses your base hourly rate. If you receive regular non-discretionary bonuses, your actual overtime entitlement is higher than the figure shown.
The most persistent myth about overtime is that it is taxed more heavily, and it is worth being precise about why it feels that way.
Overtime is ordinary wage income taxed at exactly the same rates as the rest of your pay. What changes is withholding. Payroll systems generally annualise each paycheck — they take the amount in front of them and assume you earn that every period. A week with ten overtime hours looks, to the withholding calculation, like a permanently higher salary, so more is withheld.
Over a full year it evens out, and any over-withholding comes back at filing. The extra hours never cost you more in tax than the same income earned as regular pay.
No. It is ordinary wage income taxed at your normal rates. It often has more withheld because payroll systems annualise each paycheck, which makes a high week look like a higher salary — but that resolves at filing.
Federally, after 40 in a workweek. There is no federal daily rule. Some states add one — California requires time-and-a-half beyond 8 hours in a day and double-time beyond 12.
No. Overtime is calculated on a fixed single workweek. Averaging across two weeks to bring the total under 80 hours is not permitted for non-exempt employees.
Only if they are non-exempt. Exemption requires both a salary above the threshold and duties that meet the executive, administrative or professional test. A job title alone does not make someone exempt.