Salary to Hourly Calculator
Work out what a salary comes to per hour — both the simple division a job posting implies and the higher effective rate once paid vacation and holidays are taken into account.
On this page
Two hourly rates, and which one to use
A salary converts to two different hourly figures, and the difference between them is the entire point of this page.
The first divides the salary by scheduled hours — 40 a week, 52 weeks, 2,080 hours. That is the number a job posting means by "equivalent to $X an hour". The second divides by the hours you actually spend working, which is fewer once paid vacation and holidays are removed. Because the salary is the same either way, the second number is always the larger one, and it is the one to quote when comparing against contract work.
Why paid leave makes each hour worth more
An employee on $82,000 with three weeks of vacation and eleven paid holidays works about 1,872 hours, not 2,080. The salary does not shrink to match. The same money, spread over 208 fewer hours, is worth $43.80 an hour instead of $39.42.
That $4.38 gap is the cash value of the leave, and it matters most when you are pricing yourself as a contractor. A freelancer charging the scheduled-hours rate is quietly working the holidays for free.
How each figure is derived
The periodic figures are all divisions of the annual salary — by 12 for monthly, 24 for semimonthly, 26 for biweekly, and by the weeks you entered for weekly. The daily figure is a fifth of the weekly one, on the assumption of a five-day week.
hourly = salary ÷ (hours per week × weeks per year)
effective hourly = (salary + bonus) ÷ hours actually worked
Holidays are converted to weeks at five days each before being subtracted, so eleven holidays remove 2.2 weeks from the working year.
A worked example
An $82,000 salary, 40 hours a week, three weeks of vacation, eleven paid holidays, and a $4,000 bonus.
Scheduled hours are 2,080, so the headline conversion is $39.42 an hour. Vacation and holidays remove 5.2 weeks, leaving 46.8 weeks and 1,872 hours actually worked. With the bonus included, $86,000 over 1,872 hours is $45.94 an hour.
The same salary is $6,833 a month, $3,153.85 every two weeks, and $3,416.67 twice a month. A contractor pricing against this offer needs about $46 an hour before any of their own costs — and that is before self-employment tax, insurance, or unpaid gaps between contracts.
If you work more than you are paid for
Salaried roles that routinely run to 50 hours convert very differently. Enter the hours you really work rather than the contracted figure: $82,000 over 50-hour weeks is $31.54 an hour scheduled, not $39.42.
Nothing about that is a legal calculation — many salaried employees are exempt from overtime and the extra hours carry no additional pay. It is simply the honest arithmetic of what your time is being bought for.
What this does not cover
- Deductions. Everything here is gross. The take-home pay calculator applies 2026 federal tax, Social Security, and Medicare.
- Benefits. Employer-paid health insurance and retirement contributions are real compensation and appear nowhere in an hourly rate.
- Sick leave and parental leave. Only vacation and holidays are subtracted; add other paid leave to the vacation field if you want it counted.
- Unpaid overtime. Adjust the hours per week rather than expecting the calculator to know.
Starting from an hourly wage instead? Use the hourly to salary calculator. See our methodology for how these tools are built and tested.
Frequently asked questions
What is a $70,000 salary per hour?
On the standard 2,080-hour year, $70,000 is $33.65 an hour. With three weeks of vacation and ten paid holidays it is closer to $37.63 for each hour actually worked.
Both are correct answers to slightly different questions. Use the first to compare salaries, the second to compare against hourly or contract work.
Why does the calculator ask about paid holidays?
Because they change the denominator. A paid holiday is a day you are paid for and do not work, so it raises what each worked hour is worth without changing the salary.
Leave the field blank if your holidays are unpaid or you would rather see the plain scheduled-hours conversion.
What hourly rate should I charge as a contractor to match this salary?
The effective hourly rate is the floor, not the answer. On top of it a contractor covers both halves of Social Security and Medicare, their own health insurance and retirement, unbilled time between contracts, and business expenses.
Work the comparison properly with the 1099 vs W-2 calculator, which prices the benefits and the self-employment tax rather than leaving them as an adjustment you make in your head.
Is monthly pay just the weekly figure times four?
No, and this is the most common error in paycheck arithmetic. Four weeks is 28 days; an average month is 30.4. Multiplying weekly pay by four understates the month by about eight percent.
The monthly figure here is the annual salary divided by twelve, which is what a monthly payroll actually pays.
Does a bonus belong in an hourly rate?
It belongs in the effective rate, because it is money earned for the hours worked. It does not belong in the weekly or biweekly figures, since it does not arrive in equal slices.
That is how the calculator treats it: inside the annual and effective figures, outside the per-period ones.
Related calculators
This calculator is provided for general educational and estimation purposes only and is not financial, tax, or employment advice. It reports gross pay before deductions. Converting a salary to an hourly figure does not imply any entitlement to overtime, which depends on your role and the law where you work.