Turn any salary into an hourly wage — adjusted for the vacation and holidays you actually take — then see what lands in your paycheck after taxes, and compare two job offers by the rate that really matters.
Enter a salary to get its hourly rate, or flip the switch and enter an hourly wage to see the salary it adds up to.
Paid time off doesn't change your pay — but it changes how many hours you actually work for it. The adjusted rate below prices only the hours you're on the clock.
| Pay period | Gross pay |
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Gross pay minus federal income tax, Social Security, Medicare, and your own deductions. Federal figures use 2026 IRS brackets and standard deductions; state tax is a flat rate you set yourself, since it varies too much by state and city to guess.
Rough effective rates: CA ≈ 5–7%, TX / FL / WA = 0%, NY ≈ 4–6%.
Parking, union dues, Roth 401(k), etc.
A bigger salary on longer hours can pay less per hour than a smaller one. This prices both offers by the hours you'd actually work.
Common salaries converted at a standard 40-hour week, 52 weeks a year (2,080 hours), before taxes and time-off adjustments.
| Annual salary | Hourly | Weekly | Bi-weekly | Monthly |
|---|
The standard conversion assumes a 40-hour week and 52 paid weeks a year — 2,080 working hours. Divide the salary by the hours and you get the rate:
So a $75,000 salary at 40 hours a week is $75,000 ÷ 2,080 = $36.06/hr. Going the other way, multiply: $25/hr × 2,080 = $52,000/yr. A quick mental shortcut: at 40 hours a week, your hourly rate is roughly your salary in thousands divided by two — $60k ≈ $30/hr, $90k ≈ $45/hr. The exact figure runs about 4% lower, because the true divisor is 2,080 rather than 2,000: $60k works out to exactly $28.85/hr.
Why the adjusted rate is higher. Paid vacation and holidays are hours you're paid for but don't work. If you take 20 paid days off at 8 hours a day, you work 1,920 hours for the same salary — so each hour you actually work is worth $75,000 ÷ 1,920 = $39.06. That's the number to compare against freelance or contract rates, where nobody pays you for days off.
For a full-time schedule it's 2,080: 40 hours × 52 weeks. Subtract paid time off to get the hours you actually work — 20 days off at 8 hours a day brings it to 1,920. Part-time and compressed schedules scale the same way: just multiply your weekly hours by 52.
At 40 hours a week, yes — $75,000 ÷ 2,080 hours = $36.06/hr, and $36.06 × 2,080 = $75,000. But the equivalence only holds at exactly 40 hours. Work 45-hour weeks on that salary and the rate falls to $32.05/hr; work 37.5-hour weeks and it rises to $38.46/hr.
Bi-weekly means every two weeks: 26 paychecks a year, each 1/26 of your salary. Semi-monthly means twice a month (usually the 1st and 15th): 24 paychecks, each 1/24. Semi-monthly checks are slightly bigger, and bi-weekly schedules produce two "extra" three-paycheck months a year — handy for budgeting, but the annual total is identical.
The converter shows gross pay. The paycheck estimator above it estimates 2026 federal income tax using IRS brackets and standard deductions (single: $16,100; married filing jointly: $32,200), plus Social Security (6.2% up to the $184,500 wage base) and Medicare (1.45%, plus 0.9% on earnings above $200,000 single / $250,000 joint). State tax is a flat rate you enter, because state and city rules vary too widely for one table. Treat the result as a close estimate, not tax advice — your real withholding depends on your W-4, credits, and deductions.
Use the adjusted hourly rate from the converter — it prices only the hours you'd actually work, which matches how contract hours are billed. Then remember what a salary quietly includes: employer-paid benefits (health coverage, retirement match, payroll taxes) commonly add 20–30% on top of salary, and contractors pay both halves of Social Security and Medicare (15.3% total). A common rule of thumb is that a contract rate needs to be roughly 1.3–1.5× the equivalent salary rate to break even.
For non-exempt salaried employees, overtime is based on the "regular rate": weekly salary ÷ hours the salary is intended to cover, paid at 1.5× for hours over 40 in a week. On a $75,000 salary at 40 hours, the regular rate is $36.06 and time-and-a-half is $54.09/hr. Many salaried roles are classified exempt, though — exempt employees aren't owed overtime at all, which is exactly why comparing offers by effective hourly rate matters.
