Article — Salary to Hourly Calculator
Salary to hourly calculator: convert annual pay to an hourly rate
A salary of $50,000 a year is $24.04 an hour at the US standard of 40 hours per week, 52 weeks per year. Higher salaries scale linearly: $100,000 is $48.08, $150,000 is $72.12. The formula is one division — annual salary ÷ (hours per week × weeks per year) — and the only choice that matters is which denominator you use.
The calculator at the top of this page converts in both directions and shows every common pay period. The article below explains where the standard 2,080-hour number comes from, why biweekly and semi-monthly are not the same thing, and how paid time off changes the answer.
What is a salary-to-hourly conversion?
Salary-to-hourly conversion takes an annual gross salary and divides it by the number of hours worked in a year. The result is the gross hourly rate — what you earn per hour before tax, payroll deductions, and benefits.
Most US salaried jobs assume 40 hours a week and 52 weeks a year — a "2,080-hour year." Under that assumption a $52,000 salary is exactly $25 an hour. Reverse the math and a $25 an hour wage becomes a $52,000 salary, with $1,000 weekly, $4,333 monthly, and $2,000 biweekly.
The 2,080-hour year (and when it is wrong)
2,080 hours is the textbook full-time year. It is also the most common assumption in pay tables, recruiter offers, and HR systems. The math: 40 hours per week × 52 weeks per year = 2,080.
The number is convenient but slightly off in three ways. Federal civilian pay uses 2,087 hours because the 1981 General Accounting Office study averaged calendar workdays across a 28-year cycle and got that figure. PTO-adjusted full-time work is closer to 1,976 hours once you remove federal holidays, vacation, and sick days. And part-time work, contract work, and seasonal jobs all run very different totals.
The US Office of Personnel Management uses a divisor of 2,087, not 2,080, when converting federal salaries to hourly rates. The figure dates to a 1981 GAO analysis showing that over a 28-year calendar cycle, the average year contains 2,087 working hours, not 2,080. The 0.3% gap matters at federal-government scale.
The salary-to-hourly formula
To convert annual salary to an hourly rate, divide salary by total hours worked in a year:
Hourly = Annual ÷ (Hours/week × Weeks/year) (reverse: multiply)$50,000 ÷ 2,080 = $24.04$30/hr × 2,080 = $62,400The denominator is the only thing you really have to decide. 2,080 is the default. 2,087 is the federal-pay divisor. Anywhere between 1,800 and 2,000 is reasonable once you back out paid time off. The choice can swing the resulting hourly figure by 5–15%.
Common salary-to-hourly conversions
The most-searched annual salaries and their hourly equivalents, computed at the 2,080-hour standard:
- $25,000/yr = $12.02/hr (just above the federal minimum wage)
- $30,000/yr = $14.42/hr
- $40,000/yr = $19.23/hr (around the US median entry-level salary)
- $50,000/yr = $24.04/hr
- $60,000/yr = $28.85/hr (close to the median individual full-time wage)
- $75,000/yr = $36.06/hr
- $100,000/yr = $48.08/hr (top ~18% of individual earners)
- $150,000/yr = $72.12/hr
- $200,000/yr = $96.15/hr
Going the other direction, a popular shorthand: every additional dollar of hourly wage adds roughly $2,080 to annual pay. So $20/hr ≈ $41,600, $25/hr ≈ $52,000, $30/hr ≈ $62,400. The math is exact at 2,080 hours and approximate otherwise.
Biweekly vs. semi-monthly: a $4,800 confusion
Biweekly pay arrives every 14 days, 26 times per year. Semi-monthly pay arrives on the 1st and 15th (or 15th and last day), 24 times per year. Those two extra biweekly paychecks make a real difference to cash-flow planning, and the schedules are routinely confused.
At a $60,000 annual salary, biweekly checks are $2,307.69 and semi-monthly checks are $2,500.00. Same annual total, different cadence. About 43% of US private-sector workers are paid biweekly, making it the most common pattern. Salaried corporate jobs more often run on semi-monthly.
Two months a year a biweekly worker gets three paychecks instead of two. That extra check is the same dollar amount as any other — total annual pay is the same — but it dramatically changes monthly cash-flow expectations if you budget by paycheck rather than by month.
PTO and your effective hourly rate
If you take paid time off, your effective hourly rate is higher than the 2,080-hour math suggests. You earn the same salary for fewer actual working hours.
A typical US full-time package includes 11 federal holidays, around 11 days of vacation, and 7 days of sick leave — call it 29 days, or 232 hours. Subtract from 2,080 and you get 1,848 working hours. The effective hourly rate on a $60,000 salary climbs from $28.85 to $32.47. That is a 12.5% upward adjustment.
When comparing job offers, divide each salary by your actual expected working hours, not by 2,080. A job with 6 weeks of vacation at $90,000 may pay better per actual hour than $100,000 with 2 weeks. The calculator's "Weeks per year" dropdown lets you pick 48, 50, or 52 directly.
Overtime and the FLSA rule
Under the US Fair Labor Standards Act, non-exempt employees get 1.5× their regular hourly rate for every hour over 40 in a workweek. So at $20/hour, overtime is $30/hour. Five hours of weekly overtime adds $7,800 to annual pay — turning a $41,600 base into $49,400.
Salaried employees classified as "exempt" do not get overtime. The classification depends on duties (mostly white-collar professional, executive, or administrative roles) and a minimum salary threshold that the Department of Labor adjusts every few years. As of 2024 the federal exempt threshold is $35,568 (the 2024 DOL rule was vacated in November 2024 and the threshold reverted to its 2019 level).
The US federal minimum wage has been $7.25 an hour since July 24, 2009 — the longest stretch without an increase in the 87-year history of the Fair Labor Standards Act. At 2,080 hours, $7.25 produces $15,080 a year, which falls below the federal poverty line for a family of two. More than 30 states have set higher state minimums that range up to $17.50 an hour.
Common salary-to-hourly mistakes
Confusing gross with net. Hourly figures from this calculator are gross — before tax. After federal income tax, state tax, FICA, and benefits, take-home is typically 65–80% of gross. A $60,000 salary nets closer to $45,000 in most states.
Ignoring benefits when comparing offers. A $90,000 offer with full health insurance, 401(k) match, and 4 weeks of PTO is often worth more than a $100,000 offer with no benefits. Benefits typically equal 20–30% of base salary.
Using 2,080 when the schedule is part-time. The default math breaks at part-time or contract roles. A 30-hour-per-week job is 1,560 hours, not 2,080 — adjust the hours/week setting in the calculator above before reading the hourly rate.
Comparing across countries. US workers average 1,976 hours a year (OECD). Germans average 1,341. The same annual salary represents wildly different hourly rates depending on the country's working-hours baseline.