Weighted Overtime Calculator
When one employee works the same week at two different pay rates, federal overtime law does not let payroll pick the highest rate, the lowest rate, or the rate in force when the 41st hour starts. It requires a weighted average regular rate: all straight-time earnings for the week divided by all hours worked. This calculator runs that method, including the nondiscretionary bonus rule that most tools skip, and it keeps a simpler average hourly rate mode for the single-rate case.
For planning and payroll verification, not legal advice. State rules vary (California daily overtime rules differ from federal). Confirm with your payroll system or counsel. The method choice matters: at the usual 1.5 multiplier, all three FLSA methods give the same total and differ only in how regular pay and overtime pay are split. The multiplier field is ignored in half-time premium mode.
Quick Answer
A week of 30 hours at $14 plus 20 hours at $10 pays $682.00 under the FLSA half-time premium method. Straight-time earnings are $620.00, the weighted regular rate is $12.40, and the 10 overtime hours add a $6.20 per hour premium, which is $62.00. Add a $100 nondiscretionary bonus and the same week pays $792.00, because the regular rate rises to $14.40 and the premium rises to $72.00. The calculator above is pre-filled with this example.
Key takeaways
- The regular rate is total straight-time earnings divided by total hours, never the rate of the job worked during the overtime hours, unless a prior agreement allows that alternative.
- Half-time premium means 0.5 times the regular rate on top of straight time already paid, which totals 1.5 times the regular rate for each overtime hour.
- Nondiscretionary bonuses go into straight-time earnings before the division. A bonus announced in advance under a set plan counts; a surprise gift decided at the end of the period generally does not.
- At the usual 1.5 multiplier, the three methods in this tool give the same total pay and differ only in the regular and overtime split. Change the multiplier and the weighted average and blended rate methods move, while half-time premium does not.
- California and a few other states add daily overtime, so a weekly federal calculation alone can understate pay there.
- Quick Answer
- How to use the weighted overtime calculator
- Worked example: 30 hours at $14 plus 20 hours at $10
- The formulas, stated plainly
- Which method does the law require, and when can an employer use a different one
- Bonuses: the rule most payroll errors come from
- State rules: where the federal weekly calculation is not enough
- Second check: a hospital week with two roles
- What competing calculators miss
- Frequently asked questions
- Add This Calculator to Your Website
- References
How to use the weighted overtime calculator
Work in one workweek at a time, because the blended rate is recomputed every week from that week’s mix of hours and rates. The results stay hidden until you calculate.
- Stay on the multiple pay rates tab for two or more rates in one week. Pick the number of rates, then enter hours and the rate for each job or shift.
- Enter a nondiscretionary bonus if there is one. Leave the field blank when there is none. Do not enter a discretionary gift here.
- Check the threshold and method. The threshold defaults to 40 hours and the method defaults to half-time premium, the FLSA default, for the worked example. The multiplier field is ignored in that mode.
- Click Calculate and read the total first, then the breakdown: total hours, overtime hours, straight-time earnings, weighted regular rate, overtime rate, regular pay and overtime pay.
- Switch to the average hourly rate tab only for the single-rate question: one regular rate, one overtime rate, and the effective rate across all hours. That mode is pre-filled with 40 hours at $20 plus 10 hours at $30, which gives $22.00 per hour and $1,100.00 total.
- Use Reset to return to the worked example and hide the results.
Rejected inputs produce a plain error line instead of a number: a blank rate or hours field, a zero hours or rate entry in FLSA mode, a negative rate, hours or bonus, or a non-numeric threshold, multiplier or bonus. In average mode, zero total hours is also rejected, since an average over no hours has no meaning.
Worked example: 30 hours at $14 plus 20 hours at $10
An employee works 30 hours in one role at $14 and 20 hours in a second role at $10, for 50 hours in the week. The threshold is 40 and the method is half-time premium. Those values are pre-filled, so clicking Calculate reproduces the figures below exactly.
With a $100 nondiscretionary bonus, straight-time earnings become $720.00, the regular rate becomes $14.40, the premium becomes $7.20 per overtime hour, and the total becomes $792.00. That is the bonus rule in one line: the bonus lifts every overtime hour, not just the week it was announced in, because it lifts the rate itself.
| Method (multiplier 1.5) | Regular pay | Overtime pay | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Half-time premium (FLSA default) | $620.00 | $62.00 | $682.00 |
| Weighted average (1.5x on overtime hours) | $496.00 | $186.00 | $682.00 |
| Blended rate | $496.00 | $186.00 | $682.00 |
The table is the honest surprise in this tool, and it is verified by running the tool itself: at 1.5, the three methods are three ways of splitting the same $682.00, not three different totals. Half-time premium counts all $620.00 of straight time and adds only the extra half. The other two methods count 40 hours at the blended rate ($496.00) and pay the 10 overtime hours at the full 1.5 rate ($186.00). The arithmetic is identical because 40 hours plus 10 hours at 1.5 times the rate equals 50 hours plus 10 hours at 0.5 times the rate. Set the multiplier to 2 and the split breaks: the weighted average and blended rate totals rise to $744.00, while half-time premium stays at $682.00 because it ignores the multiplier field entirely.
The formulas, stated plainly
Every FLSA calculation here starts from the same two quantities: straight-time earnings and total hours. The regular rate is a weekly average, not a rate attached to any single job.
