Unlike many countries, the US does have a federal statutory overtime floor — the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) requires covered non-exempt employees to be paid at least 1.5× their regular rate for hours worked beyond 40 in a workweek. What FLSA does not do is mandate any particular overtime rate above that floor, or apply to every worker — exempt employees (broadly: salaried roles meeting a duties test and paid above a federal salary threshold) aren't entitled to overtime pay at all, regardless of hours worked. The calculator above multiplies your regular hourly rate by whatever overtime multiplier applies to your specific situation and adds it to regular weekly pay.
Common overtime multipliers
- 1.5× (time and a half): the FLSA federal floor for non-exempt employees past 40 hours/week — the most common rate nationally
- 2.0× (double time): not federally required, but mandated in some states for specific circumstances (California requires double-time past 12 hours in a single day, for example) or set contractually for holidays and emergency callouts
- 1.0× (straight time): applies to exempt employees who receive no overtime premium regardless of hours — and, separately, to any hours that don't meet the legal definition of overtime (e.g. a non-exempt employee working under 40 hours that week)
Exempt vs non-exempt — the distinction that determines whether any of this applies
Whether FLSA's 1.5× floor applies at all depends entirely on exempt/non-exempt classification, not job title. The federal exempt-status test has two parts: the role must be paid on a salary basis above a federal minimum threshold (set annually and periodically adjusted), and the actual job duties must meet one of FLSA's specific duties tests (executive, administrative, professional, or a handful of other categories). Misclassification — labeling a role "salaried, exempt" without it genuinely meeting the duties test, often to avoid paying overtime on a role that regularly runs long hours — is a common wage-and-hour violation and one of the more frequent sources of back-pay claims and lawsuits against employers. If you're salaried and regularly work well past 40 hours a week, it's worth checking whether your specific role and pay actually meet the exempt test rather than assuming the salary label settles it.
Overtime tax treatment
Overtime pay is taxed exactly like regular wages — there's no separate "overtime tax rate." It's added to your gross income and taxed at your marginal federal (and state, where applicable) income tax bracket, plus standard FICA withholding (Social Security and Medicare). The one practical wrinkle: when overtime creates an unusually large paycheck in a single pay period, employers sometimes withhold that check's supplemental wages at a flat federal rate (commonly 22%) rather than your normal graduated-bracket withholding — this can make a big overtime paycheck look more heavily taxed than it actually is. It reconciles automatically when you file your annual return; the total tax owed on the year is the same regardless of how withholding was distributed across individual paychecks.
When overtime makes financial sense
The honest math depends heavily on your marginal tax bracket and what the extra hours cost you elsewhere — missed family time, reduced sleep, no time for a side project that might pay better per hour. A rough framework: overtime clearly makes sense when it's occasional and the take-home value (after tax) exceeds what your time is worth doing anything else with. It's worth questioning when it becomes a routine, ongoing expectation — chronic mandatory overtime is a signal worth addressing directly with an employer (or via the exempt/non-exempt classification check above) rather than just accepting as the norm.
What this calculator doesn’t model
- Federal or state income tax withholding (gross output only)
- State-specific overtime rules that exceed the federal FLSA floor (e.g. California's daily overtime and double-time thresholds)
- Exempt-status determination — this tool assumes you already know whether overtime applies to your role
- FICA (Social Security + Medicare) withholding
For a net take-home estimate factoring in your regular pay plus overtime, use the hourly-to-salary calculator to get your annualized gross, then the self-employment tax calculator if any portion of your income is 1099/self-employed rather than W-2.