Overtime After 40 Hours
Overtime after 40 hours is the usual federal pattern: the first 40 hours in a workweek stay at straight time, and hours past that line are paid at 1.5 times. A two-week paycheck does not move the line to 80.
Estimate for personal reference only. Not tax, legal, or employment advice. Overtime defaults follow a federal FLSA-style workweek, usually 1.5× after 40 hours. State and city rules may differ.
The workweek, not the shift and not the pay period
People ask whether overtime after 40 hours starts at the end of an eight-hour day, at the end of a Friday, or only after eighty hours on a biweekly check. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act pattern this site uses, the unit is the workweek. A workweek is a fixed block of 168 hours, seven straight days, that the employer chose. It does not have to match the calendar week, and it does not reset just because payday is every other Friday.
That is why 45 hours in one workweek is overtime even if the next workweek is short. Forty of the hours are regular. Five are overtime. At $20 an hour the regular pay is $800. The overtime rate is $30, so those five hours are $150. Gross pay for the week is $950. The same arithmetic is on the overtime calculator. If you want the overtime dollars in the headline instead of the gross, use the overtime pay calculator.
What “after 40” does not mean
It does not mean every hour after 3 p.m. is overtime. A four-day schedule of ten hours can still be forty hours with no overtime under this weekly default. It also does not mean a daily limit of eight. Some states and some contracts add daily overtime or double time. This page does not apply those rules, and it is not a statement of what your state requires. If a daily threshold is the number you actually need, type that threshold into the overtime calculator yourself. Do not assume this explainer has already done it.
Time and a half is the 1.5 multiplier on the overtime hours, not a second payment stacked on an hour that was already paid at straight time. On the $20 example the overtime hour is $30 total. The extra $10 is inside that $30. The time and a half calculator prices a block of hours that are already overtime. The worked steps, without a form, are on how to calculate overtime.
Biweekly pay still uses two workweeks
A biweekly paycheck often covers eighty straight-time hours, two weeks of forty. That budget number is not the overtime test. Forty-five hours plus thirty-five hours is eighty hours on the check and still five hours of overtime, because the long week crossed 40. Pooling the two weeks and waiting until 80 would erase that overtime. The biweekly overtime calculator runs the 40-hour split twice and shows the pooled comparison beside it. A single week with seven daily rows belongs on the weekly overtime calculator.
Hours have to be decimal hours before they are multiplied. Eight hours and thirty minutes is 8.50, not 8.30. Convert first with the hours to decimal calculator, then come back to the weekly split. Nothing here decides whether a job is exempt, whether a bonus belongs in the regular rate, or whether a break counted as hours worked. Those facts change the number an employer actually owes. The federal description, with the same limits, is on FLSA overtime. The formulas are on assumptions and formulas.
Frequently asked questions
Does overtime start after 8 hours in a day?
Not under the usual federal Fair Labor Standards Act rule. The default on this site is weekly: hours past 40 in the workweek are paid at 1.5 times. Some states add a daily rule. This page does not apply those state rules.
Is 45 hours a week overtime?
Under the 40-hour workweek default, 5 of those hours are overtime. At $20 an hour that is $800 of regular pay, $150 of overtime pay, and $950 gross.
Does a biweekly paycheck move the line to 80 hours?
No. Paying every two weeks does not merge the workweeks. Forty-five hours one week and 35 the next still includes 5 overtime hours, even though the pay period totals 80.