Overtime calculator
Enter a week of shifts and see how it splits into regular hours, time and a half, and double time — under federal rules or the stricter daily rules a handful of states apply.
Federal overtime is weekly, not daily
Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, overtime is owed on hours past 40 in a workweek. There is no federal daily overtime: four ten-hour days is forty hours and no overtime at all, however long the individual days were.
A workweek is any fixed and regularly recurring period of 168 hours. It does not have to start on Monday, but it does have to be consistent.
States that add a daily rule
California, Alaska, Nevada and Colorado each add a daily threshold, and California adds double time as well. Where both a daily and a weekly rule apply, an hour can only count once — it is either daily overtime or weekly overtime, never both, and adding them together inflates the total past the hours actually worked.
This calculator applies the daily rule first and measures the weekly threshold against what is left, which is the order that keeps the total honest.
Overtime thresholds compared
| Rule | Daily 1.5× | Daily 2× | Weekly 1.5× |
|---|---|---|---|
| Federal (FLSA) | — | — | 40h |
| California | 8h | 12h | 40h |
| Alaska | 8h | — | 40h |
| Nevada | 8h | — | 40h |
| Colorado | 12h | — | 40h |
Alternative workweek schedules, union agreements and exempt classifications change these thresholds and are outside what a general calculator can answer.
Common questions
How is time and a half calculated?
Multiply the regular hourly rate by 1.5 and pay that for each overtime hour. At $20 an hour, overtime is $30 an hour.
Is overtime paid after 8 hours or 40?
Federally, after 40 hours in a workweek. A few states — California, Alaska, Nevada and Colorado — also require it after a set number of hours in a single day.
Can the same hour count as both daily and weekly overtime?
No. An hour already paid at an overtime rate under a daily rule is not counted again toward the weekly threshold. Counting it twice would pay for more hours than were worked.