Salary and hourly converter

How salary to hourly conversion works

An hourly rate is your annual pay divided by the hours you are paid for in a year. The converter uses this formula:

• Hourly rate = annual salary ÷ (hours per week × weeks per year)
• Annual salary = hourly rate × hours per week × weeks per year

A standard full-time year is 40 hours × 52 weeks = 2,080 paid hours. Paid holidays and paid vacation count as paid weeks, so most salaried employees should keep 52. Use a smaller number only for weeks you are not paid, such as unpaid leave or a seasonal gap.

Worked example

A $75,000 salary at 40 hours a week for 52 weeks is $75,000 ÷ 2,080 = $36 an hour. If you take two unpaid weeks, the same pay covers 50 weeks, or 2,000 hours, so the effective rate rises to $37.50. If you routinely work 45 hours a week for that salary, your effective rate falls to about $32.05.

All rows assume 40 hours a week for 52 weeks (2,080 hours), before taxes.

Why your employer's number may differ

Federal agencies divide an annual rate by 2,087 hours, the average number of paid hours in a year over a long period, so a $75,000 federal salary works out to about $35.94 an hour. Payroll systems that pay biweekly also see 27 pay dates in some years, which changes the size of each check but not the hourly rate. The pay periods calculator shows which years have the extra check.

The result is gross pay. For take-home pay after federal, FICA and state tax, use the paycheck calculator. If you are non-exempt and paid a salary, overtime is based on the regular rate that the salary is meant to cover; the overtime calculator takes it from there.

Sources

U.S. Office of Personnel Management, pay computation rules (5 U.S.C. 5504, 2,087-hour divisor); U.S. Department of Labor, 29 CFR 778.113 (regular rate for salaried employees). Last checked August 2026.