HourlyMath

How to Calculate Overtime Pay (With Worked Examples)

Updated July 2026 · 5 minute read

Overtime math looks trivial — multiply by 1.5 — and yet it's one of the most commonly botched numbers on real paychecks, because the multiplication is the easy part. The hard parts are what counts as your "regular rate," which hours trigger the multiplier, and which state you're standing in. Here's the whole calculation, done properly, with the traps labeled.

The formula

Under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), non-exempt employees earn at least 1.5× their regular rate for hours worked beyond 40 in a workweek. Three terms in that sentence do all the work. Non-exempt means covered by overtime law — most hourly workers are; some salaried workers are too (more below). The regular rate is usually your hourly wage, but not always. And the workweek — a fixed, recurring 168-hour period your employer defines — is the counting unit, not the day and not the pay period.

Worked example 1: the plain week

$20/hour, 46 hours this week. Regular pay: 40 × $20 = $800. Overtime rate: $20 × 1.5 = $30. Overtime pay: 6 × $30 = $180. Total gross: $980. Notice the useful way to think about it: those six extra hours paid like nine regular ones. (Check any week's version of this instantly with the overtime calculator.)

Worked example 2: the mixed biweekly trap

Same $20/hour, paid biweekly: 46 hours one week, 34 the next — 80 hours total, so no overtime, right? Wrong, and this is the most common underpayment pattern. The workweek is the unit, so week one contains 6 overtime hours no matter what week two looks like. Correct pay: (40 × $20 + 6 × $30) + (34 × $20) = $980 + $680 = $1,660, not the $1,600 that "80 hours at $20" suggests. Employers averaging hours across a pay period are doing it wrong.

Worked example 3: California and double time

A few states add daily overtime, and California goes furthest: 1.5× past 8 hours in a day, 2× past 12, plus rules for seventh consecutive workdays. One 14-hour day at $20 in California: 8 × $20 + 4 × $30 + 2 × $40 = $160 + $120 + $80 = $360 — even if the rest of the week is short. Where daily and weekly rules both apply, you're owed whichever produces more. Alaska, Nevada, and Colorado have their own daily-overtime variants; if your schedule runs long days rather than long weeks, your state's rules are worth ten minutes of reading.

The regular-rate trap: bonuses and multiple rates

The "regular rate" isn't always your base wage. Non-discretionary bonuses — anything promised in advance, like production, attendance, or shift bonuses — must be folded into the regular rate before the multiplier is applied. A $100 promised bonus in a 46-hour week raises your regular rate by about $2.17, which raises your overtime rate by about $3.26. Small per week; real over a year; and skipping this step is among the most common wage violations. Similarly, if you work two rates for one employer (say $18 stocking and $22 on the register), overtime is generally owed on the weighted average of the week's rates, not whichever rate you happened to be earning at hour 41.

"But I'm salaried"

Salaried doesn't automatically mean exempt. Exemption depends on your duties and a minimum salary threshold — a salaried job with hourly-style duties at modest pay may still legally owe overtime, and misclassification is a perennial source of back-pay claims. If your title says "manager" but your week says "the same work as everyone else, plus keys," it's worth reading your state labor department's plain-English guides.

Checking your own paycheck

The two-minute audit: take one week's hours from your timesheet (not the pay period's total), separate hours past 40, multiply them by 1.5× your rate — folding in any promised bonuses — and compare to the stub. If it's off, the polite first assumption is a payroll error; they're common and usually fixed on request. Run your numbers in the overtime pay calculator or, for the quick "what's 1.5× my rate" version, the time-and-a-half calculator. Related reading: gross vs net pay, because everything above is gross — what the tax lines do to it is its own story.