What is time and a half for $20 an hour?

$30 an hour. Time and a half means the base rate multiplied by 1.5, so $20 becomes $30, $15 becomes $22.50, and $25 becomes $37.50. Only the hours past the threshold are paid at that rate — the hours below it are still paid at the base rate. Ten overtime hours at $20 base therefore add $300, not $1,100, on top of a $800 regular week.

Is overtime calculated daily or weekly?

Under federal law it is weekly: the Fair Labor Standards Act requires at least 1.5× the regular rate for hours worked beyond 40 in a fixed, recurring workweek, and it has no daily trigger at all. A handful of states add a stricter daily rule on top — California is the well-known one, at 1.5× beyond 8 hours a day and 2× beyond 12. Where both apply, the same hour is not counted twice. Which rule applies to you depends on where the work was performed, so check your state labor agency; this page is general information, not legal advice.

When do you get double time?

Federal law does not require double time at any number of hours — 1.5× is the federal floor and nothing more. Double time normally comes from one of two places: a state rule, such as California's 2× beyond 12 hours in a day and beyond 8 hours on a seventh consecutive workday, or a contract, union agreement, or employer policy that promises it past a certain weekly total or on holidays. This calculator lets you switch double time on and set the hour it starts, because that hour is a policy choice rather than a legal constant.

How is overtime calculated if I work two different pay rates?

The premium is priced from a weighted average, not from whichever rate the overtime hours happened to land in. The federal method is to add up all straight-time earnings for the week, divide by the total hours worked to get the regular rate, and then pay an extra half of that rate for each hour beyond 40. Thirty hours at $18 and fifteen at $24 is $900 of straight time over 45 hours, a $20 regular rate, and 0.5 × $20 × 5 = $50 of premium — $950 in total.

Does paid time off count toward the 40-hour overtime threshold?

Generally no. Federal overtime is owed on hours actually worked, and vacation, holiday, and sick hours are paid but not worked. A week of 32 worked hours plus an 8-hour paid holiday usually shows 40 hours on the check without triggering federal overtime, and a 44-hour week that includes an 8-hour holiday usually owes overtime on only the 36 hours over the threshold if the holiday is excluded. Some employers and union contracts are more generous than the federal floor, so read your policy.

Who is exempt from overtime?

Exempt employees are those whose job duties and compensation meet a specific test under the Fair Labor Standards Act — commonly described as the executive, administrative, professional, outside sales, and certain computer exemptions — and being paid a salary alone does not make anyone exempt. Some state tests are stricter than the federal one. Classification turns on facts about the actual work, so if you think yours is wrong, the US Department of Labor and your state labor agency are the places to ask. Nothing here is legal or employment advice.

Is overtime taxed at a higher rate?

Overtime is not a separate tax category — it is ordinary wages and is taxed like the rest of your pay. What can make a big overtime check look over-taxed is withholding: payroll systems often annualise a single large paycheck as though every week looked like that one, which pushes more of it into a higher withholding bracket for that check. The year-end reconciliation on your tax return corrects it. Every figure on this page is gross pay, before any withholding.

Finance

Overtime Calculator

Overtime pay = hourly rate × 1.5 × overtime hours, added to straight time on the hours below the threshold. Price a week under the federal 40-hour rule, a California-style daily rule, or a blended rate across two jobs — with double time optional and every step shown.

Your week

Overtime rule

Hourly rate

Your base rate before any premium

Hours worked this week

Total hours actually worked — paid leave does not count toward the threshold

Overtime starts after

40 under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act

Overtime multiplier

Time and a half is the federal minimum for covered hours

Pay double time beyond a second weekly threshold

Total gross pay this week

$1,100.00

40 h regular + 10 h overtime

Rule applied

Federal weekly rule — overtime after 40 hours in a workweek. State rules vary — check the rule where the work was performed.

Regular $800.00Overtime $300.00

Regular pay

$800.00

Overtime pay

$300.00

Overtime rate

$30.00/hr

Premium earned

$100.00

Total hours

50 h

Effective rate

$22.00/hr

Gross pay before tax and deductions. An estimate for your own use — it is not legal or employment advice, and it cannot tell you whether a particular arrangement is lawful.

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The basics

What overtime pay actually is

An overtime hour is not paid entirely differently from a regular one. It is a regular hour plus a premium — and separating those two halves is what makes every other rule on this page easy to read. The federal Fair Labor Standards Act sets the floor: at least one and a half times the regular rate for hours worked beyond 40 in a workweek. States and contracts can require more, never less.

pay = rate × reg + rate × 1.5 × ot

The whole calculation, in one line

Straight time on the hours below the threshold, the premium rate on the hours above it, added together. Everything else — daily rules, double time, more than one rate — only changes which hours land in which bucket.

