Exempt Salary Calculator

Being paid a salary does not make you exempt from overtime. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, exemption needs three things at once: pay of at least $684 a week, a true salary basis, and duties that fit an executive, administrative, professional, computer or outside sales role. Enter the pay figure, pick the claimed category and check the duties that match the real job, and the tool runs all three tests and converts the salary across pay periods. For after-tax figures, see the hourly after taxes calculator; to model a raise that clears the threshold, use the salary raise calculator; and to convert an annual salary to an hourly rate, use the annual income to hourly calculator.

Quick Answer

The worked example, checked against this exact tool

Short answer: a $65,000 executive with managing duties comes out likely EXEMPT. Weekly pay is $65,000 divided by 52, which is $1,250.00, above the $684 federal threshold set out in the salary level rule. Salary basis is checked. Duties are managing the enterprise plus directing two or more full-time employees, which is the calculator's simplified executive test (the full regulation also requires hire/fire authority or recommendations given particular weight). All three pass, so the badge reads Likely EXEMPT. Conversions are biweekly $2,500.00, monthly $5,416.67 and annual $65,000. Uncheck the two duties boxes and run it again: same salary, but the verdict flips to Likely NON-EXEMPT, which is exactly how misclassification works in practice, since job titles do not decide anything and the actual work does.

The five exemptions and their duties tests

Short answer: executive, administrative, professional, computer and outside sales, each with a distinct duties test, and only outside sales escapes the salary test. The table below states each test in simplified form; the regulation text controls in any dispute, and the calculator mirrors these tests box for box.

How the salary basis test actually works

Salary basis is about how pay behaves, not how much it is. An exempt employee receives a predetermined amount each pay period that is not reduced because of variations in the quality or quantity of work. The regulation allows only narrow deductions, such as a full day absence for personal reasons or a penalty for a major safety violation. If pay is docked by the hour for arriving late, the arrangement is hourly pay with a salary label, and the exemption fails on that ground alone. That is why the calculator asks about salary basis separately from the pay amount: a high figure paid the wrong way still fails.

Salary alone never decides it

Short answer: the duties test is often where exemption fails, because employers classify by title and pay while the law classifies by work. Consider a tech support worker at $52,000 a year, which is $1,000 a week: the salary test passes comfortably, yet if the job is routine troubleshooting under close supervision with no discretion on significant matters and no advanced knowledge requirement, no exemption fits and overtime is owed for hours over 40. Flip the facts and the same logic protects a genuine manager: a store manager at $40,000 a year ($769.23 a week) who primarily manages and directs two or more full-time staff passes all three tests despite modest pay. Pay above $684 a week is necessary for four exemptions, never sufficient.

Why you may see a different threshold elsewhere

Short answer: many pages still show the vacated 2024 figures, but the enforceable federal threshold in 2026 is $684 a week. The Department of Labor issued a 2024 rule that would have raised the level to $844 a week and then $1,128 a week, but federal courts in Texas vacated that rule in November 2024, and in May 2026 the Department published a technical amendment restoring the 2019 levels, $684 a week for executive, administrative and professional employees and $107,432 a year for highly compensated employees. Any calculator or article still quoting $844 or $1,128 as current law is out of date. State law is a separate question: states such as California set their own, higher exempt salary levels, and where state law is higher it controls, so always check the state figure alongside the federal one.

What competing calculators miss

Short answer: many competing guides and salary-only checks test only the salary number, and several still use the vacated 2024 thresholds. A salary-only check calls every well paid worker exempt, which is wrong whenever duties do not fit, and it calls every lower paid worker non-exempt without flagging the outside sales exception. Others ask about duties but never test salary basis, so an hourly-style docking arrangement slips through as exempt. This calculator runs all three tests, keeps the outside sales exception intact, applies the streamlined highly compensated test only where total pay reaches $107,432 a year, and uses the restored 2026 federal threshold rather than the vacated figures. It also converts pay across weekly, biweekly, monthly and annual periods, so a weekly offer and an annual offer can be compared against the same threshold.

Common misclassification traps to check before you trust a verdict

Short answer: titles, pay alone and occasional managerial tasks are the three traps that produce false exempt verdicts. A job titled manager that spends most of the week on the same production or sales work as the team is not executive exempt, because the primary duty is not managing. An administrative title without real discretion on significant matters fails even at high pay, since following detailed procedures is not independent judgment. And a highly paid specialist whose work is skilled but not advanced knowledge work fails the professional test, though the computer exemption may still fit if the duties are genuinely systems or programming work. When any of these is doubtful, the safe reading is non-exempt until the actual duties are documented, because the employer bears the burden of proving an exemption.

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