How to Calculate Overtime Pay (2026 Guide)

Most overtime mistakes on a paycheck come from one of three places: the wrong regular rate, the wrong count of hours, or a premium that was never added at all. The rule itself fits in a sentence. Under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), a non-exempt employee must be paid at least 1.5 times their regular rate for every hour worked over 40 in a workweek.

The FLSA covers businesses with at least $500,000 a year in gross revenue, plus any employee whose own work touches interstate commerce, which in practice reaches nearly every private employer. Most hourly workers are non-exempt. The rest of this guide is the arithmetic, applied to real paychecks, so you can check your own.

Step 1: Find your regular rate

Your regular rate is your total pay for the week divided by the hours you worked. If you earn a flat $20 an hour and nothing else, it is $20. It stops being your hourly wage the moment you add pay that was promised or expected: production bonuses, attendance bonuses, shift differentials, commissions.

Take a $20 an hour worker who puts in 50 hours and earns a $100 production bonus. Straight-time pay for all 50 hours is $1,000, plus the $100 bonus, so $1,100. Divide by 50 hours and the regular rate is $22. The employee has already been paid straight time for every hour, so what is still owed is the extra half: 10 overtime hours x $11 = $110. The correct week is $1,210. A payroll system that ignores the bonus pays 40 x $20 + 10 x $30 + $100 = $1,200, which is $10 short. That is small for one week and real money over a year.

Step 2: Count hours worked in the workweek

Overtime is measured per workweek, which is a fixed, recurring period of seven consecutive days that your employer chooses (say, Sunday 12:00 a.m. to Saturday 11:59 p.m.). It is not your pay period and it is not a calendar week. Hours cannot be averaged across weeks. Thirty hours one week and fifty the next is ten overtime hours in the second week, not eighty hours over two weeks with nothing owed.

Only hours you actually worked count toward the 40. Paid time off, sick days and holidays you did not work are paid, but they do not count. If you took Monday off as PTO and worked 36 hours the rest of the week, your check may show 44 paid hours, yet you worked 36 and no overtime is due.

Step 3: Multiply the overtime hours by 1.5

A worker at $20 an hour who works 46 hours earns 40 x $20 = $800 plus 6 x $30 = $180, for $980. If the employer paid all 46 hours at straight time, the check was $920 and the shortfall is $60 for that single week.

At $28 an hour for 52 hours the numbers are 40 x $28 = $1,120 plus 12 x $42 = $504, for $1,624. Straight time on all 52 hours would be $1,456, so the missing premium is $168. A worker who has weeks like that twice a month is short about $4,000 a year.

To check a week without doing it by hand, use the overtime calculator, which applies your state's rules. The same page shows the premium rate per hour.

What time and a half does not mean

Federal law requires it for one reason: hours over 40 in a workweek. Not weekends, not holidays, not nights, not hours over 8 in a day. A worker who does four 10-hour days (40 hours) has no federal overtime, while a worker on six 7-hour days (42 hours) has two overtime hours because the weekly line was crossed. Weekend or holiday premiums exist only where an employer, union contract or state law adds them. A shift differential is not overtime either, but it does feed into the regular rate described above.

One more example at $18 an hour and 47 hours: 40 x $18 = $720 plus 7 x $27 = $189, so $909. Those seven hours earned $63 more than they would have at straight time. That $63 is the entire legal difference between a correct week and a short one.

Holidays and paid time off

There is no federal rule that holiday work earns extra pay. A promise of holiday premium pay in your handbook, offer letter or union contract is enforceable like any other term of your wages, but the FLSA itself does not require it. What the FLSA does cover is the hours: holiday hours you work count toward the 40. If you work 32 hours Monday through Thursday and 10 on a Friday holiday, that is 42 hours and the last two are overtime at 1.5x.

The reverse also holds. A paid holiday you did not work adds paid hours but not worked hours, so it never pushes you into overtime on its own. Federal civilian employees are the exception, since they have their own statutory holiday rules (5 U.S.C. 6103).

Salaried but non-exempt

A salary does not by itself make you exempt. If you are paid a salary and do not meet both the salary test and the duties test, you are owed overtime like an hourly worker. Divide the weekly salary by the hours it is meant to cover, usually 40. A $48,000 salary is $923.08 a week, or $23.08 an hour. At 48 hours the eight extra hours are paid at $34.62, which is about $277 on top of the salary.

The exemption tests are covered in exempt vs non-exempt employees.

Daily-overtime states

Four states count hours per day as well as per week: California, Alaska, Nevada and Colorado, each with its own thresholds. In California, over 8 hours in a day is time and a half and over 12 is double time, so a week under 40 hours can still contain overtime. The details are in California overtime rules, and the state-by-state differences are in overtime rules by state. Enter daily hours, not just the weekly total, when you check one of these states.

What happens when an employer gets it wrong

When the Wage and Hour Division finds a violation, it can order back wages for up to two years, or three if the violation was willful, plus an equal amount in liquidated damages. Civil money penalties can reach $2,515 per willful or repeated violation, a figure the DOL held flat for 2026 because the CPI-U data needed for the annual adjustment was never published. A worker who sues under section 216(b) can also recover attorney fees from the employer if they win.

Frequently asked questions

Does my employer have to pay overtime I did not get approved? Yes, if you worked the hours and the employer knew or should have known. A no-unapproved-overtime rule is something they can discipline you for, but it does not erase the wages.

Can my boss give me comp time instead of overtime pay? Not in the private sector. Only state and local government employers can substitute time off for cash, under strict limits. See comp time vs overtime.

Is double time required? Not under federal law, ever. California is the only state that requires it, after 12 hours in a day and for some seventh-day work.

How far back can I claim unpaid overtime? Two years under the FLSA, three if the violation was willful, with each underpaid payday running its own clock. Many states reach further.

Check your last few paychecks

Pull your three most recent stubs and any week where you passed 40 hours. Run each one through the overtime calculator and compare the overtime line to what you were paid.

If the gap shows up across many weeks, the back-pay calculator totals it, including liquidated damages. The $29 Claim Kit then turns that estimate into a demand letter pre-filled with your figures and a filing guide for your state. This is general information, not legal advice.