$20.00 × 40 + $30.00 × 10 = $1,100.00

premium = 0.5 × rate × ot hours

Only the extra half is new money

Every hour is already owed at the base rate, so what overtime adds is the half on top. Thinking of it this way is what makes the multiple-rate case below make sense, and it is exactly how the federal method is written.

0.5 × $20.00 × 10 = $100.00 on top of $1,000.00 straight time

Method

How to work out overtime pay by hand

Four steps. The arithmetic is a multiplication; the care goes into steps one and two, where most real disputes actually live.

1
Count the hours you actually worked in the workweek
The workweek is a fixed, recurring block of seven days that the employer designates — not the calendar week, and not the pay period. Hours worked means time on the job, so paid leave is generally excluded from h even though it appears on the check.
h = 50 hours worked · paid leave excluded
2
Split the hours at the threshold
Everything up to the threshold t is straight time; everything beyond it is overtime. Federally the threshold is forty hours a week. Under a daily rule you split each day first, at eight and again at twelve, and only then apply the weekly line to whatever straight-time hours remain.
regular = 40 h · overtime = 10 h
3
Build the overtime rate from the regular rate
Multiply the regular rate r by the premium multiplier. The regular rate is not always the base rate on your offer letter — it generally includes non-discretionary bonuses and shift differentials, and it is a weighted average when more than one rate was worked.
$20.00 × 1.5 = $30.00 per hour
4
Price each bucket and add them up
Regular hours at the base rate, overtime hours at the premium rate, and any double-time hours at twice the base. The sum is gross pay for the week, before tax and deductions.
$800.00 + $300.00 = $1,100.00

Which rule applies

Weekly, daily, or both — and which one this calculator used

This is the question that decides the answer, and it is the one most overtime calculators quietly skip. The federal weekly rule applies everywhere in the United States. A few states layer a daily rule on top, and where both exist the same hour is never counted twice. The tool above states the rule it applied directly beside the result, and you can switch between them.

over 40 in a workweek

The federal weekly rule

The Fair Labor Standards Act baseline, and the default in most states. It has no concept of a long day: four twelve-hour shifts in a week trigger nothing federally, because the total is still under the weekly line.

46 h at $20.00 = $980.00 · 6 h at $30.00

over 8 in a day

A daily rule, California-style

A premium starts inside the day rather than at the end of the week, and a second tier usually starts later in the same day. The same hours can therefore pay differently depending only on how they were distributed across the days.

Same 46 h split 14/8/8/8/8 = $1,000.00 · 4 h premium + 2 h double

State	Daily trigger	Seventh consecutive day
California	1.5× after 8 hrs/day; 2× after 12 hrs/day	1.5× for the first 8 hrs on the 7th consecutive day in a workweek; 2× beyond
Alaska	1.5× after 8 hrs/day	—
Nevada	1.5× after 8 hrs/day for employees earning under 1.5× the state minimum wage	—
Colorado	1.5× after 12 hrs/day, or after 12 consecutive hours	—
Oregon	Daily overtime in certain manufacturing and mill settings	—
Puerto Rico	1.5× after 8 hrs/day under local law	—
Most other states	No daily rule — the federal weekly threshold applies	—

Summaries only, for orientation. State rules change, exemptions and industry-specific wage orders apply, and this is not legal or employment advice — check your state labor agency or the US Department of Labor for the rule actually in force.

Worked examples

Six weeks, priced end to end

The same engine run across the situations people actually bring to an overtime calculator — a plain long week, a lower rate, a contractual double-time tier, a salary converted to an hourly rate first, a set of long California days, and a week split across two pay rates. Each tab names the rule it assumes.

The federal baseline. Forty hours at the base rate, ten at time and a half — the case every other rule is a variation on.

Rule applied: Federal weekly rule: 1.5× beyond 40 hours in the workweek.

Given rate $20.00/hr, 50 h worked

Hours split: 40 regular · 10 overtime

Overtime rate: $20.00 × 1.5 = $30.00/hr

Regular pay: $20.00 × 40 = $800.00

Overtime pay: $30.00 × 10 = $300.00

Total gross pay = $1,100.00

$22.00/hr effective

Quick chart

What does a 45, 50 or 60-hour week pay at my rate?

Every common hourly rate priced across every common weekly hour total. Switch to the overtime-only view to see the premium on its own, flip the multiplier to double time, or move the threshold if a contract sets overtime somewhere other than forty hours.

