Overtime Calculator

Overtime pay is a higher rate — a multiplier on the regular hourly wage — paid for hours worked beyond a defined threshold, most often a standard work week. The idea dates back to early twentieth-century labor law, which aimed to discourage employers from routinely scheduling excessive hours by making extra time more expensive than hiring additional staff.

In the United States, the primary rule is the Fair Labor Standards Act, which requires covered employers to pay non-exempt employees at least one-and-a-half times their regular rate for hours worked beyond the standard weekly threshold. Many other countries have similar protections, though the threshold, the multiplier and which workers are covered all vary.

Not every employee is legally entitled to overtime. Under US law, whether someone is “exempt” from overtime rules depends on a combination of factors — how they are paid, how much, and the actual duties of the role — rather than on job title alone. Employees classified as non-exempt must receive overtime for qualifying hours; those classified as exempt generally don’t, even if they regularly work long weeks.

Because the exemption rules are detailed and the pay and duties tests behind them are updated periodically, the safest way to know a worker’s status is to check current guidance from the relevant labor authority rather than assume based on job title or industry norms.

Overtime pay is usually described by its multiplier, and some schedules use more than one tier.

Thresholds differ by jurisdiction in ways that change the calculation meaningfully. Most US federal overtime is calculated weekly — hours beyond the standard threshold in a single work week — but some states calculate overtime daily instead, paying a premium for hours worked beyond a certain point in a single day regardless of the weekly total, and some add a second, higher tier for very long days.

Outside the US, statutory overtime rules, standard work-week lengths and required multipliers vary by country, and union or individual employment contracts frequently set terms more generous than the legal minimum. Anyone unsure which rules apply to them should check their contract and local labor authority rather than assume a single global standard.

For workers, overtime pay can meaningfully change take-home income, and it’s often the deciding factor in whether extra hours are worth taking on. For employers, overtime is also a cost signal: when it becomes a routine, ongoing expense rather than an occasional spike, it frequently indicates that a team is understaffed relative to its workload, since paying a premium for extra hours is usually more expensive than hiring appropriately.