Salary & Paycheck Calculator
Convert pay to take-home after taxes.
Details
Annual take-home pay
$52,318
$4,360/mo · $2,012 bi-weekly
Gross income
$62,400
Federal income tax
$5,308
FICA (SS + Medicare)
$4,774
Take-home
$52,318
Tax year 2026 · federal only · estimate.
This converts pay between hourly, weekly, biweekly, semi-monthly, monthly and annual figures.
It works in either direction, so you can go from an hourly rate to a salary or from a salary back to an hourly rate.
How salary converts between pay periods
Converting between an hourly rate and a salary rests on one convention: a full-time year is 2,080 hours, which is 40 hours a week for 52 weeks.
So an annual salary divided by 2,080 gives the hourly equivalent, and an hourly rate multiplied by 2,080 gives the annual. A $60,000 salary is $28.85 an hour.
The part that trips people up is pay frequency. Biweekly means every two weeks, which is 26 pay periods a year. Semi-monthly means twice a month, which is 24. Those are different cheques of different sizes, and the words sound almost identical.
Biweekly and semi-monthly are not the same. The biweekly cheque is smaller, but there are two more of them a year, and the annual total is identical.
What to enter
- Amount and its period
- Enter what you know, whether that is an hourly rate or an annual salary, and say which it is.
- Hours per week
- 40 is standard. Part-time or overtime schedules change the annual figure directly, so this is worth setting accurately.
- Weeks per year
- 52 by default. Reduce it if you want to model unpaid time off, since unpaid weeks lower the annual total.
Pay periods per year
- Weekly
- 52 cheques. Common for hourly and trade work.
- Biweekly
- 26 cheques, every other week. The most common US schedule. Two months each year contain three paydays.
- Semi-monthly
- 24 cheques, usually the 15th and the last day. Fixed dates, so the day of the week moves around.
- Monthly
- 12 cheques. Common for salaried roles outside the US.
What this assumes
These are gross figures, before tax and deductions. Take-home pay is lower, and by how much depends on your state and withholding.
The 2,080-hour year assumes paid time off. Unpaid leave reduces actual earnings even though the salary figure does not change.
How to calculate your salary across pay periods
Everything routes through the annual figure. Convert to annual first, then out to whatever period you want.
- 2,080
- 40 hours × 52 weeks, the standard full-time year
- annual
- The pivot for every other conversion
Get to an annual figure. From hourly, multiply by hours a week and weeks a year. From a per-period amount, multiply by the number of periods.
Divide by the periods you want. 52 for weekly, 26 for biweekly, 24 for semi-monthly, 12 for monthly.
Use 2,080 for the hourly equivalent. Or your actual annual hours if you do not work a standard 40-hour week.
Remember this is gross. Tax, payroll tax, insurance and retirement contributions all come out before the money reaches you.
See a worked example: the same salary across every pay period
- Salary
- $60,000 a year
- Schedule
- 40 hours a week, 52 weeks
Hourly: $60,000 ÷ 2,080 = $28.85.
Weekly: $60,000 ÷ 52 = $1,153.85.
Biweekly: $60,000 ÷ 26 = $2,307.69.
Semi-monthly: $60,000 ÷ 24 = $2,500. Monthly: $5,000.
The biweekly and semi-monthly cheques differ by $192.31, and the reason is simply that there are 26 of one and 24 of the other.
$28.85 an hour, $2,307.69 biweekly
Frequently asked questions
$28.85 an hour, using the standard 2,080-hour year of 40 hours a week for 52 weeks.
If you actually work more than 40 hours, the real rate is lower. At 50 hours a week the same salary works out at $23.08.
Biweekly is every two weeks, so 26 pay periods a year. Semi-monthly is twice a month, so 24.
The annual total is the same, but each biweekly cheque is smaller. Biweekly also means two months a year contain three paydays, which is where the sense of a bonus month comes from.
40 hours a week times 52 weeks. It is the convention employers and payroll systems use to convert between salary and hourly rates.
It assumes your time off is paid. If it is not, your actual hours are lower and your effective hourly rate is higher than 2,080 suggests.
Gross, before any deductions. Net pay comes after federal income tax, state tax, FICA, health insurance and any retirement contributions.
As a rough orientation, take-home is often 70-80% of gross, but it varies a great deal by state and by how much you contribute pre-tax.
No. Employer retirement matching, health insurance premiums, bonuses and paid time off can be worth more than the difference between two salary figures.
A 401(k) match is straightforwardly free money, and a good health plan can be worth several thousand a year. Compare the whole package.
Under the US Fair Labor Standards Act, non-exempt employees earn at least 1.5 times their regular rate beyond 40 hours in a week.
At $28.85 an hour, overtime is $43.28. Salaried employees may be exempt depending on their duties and salary level, in which case extra hours are unpaid.
Problems people actually run into
Treating a biweekly cheque as half a month
A biweekly schedule pays 26 times, not 24. Budgeting as though two cheques cover each month leaves you short in most months and flush in the two with three paydays.
Budget from the annual figure divided by 12, and treat the two extra cheques as what they are: money that belongs to months where it did not arrive.
Converting a salary to hourly without counting real hours
The 2,080-hour convention assumes 40 hours a week. A salaried role that consistently runs 50 or 55 hours has a much lower effective rate.
$60,000 at 40 hours is $28.85. The same salary at 55 hours is $20.98. That is the comparison worth making against an hourly offer.
Results are estimates for general information only and are not professional financial, medical, or legal advice. Read our full disclaimer.
Last updated: September 4, 2026