Show

Multiplier

Overtime after

Hourly rate	42 h week	45 h week	48 h week	50 h week	55 h week	60 h week
$12.00/hr	$516	$570	$624	$660	$750	$840
$14.00/hr	$602	$665	$728	$770	$875	$980
$15.00/hr	$645	$713	$780	$825	$938	$1,050
$16.00/hr	$688	$760	$832	$880	$1,000	$1,120
$17.00/hr	$731	$808	$884	$935	$1,063	$1,190
$18.00/hr	$774	$855	$936	$990	$1,125	$1,260
$20.00/hr	$860	$950	$1,040	$1,100	$1,250	$1,400
$22.00/hr	$946	$1,045	$1,144	$1,210	$1,375	$1,540
$25.00/hr	$1,075	$1,188	$1,300	$1,375	$1,563	$1,750
$28.00/hr	$1,204	$1,330	$1,456	$1,540	$1,750	$1,960
$30.00/hr	$1,290	$1,425	$1,560	$1,650	$1,875	$2,100
$35.00/hr	$1,505	$1,663	$1,820	$1,925	$2,188	$2,450
$40.00/hr	$1,720	$1,900	$2,080	$2,200	$2,500	$2,800
$50.00/hr	$2,150	$2,375	$2,600	$2,750	$3,125	$3,500

Every figure assumes the federal weekly rule — straight time up to 40 hours, then 1.5× beyond — with one flat base rate and no daily overtime. Gross pay, before tax. Where a state or contract sets a stricter rule, the amount owed can be higher.

The regular rate

Two pay rates in one week, and the blended rate

When a week contains more than one rate — two jobs for the same employer, a shift differential, a non-discretionary bonus — the premium is not priced from whichever rate the overtime hours happened to fall in. The federal method builds a weighted average first, and it is very often lower than the rate people expect.

regular rate = straight pay ÷ hours

Build the weighted average first

Add up everything earned at straight time across every rate in the workweek, then divide by the total hours worked. That quotient is the regular rate the premium is built from, whatever order the hours were worked in.

$900.00 ÷ 45 h = $20.00/hr

premium = 0.5 × blended × ot hours

Then add the half on the overtime hours

Because every hour has already been paid at its own rate, only the extra half is still owed. Adding a full premium rate on top of straight-time pay double-counts the base and overstates the check.

0.5 × $20.00 × 5 = $50.00 · total $950.00

Some employers use an alternative permitted method, and a few categories of pay — genuine discretionary bonuses, gifts, most reimbursements — are excluded from the regular rate entirely. If your payslip disagrees with this calculator, the regular rate is usually where the difference is.

Hours worked

What counts toward the threshold

Overtime is owed on hours worked, and that phrase is narrower than 'hours on the payslip' and wider than 'hours you were scheduled'. These are general descriptions of how the federal rules usually work; specific situations turn on their facts, and this is not legal advice.

Counts: short rest breaks: Breaks of roughly 20 minutes or less are generally treated as compensable hours worked under federal rules, so they count toward the weekly threshold.
Counts: work you were not asked to do: If an employer knows or has reason to know work is being performed, the time generally counts — including work taken home or done before a shift. 'Unauthorised' is not the same as 'unpaid'.
Counts: required training and travel between sites: Mandatory training and travel from one worksite to another during the day are usually hours worked. The ordinary home-to-work commute is not.
Does not count: bona fide meal periods: An uninterrupted meal break of 30 minutes or more, where the employee is genuinely relieved of duty, is generally not hours worked.
Does not count: paid leave, for the threshold: Vacation, holiday, and sick hours are paid but are not hours worked, so a 32-hour week plus an 8-hour holiday usually does not trigger federal overtime — even though the check shows 40 hours.
The workweek is fixed, not rolling: Overtime is measured against a fixed, recurring 168-hour week the employer designates. Hours cannot be averaged across two weeks to avoid the threshold.

Who is covered

Non-exempt, exempt, and the words in between

Every figure on this page assumes the hours are covered by an overtime requirement. Whether they are is a legal classification question, decided by duties and compensation rather than by whether pay is quoted per hour — and it is the single most common reason a calculated figure never appears on a check.

Non-exempt: Employees covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act's overtime provisions, who must be paid at least one and a half times the regular rate for hours beyond forty in a workweek. Most hourly employees are non-exempt, and salaried employees can be non-exempt too.
Exempt: Employees excluded from the overtime requirement because their duties and compensation meet a specific federal test, commonly grouped as executive, administrative, professional, outside sales, and certain computer roles. Several states apply their own, stricter versions of the same tests.
Regular rate of pay: The federal term for the hourly figure the premium is calculated from. It generally includes non-discretionary bonuses, shift differentials, and commissions, so it can sit above the base rate printed on an offer letter.
Workweek: A fixed and regularly recurring period of 168 hours — seven consecutive 24-hour days — that the employer designates. It need not match the calendar week or the pay period, but hours cannot be averaged across two of them to stay under the threshold.
Compensatory time: Paid time off given in place of an overtime payment. It is available to public-sector employers under specific conditions and is generally not permitted as a substitute for cash overtime in the private sector. Rules differ, so check before relying on it.
Fluctuating workweek: An alternative federal method under which a salaried non-exempt employee whose hours vary receives an extra half of a recalculated regular rate for overtime hours, rather than one and a half times a fixed rate. It has strict conditions and is not what this calculator models.

