How to Use This Tool
Enter each day as start, end and unpaid break minutes. Overnight shifts are handled: if the end time is earlier than the start, the day is treated as crossing midnight.
Daily and weekly overtime are different rules
Most places use one of two thresholds, and a few use both:
- Weekly — hours beyond 40 in the week attract the premium. How they are distributed does not matter.
- Daily — hours beyond 8 in a day attract it, even if the week totals less than 40.
On an ordinary five-day, eight-hour week the two agree. They diverge the moment days are uneven, and a compressed four-day week is the clearest case: four ten-hour days is 40 hours, which the weekly rule pays as 40 and the daily rule pays as 44 — 32 hours at normal rate plus 8 at time and a half.
That is four hours of pay, or 80 at 20 an hour, for identical work. Which rule applies is set by local law and by your contract, and "both, whichever gives more" is genuinely how some jurisdictions work.
Paid-equivalent hours
The clearest way to express a week with overtime is in paid-equivalent hours: what you would have to work at the normal rate to earn the same money.
46 hours under a weekly rule is 40 normal plus 6 at time and a half, which is 40 + 9 = 49 paid-equivalent hours. At 20 an hour that is 980, against the 920 a flat multiplication would give — a difference of 60 that is easy to miss on a payslip.
Breaks
Subtract only breaks your employer treats as unpaid. The pattern is fairly consistent across jurisdictions even though the specifics are not:
- Long meal breaks where you may leave are usually unpaid.
- Short rest breaks, often 20 minutes or less, are usually paid.
- Time you must remain on the premises or on call is usually working time even if nothing happens.
If you are unsure, that is a question for the contract or a local labour office rather than a calculator. Rules vary a great deal and none of this is legal advice.
What is not modelled
- Premium rates for particular days. Sunday, public holiday and night-shift premiums are common and follow their own rules.
- Double time after a further threshold. Some places pay time and a half up to a point and double beyond it, or double for hours past twelve in a day.
- Seventh consecutive day rules, which exist in several jurisdictions.
- Averaging agreements, where overtime is calculated across several weeks rather than one.
Use the exact figure here to check a payslip and query anything that differs, rather than assuming either number is definitive.
