Overtime rules sound simple — “time and a half over 40 hours” — but doing the actual paycheck math by hand is error-prone once you’re juggling a non-standard multiplier or threshold. Our overtime pay calculator splits hours worked into regular and overtime buckets and shows exactly what each portion pays.
How it works
- Regular hours = min(hours worked, threshold)
- Overtime hours = max(0, hours worked − threshold)
- Regular pay = regular hours × hourly rate
- Overtime pay = overtime hours × hourly rate × overtime multiplier
- Total pay = regular pay + overtime pay
Example
Hourly rate: $20. Overtime multiplier: 1.5×. Threshold: 40 hours. Hours worked: 48.
- Regular hours: 40 → $800.00
- Overtime hours: 8 → 8 × $20 × 1.5 = $240.00
- Total: $1,040.00
Why the multiplier and threshold are adjustable
U.S. federal law (FLSA) sets a default of 1.5× pay after 40 hours/week for most non-exempt employees, but some states and union contracts use different thresholds (daily overtime after 8 hours in California, for instance) or higher multipliers for holiday/weekend work (2× “double time” is common). Adjusting both fields lets this calculator match your actual pay policy instead of assuming the federal default applies everywhere.
A quick sanity check for your paycheck
If your paystub shows a different overtime total than this calculator, check whether your employer is calculating regular hours against a weekly total or a daily one — that’s the single most common source of discrepancy, and it’s worth raising with payroll if the numbers don’t reconcile.