Answer: Enter your values and the Overtime Calculator returns the exact result instantly — formula, worked example, and a plain-English explanation are included below the tool.
Calculate overtime pay and total earnings
Enter your hourly rate and the hours you worked in a week, and the calculator splits the hours at the overtime threshold, applies the premium rate, and returns straight-time pay, overtime pay, and total gross. The federal rule under the Fair Labor Standards Act: overtime is owed at one-and-a-half times your regular rate for hours beyond 40 in a workweek. Everything computes instantly in your browser.
| Situation | Straight-time hours | Overtime hours | Overtime rate | Weekly gross |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $20/hr, 45-hr week | 40 | 5 | $30.00 | $950 |
| $20/hr, 50-hr week | 40 | 10 | $30.00 | $1,100 |
| $25/hr, 44-hr week | 40 | 4 | $37.50 | $1,150 |
| $18/hr, 42-hr week | 40 | 2 | $27.00 | $774 |
| $30/hr, 60-hr week | 40 | 20 | $45.00 | $2,100 |
| $22/hr, 38-hr week | 38 | 0 | n/a | $836 |
Each row uses the federal 1.5× multiplier beyond 40 hours. Weekly gross assumes no other deductions; taxes and benefit premiums come out afterward.
Three details of federal overtime law do most of the surprising. First, the workweek is fixed and recurring — 40 hours is measured per workweek, never averaged across weeks, so a 45-hour week followed by a 35-hour week still owes five overtime hours. Second, the "regular rate" is not always your base wage: nondiscretionary bonuses, shift differentials, and commissions must be folded in before the 1.5× is applied, which can raise the overtime rate above 1.5 × base. Third, state law can exceed federal standards — several states require daily overtime (California after eight hours in a day), double-time beyond 12 hours, or overtime beyond 40 at different multipliers, and the employee is entitled to whichever law pays more.
Exempt employees — those meeting both a salary-basis test, a DOL-set salary threshold, and a duties test for executive, professional, or administrative roles — are not owed overtime at all. Misclassification is one of the most common wage-law violations; job title alone does not make a position exempt.
Compensatory time off instead of overtime pay is generally legal only for public-sector government employees; private employers must pay cash overtime. Salaried non-exempt workers — salaried in form but covered by overtime law — have their regular rate derived from salary divided by hours worked, and are still owed the premium beyond 40. Tipped employees and piece-rate workers have special regular-rate calculations spelled out in DOL regulations.
For budgeting your own pay: overtime is rarely guaranteed income, so a useful personal rule is to base fixed expenses on straight-time pay and treat overtime as savings or debt-paydown money. Employers planning schedules get the mirror-image lesson — overtime beyond modest levels costs 50% more per hour than hiring, which is why unplanned sustained overtime is usually a staffing signal.
Where state law is stronger, the stronger rule governs. California is the best-known example: 1.5× after eight hours in a day (not just after 40 in a week), 1.5× for the seventh consecutive day, and 2× beyond 12 hours in a day or beyond eight on the seventh day. Colorado pays 1.5× after 12 hours in a day; Alaska and Nevada after 10 in a day (Nevada's applies under a wage-condition threshold). Some states also set their own salary thresholds for exemption above the federal level, pulling workers back into overtime eligibility. Because thresholds and multipliers change with legislation, treat this as a map of where extra rules exist — confirm current specifics with the state labor department or the DOL Wage and Hour Division before relying on them.
Reading your own paystub against these rules is worth doing once a year. Check that overtime hours are broken out separately from regular hours, that the premium rate shown equals at least 1.5× your fully-loaded regular rate (base plus any nondiscretionary bonuses or differentials), and that the workweek your employer uses is fixed rather than shifting in ways that dodge the 40-hour trigger. Common legitimate variations do exist — alternative workweek schedules in California, and "8/80" overtime for hospital employees under federal law, where overtime is counted per 14-day period over 80 hours — but the arithmetic on the stub should still be traceable. If the numbers do not reconcile, the DOL provides a complaint process, and wage claims typically carry a two-year lookback (three for willful violations) — unpaid overtime does not expire the moment the week ends. Note also that rounding and pay-period conventions differ: some employers pay overtime earned in the final days of a period on the following check, which is permissible when the delay follows a consistent, documented practice.
What is overtime pay? Under federal law, 1.5× your regular rate for every hour beyond 40 in a workweek; some states add daily overtime or double-time rules.
Can my employer average two weeks? No — the FLSA measures each workweek independently.
Is comp time instead of pay allowed? Generally only for government employees; private-sector workers must be paid cash overtime.
Do bonuses change my overtime rate? Nondiscretionary bonuses and shift differentials raise the regular rate the 1.5× is applied to.
Do salaried workers get overtime? Only if non-exempt; exempt status requires both a duties test and the DOL salary threshold.