Overview
Overtime math looks simple until your schedule gets messy: a bonus in the mix, a 13-hour shift in California, a week where you're not even sure you were entitled to overtime in the first place. This guide walks through the actual federal rules under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), plus the state-level wrinkles that change the math, so you can check your own pay stub with confidence.
The core rule is short. Non-exempt employees get 1.5x their regular rate for every hour worked beyond 40 in a workweek. Everything else in this guide fills in the detail: what counts as "hours worked," who's non-exempt, and how a handful of states raise the bar above the federal floor.
What You Need
Before you calculate anything, gather three numbers: your regular hourly rate (or your salary converted to an hourly equivalent), your total hours worked for the week in question, and your state's overtime rules if you're outside the federal default. If you're salaried and not sure whether you're exempt, grab your annual salary and a rough description of your job duties too, since both factor into the exemption test below.
Steps
Step 1: Confirm you're non-exempt. The FLSA's overtime protections only apply to non-exempt employees. You're likely exempt only if you're salaried, paid at least $684/week ($35,568/year), and your primary duties fall into an executive, administrative, professional, computer, or outside sales category. Hourly workers are almost always non-exempt regardless of pay level. If any part of that test fails, you're entitled to overtime.
Step 2: Get your regular hourly rate. If you're paid hourly, this is straightforward. If you're salaried but non-exempt, which does happen since salary alone doesn't guarantee exemption, divide your weekly salary by your standard number of hours. A $1,000/week salary on a 40-hour schedule works out to a $25/hr regular rate.
Step 3: Fold in non-discretionary bonuses. A bonus tied to a formula, quota, or advance promise, not a surprise gift, has to be blended into your regular rate before the overtime multiplier gets applied. A $200 weekly production bonus on top of a $25/hr rate for 40 hours effectively raises your regular rate to $30/hr for that week's overtime calculation.
Step 4: Multiply your regular rate by 1.5 (or your state's applicable rate). This gives you your overtime hourly rate. At $28.50/hr, time and a half comes to $42.75/hr.
Step 5: Multiply the overtime rate by your overtime hours. Work 45 hours in a week at $28.50/hr and you have 5 overtime hours. That's $42.75 x 5 = $213.75 in overtime pay, on top of $1,140 in regular pay for the base 40 hours, a total of $1,353.75 for the week.
Step 6: Check for state-specific daily overtime. California and Alaska require overtime based on hours in a single day, not just the weekly total. In California, hours 9 through 12 in a workday pay 1.5x, and anything past 12 pays double time. A 13-hour day at $22/hr breaks down as $176 for the first 8 hours, $132 for hours 9 through 12, and $44 for the 13th hour, $352 total, well above what a simple weekly-40 calculation would produce.
Step 7: Cross-check with a calculator. Once you've worked through the manual math, run the same numbers through the Overtime Pay Calculator to confirm your total. It's worth verifying by hand at least once so you understand where each dollar comes from, then let the tool handle repeat calculations.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
The most frequent error is averaging hours across two or more pay periods. Working 30 hours one week and 50 the next isn't the same as working 40 both weeks. The FLSA evaluates each workweek independently, so the 50-hour week still owes 10 hours of overtime even if the two-week average lands at 40.
Assuming a "salaried" label settles the exemption question is another common mistake, and it doesn't hold up. Plenty of salaried workers below the $684/week threshold, or above it but doing largely manual or clerical work, remain legally non-exempt and owed overtime. Job title and pay structure aren't the test. Duties and salary level are.
Employers also sometimes forget to include non-discretionary bonuses in the regular rate before applying the overtime multiplier, which quietly shortchanges workers on every overtime hour during a bonus period. Workers who aren't tracking their own hours independently often miss unpaid off-the-clock work too. Mandatory pre-shift setup, post-shift cleanup, or working through an unpaid meal break all count as hours worked, even when a time clock doesn't capture them.
Formula & Methodology
The federal formula in full:
Overtime Pay = Regular Hourly Rate x 1.5 x Overtime Hours
Where Regular Hourly Rate includes any non-discretionary bonus blended in, and Overtime Hours is the number of hours worked beyond 40 in the workweek (or beyond your state's daily/weekly threshold, if stricter). Total weekly pay is then:
Total Weekly Pay = (Regular Hourly Rate x Regular Hours) + Overtime Pay
For salaried non-exempt employees, first convert salary to an hourly rate by dividing the weekly salary by the standard number of hours the salary is meant to cover, then apply the same formula from there. If you want to see how a change in hourly rate or overtime hours ripples through your total pay, the Overtime Pay Calculator lets you adjust each input independently and watch the total update in real time.