Double time calculator

Methodology

Every figure on this page is computed in the browser from the numbers you type, and the statute check is the only external fact it leans on. California Labor Code § 510 sets the daily ladder: one and one-half times the regular rate of pay for hours over eight up to and including twelve in a workday, and double the regular rate of pay for hours over twelve. The same section puts the first eight hours of a seventh consecutive workday at time and a half and everything past that at double. The Division of Labor Standards Enforcement repeats both thresholds in its overtime FAQ, which is also where the "hours paid but not worked" rule comes from: paid leave that is not time actually worked stays out of the daily count entirely.

When the day holds two rates, the premiums are owed on the regular rate of pay, which is the weighted average of both rates across hours actually worked. That division is the part most tools skip. The § 510 sentence telling employers they need not combine more than one rate of overtime compensation answers a different question, which rate formula an employer adopts, not whether the daily premiums land on the blended figure. The Division of Labor Standards Enforcement computes the premiums on the weighted average, so this tool prices the day that way and shows the gap against the base-rate shortcut some payrolls take instead.

How the day is priced

Every hour worked is paid first, at whichever rate applied to it. The daily premiums are added afterwards, on a rate that already contains both rates.

The division that decides everything. $320.00 of straight-time pay divided by 14 hours actually worked is $22.86 an hour.

Labor Code § 510 prices both daily premiums on the regular rate of pay, and the regular rate is a division, not a lookup of the pay stub's headline number. When the day holds two nonovertime rates, as the worked example does, the regular rate is the weighted average of them: $200.00 of pay at $20.00 plus $120.00 at $30.00, over 14 hours, is $22.86. That works out to the daily mirror of the weighted-average rule federal law states for the workweek, and the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement computes it the same way in its enforcement guidance.

The premiums are only the extra amounts, not the whole rates. The first 8 hours were paid straight time once already, and hours 9 through 12 and every hour after contain their own straight time inside the $320.00 line. What § 510 still owes is half the regular rate on the time-and-a-half hours and a full extra regular rate on the double-time hours. Adding whole 1.5x and 2x rates on top of straight-time pay would pay the same hours twice.

What a base rate calculator leaves out

The same day, run the way the generic double-time tools run it, with the premiums on the first rate only.

The base rate run pays the same straight time, then prices the 4 time-and-a-half hours at $30.00 and the 2 double-time hours at $40.00. It totals $400.00. The correct rates are $34.29 and $45.71, and the day's shortfall is $11.43. A worker on this schedule five days a week is shorted $57.14 a week, about $2,971.43 over a year, before anyone notices.

The gap is not a rounding artifact. It scales with how far the second rate sits above the first, and the second rate does not even have to be overtime wages. A worker who spends the morning as a delivery driver and the afternoon doing warehouse work at a different nonovertime rate has two rates in one workday, and the regular rate that prices the daily premiums is the average of both. A calculator that only ever looks at one rate cannot see the problem, which is why it never reports it.

Paid leave does not count toward the daily thresholds

The most common way these numbers are wrong in the other direction.

§ 510 is written in hours worked. Paid holidays, paid vacation and paid sick time are hours paid, not hours worked, and they do not pile toward the 8 and 12 hour thresholds. Add 4 paid non-worked hours to the worked example's day and the day looks 18 hours long on a timesheet, but the daily premiums stay $91.43, exactly what they were. A tool that counts hours paid rather than hours worked would owe premiums on a day the statute does not, and employers who make that error overpay, which is a live payroll problem too.

The one exception to read carefully: meal-period premiums under Labor Code § 226.7 are paid at one additional hour of regular rate, and reporting-time pay has its own rules. Those are separate payments with separate arithmetic, not hours in this day, and this page does not model them.

Double time by day length

Same two rates as the worked example, same split between them. Only the day's length moves.

The premium columns are the money still owed beyond straight time, not the total for the day. The base rate column is what a first-rate-only calculator prices, and the difference between the last two columns is what the blended rule is worth on each day length.

The seventh consecutive day, and what does not trigger double time

§ 510 adds a second route to double time: on the seventh consecutive day of work in a workweek, the first eight hours are time and a half and the hours after that are double time. The day does not have to be long. A two-hour shift on a seventh straight day is two hours at time and a half. The calculator models the daily hours route, which is the one most workers meet, and the two can stack in the same workweek: a long seventh day can owe daily double time and seventh-day double time at once.

Just as some days trigger double time when they should not, some look like they should and do not. Working more than 8 hours in a day with no daily overtime rule, in a state without one, owes nothing extra until the weekly threshold. A day that crosses twelve hours only because of paid leave is still an 14 hour day for § 510. And an employee on a valid alternative workweek schedule agreed under § 514 has different daily thresholds entirely, which this page does not model. Exempt employees, minors, and workers covered by a collective bargaining agreement's own overtime terms sit outside this arithmetic too.

Common questions

What this leaves out

Every figure on this page is gross pay, before any withholding. It is an estimate, not tax advice and not legal advice. It excludes federal income tax, Social Security, Medicare, state and local income tax, pre-tax deductions such as a 401(k) or an HSA, and any credit you may claim. For take-home on the same money, run the gross through the paycheck calculator.

It models one workday with the daily hours route of § 510. It does not model the seventh-consecutive-day route, alternative workweeks under § 514, meal or rest premiums under § 226.7, reporting-time pay, non-discretionary bonuses in the regular rate, or a workweek that mixes days with and without a second rate. It assumes both rates are at or above the applicable minimum wage, and it assumes the employee is non-exempt and covered, not under a collective bargaining agreement's own overtime terms.

Sources

The statute and the enforcement guidance this page computes from, linked in full.

• California Labor Code § 510, Maximum hours and overtime. The statute text: hours worked over eight up to twelve at one and a half times, over twelve at double, the regular rate of pay language, and the seventh consecutive day rule.
• California DLSE, Overtime FAQ (Labor Commissioner's Office). The enforcement guidance on the regular rate with two or more rates in a workday, hours that count and hours paid but not worked, and the seventh day rule's interaction with daily overtime.

Statute text read from the California legislative information site, checked September 2026.

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