Worth knowing

Rules worth remembering

Six things that decide whether the number you calculated is the number you are owed.

1.5× is a floor, not a ceiling

Contracts can be more generous

Nothing prevents an employer or union agreement from paying a higher multiplier, from starting the premium earlier, or from paying it on holidays. Federal law sets the minimum; your contract sets what you actually get.

A 2× tier past 60 h turns a 66-hour week at $22.00 into $1,804.00

the week is fixed, not rolling

Hours cannot be averaged across weeks

A long week followed by a short one still owes the premium on the long week. Averaging two weeks to keep both under the threshold is a well-known way of getting the answer wrong.

50 h then 30 h still owes the $100.00 half on 10 hours — averaged to 40 and 40 it owes nothing

effective rate reveals the week

Total pay ÷ total hours tells the real story

A long week at a premium rate rarely pays as much per hour as the headline multiplier suggests, because most of the hours are still straight time. The effective rate is the honest comparison against another job.

$1,100.00 ÷ 50 h = $22.00/hr effective

salary does not decide it

Being salaried is not the same as exempt

Classification depends on duties and compensation together, not on the format the pay is quoted in. Salaried non-exempt employees exist, and for them the salary is converted to an hourly regular rate before the premium is applied.

unauthorised is not unpaid

Work the employer knew about counts

Time worked that the employer knew or should have known about generally counts toward the threshold, even where a policy required approval first. The remedy for unapproved overtime is discipline, not non-payment.

gross, always

Nothing here is take-home pay

Every figure on this page is before federal, state, and local tax, before Social Security and Medicare, and before any deduction. Overtime is ordinary wages for tax purposes; it only looks over-taxed because of how a large single check is withheld.

Common mistakes

Errors that move the answer

Four ways an overtime calculation goes wrong, in rough order of how often we see them.

1.5× on every hour

Applying the premium to the whole week

The premium applies only to the hours beyond the threshold. Multiplying the entire week by one and a half is the single biggest overstatement, and it grows with every regular hour worked.

$1,500.00 instead of the correct $1,100.00

paid leave counted as worked

Letting a holiday trigger overtime

Paid but unworked hours generally do not count toward the federal threshold. A payslip can read forty hours without a single overtime hour having been worked.

32 worked + 8 holiday shows 40 h but usually owes $0.00 of premium

premium priced from the wrong rate

Using the higher rate in a two-rate week

With more than one rate in the week the premium comes from the weighted average, and picking whichever rate the overtime hours fell in produces a number that is confidently wrong in either direction.

$20.00 blended, not $24.00 — a $10.00 difference on 5 h

daily rule assumed everywhere

Expecting overtime after eight hours

Long days do not trigger federal overtime; only a long week does. Unless a state rule or a contract says otherwise, four ten-hour days pay exactly the same as five eights.

Four 10-hour days is 40 h — $0.00 of federal premium

Where it shows up

When you need this number

The calculation is rarely idle curiosity — it usually sits in front of a decision or a disagreement.

checking a payslip

Does the check match the hours?

Recomputing the week by hand is the fastest way to spot a missing premium, a mis-typed hour count, or a threshold applied to the wrong period.

$15.00/hr × 45 h should read $712.50

deciding on a shift

Is the extra shift worth it?

Knowing the premium in dollars, before tax, makes the trade against an evening or a weekend a concrete one rather than a vague sense that overtime pays well.

Ten hours beyond 40 at $20.00 adds $300.00 gross

budgeting a roster

What does covering the gap cost?

For a manager the useful figure is the premium alone — the extra money overtime costs over covering the same hours at straight time, which is what a second hire would displace.

Ten premium hours cost $100.00 more than ten straight-time ones

A week worked entirely at straight time is the reference point everything above is measured against: 40 hours at $20.00 is $800, with no premium owed at all.

FAQ

Common questions

Multiply your hourly rate by 1.5 to get the overtime rate, then multiply that by the hours beyond the threshold, and add it to straight time on the hours below it: total = rate × regular hours + rate × 1.5 × overtime hours. Under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act the threshold is 40 hours in a workweek and the multiplier is one and a half. At $20 an hour a 50-hour week is $20 × 40 = $800 of regular pay plus $30 × 10 = $300 of overtime, for $1,100 gross.

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