Hourly to Salary Calculator

The conversion is one multiplication: hourly rate times hours per week times weeks per year. The standard U.S. assumption is 40 hours a week for 52 weeks, which comes to 2,080 paid hours a year. That is the number payroll systems, recruiters, and government wage statistics all use, and it is why $20 an hour maps to $41,600, $25 to $52,000, and $35 to $72,800.

A shortcut worth memorizing: at full-time hours, yearly salary is roughly the hourly rate times 2,000, so you can double the rate and add three zeros. $30 an hour is about $60,000. The exact figure with 2,080 hours runs 4% higher ($62,400), but the shortcut is close enough to sanity-check an offer in your head during a phone screen.

Everything this calculator shows is gross: the amount your employer pays before anything is withheld. Your actual deposit is smaller after federal income tax, state and local tax where they apply, Social Security and Medicare, and whatever you contribute to health insurance or retirement. The gap varies a lot by state and by household, so we do not estimate it here. For your own numbers, read a recent paystub or use the IRS withholding estimator.

When you compare two job offers, compare them gross-to-gross first, then factor in benefits separately. A $28-an-hour job with employer-paid health coverage can beat a $31-an-hour job without it, and a salaried role that expects 50-hour weeks pays a lower effective hourly rate than its headline salary suggests. Dividing salary by the hours you will actually work is the honest comparison.

The 2,080-hour year assumes you are paid for every week, which is true when your job includes paid vacation and holidays. If your time off is unpaid, count only the weeks you work: 50 weeks instead of 52 trims $20 an hour from $41,600 to $40,000. Part-time schedules scale the same way. At 20 hours a week, $20 an hour is $20,800 a year; at 30 hours, $31,200.

Overtime cuts the other direction. Hourly workers covered by federal overtime rules earn at least 1.5x their rate past 40 hours a week, so someone at $20 an hour who averages five overtime hours weekly grosses about $49,400, not $41,600. If overtime is a regular part of your job, calculate your base and overtime hours separately and add them, because a single blended rate will understate the total.

One more paycheck quirk: biweekly pay means 26 checks a year, not 24. Two months out of every year contain a third payday, which is why budgeting from your monthly figure feels off. Budget from the biweekly check if that is how you are paid.

Recruiters ask for salary expectations as an annual figure even when the job pays hourly, so walk in with both versions of your number. If you currently earn $24 an hour and want a 15% raise, that target is $27.60 an hour or about $57,400 a year, and saying the annual version signals you have done the math. The reverse conversion matters just as much: when a posting lists a salary band, divide each end by 2,080 to see the hourly range you are really negotiating.

Watch for the hours behind the number, too. Contract and freelance rates look generous next to employee wages because they carry no paid leave, no employer payroll tax share, and no benefits. A common rule of thumb prices independent work at 1.3 to 1.5 times the equivalent employee rate before it breaks even. And a salaried offer that quietly expects evenings and weekends dilutes its own headline: $70,000 at a true 40 hours is about $33.65 an hour, but the same salary over a real 55-hour week is roughly $24.50. Run every offer through the same 2,080-hour lens and the comparison stays honest.