Overtime hours = total hours minus threshold, or zero if the total is below the threshold
Half-time premium total = straight-time earnings + (0.5 x regular rate x overtime hours)
Weighted average total = (threshold hours x regular rate) + (multiplier x regular rate x overtime hours)
Average hourly rate mode = (regular rate x regular hours + overtime rate x overtime hours) ÷ total hours
Two details in the regulation matter for real payroll. First, each rate used in the blend must be at least the applicable minimum wage. Second, the division uses hours actually worked at all jobs in that single workweek. Paid time off for a holiday not worked is not hours worked, and hours cannot be averaged across two weeks to cancel overtime in one of them, even when the pay period is biweekly.
Which method does the law require, and when can an employer use a different one
The weighted average method is the default under the federal regulation for employees working at two or more rates. The employer adds earnings from all rates, divides by total hours, and pays the half-time premium on overtime hours. That is the method this tool pre-selects.
The regulation also discusses an alternative: with a prior agreement, overtime can be paid at the rate of the type of work actually performed during the overtime hours, provided that rate is at least the minimum wage. That alternative is not a button in this tool, because it needs to know which job the overtime hours belonged to, and it needs the prior agreement to exist. If your payroll uses it, do not force the weighted tool to mimic it by entering only the overtime job’s hours: that would change the total hours and the straight-time earnings, and the result would be wrong under both methods. For the single-rate overtime question, the regular rate of pay calculator covers the regular rate itself, and the unpaid overtime calculator helps when overtime was worked but not paid.
Bonuses: the rule most payroll errors come from
A bonus counts in the regular rate when the employee had reason to expect it under a predetermined plan: attendance, safety, production, or a promised formula all qualify, even if some judgment goes into applying the criteria. A bonus fails the test only when the employer, at its sole discretion near the end of the period, decides both whether to pay and how much, with no prior promise. The label on the payment does not control the answer.
The practical consequence is retroactive. When a nondiscretionary bonus becomes ascertainable after the week was already paid, the regular rate for each affected week must be recomputed with the bonus included, and the extra premium paid. This tool models the clean case, where the bonus amount for the week is known at calculation time. It does not spread an annual or quarterly bonus across weeks, and it does not handle bonus plans that already pay overtime on the bonus itself at the premium rate. Those cases need payroll advice, not a single-week calculator. For bonus planning in general, the bonus salary calculator and the payroll burden calculator cover the wider cost picture.
State rules: where the federal weekly calculation is not enough
Federal law sets a weekly floor, not a ceiling. California requires overtime after 8 hours in a workday (up to 12 hours at time and a half, double time after 12), after 40 hours in a workweek, and at premium rates on the seventh consecutive day of a workweek. That means a single 10-hour day can earn 2 overtime hours in California even when the weekly total stays under 40, a result this weekly tool will not show. Alaska, Nevada and Colorado also have daily overtime rules in various forms, and several states set higher minimum wages that raise the floor for every rate in the blend. If any work in the week happened in a daily-overtime state, run the daily calculation separately and take the result that pays more. The wage conversion calculator helps compare hourly, weekly and annual figures when state minimums change the comparison.
Second check: a hospital week with two roles
A second Node-verified run keeps the method honest on different numbers. A hospital employee works 30 hours as a nursing assistant at $22 and 18 hours as a dietary aide at $16, for 48 hours in the week, with no bonus and a 40-hour threshold.
| Step | Figure |
|---|---|
| Straight-time earnings | (30 x $22) + (18 x $16) = $948.00 |
| Weighted regular rate | $948.00 ÷ 48 = $19.75 |
| Overtime premium | 8 hours x ($19.75 x 0.5) = $79.00 |
| Total weekly pay | $948.00 + $79.00 = $1,027.00 |
Using the highest rate ($22) for all 8 overtime hours at time and a half would give a different, incorrect total, and using the lowest rate would underpay. The blend sits between the two rates, closer to the rate with more hours, which is exactly what weighting means.
What competing calculators miss
Most pages on this keyword answer a different question or stop halfway, and the gaps are consistent across the top results:
- Single-rate overtime tools: they take one hourly rate and a number of overtime hours, which cannot represent a week split across two jobs at all. The weighted question never gets asked.
- Average hourly rate pages: they answer what you effectively earned per hour from one regular rate plus overtime hours. That is the second tab here, not the FLSA blended rate, and presenting it as weighted overtime confuses the two intents.
- Multi-rate tools without bonuses: several tools handle two or more rates but have no bonus field, so any week with a production or attendance bonus comes out low. The bonus lifts the rate, so leaving it out understates every overtime hour.
- Tools that add full 1.5 pay on top of full straight time: one widely copied worked example adds 5 overtime hours at the full 1.5 rate to straight-time pay for all 45 hours, counting the overtime hours twice at straight time and overstating the week by more than $100. The correct total counts straight time once and adds only the premium, or equivalently counts threshold hours at the blended rate and overtime hours at 1.5.
- Tools with no method choice and no warning: they silently use one method, so a payroll team cannot see that the 1.5 total is the same under all three methods here, nor that changing the multiplier moves only two of them.
- The gap this page fills: up to 4 rates, the bonus rule, both the FLSA method and the average-rate mode in one tool, the full breakdown on every result, and the method-equivalence warning stated on the tool itself instead of buried in prose.
For the related question of what your blended pay means as an average across jobs, the weighted salary calculator weights hourly salaries by hours and shows each job’s share, which is the same weighting idea applied to average pay rather than overtime law.
Frequently asked questions
Weighted overtime is overtime paid on a weighted average regular rate. When one employee works at different hourly rates in a single workweek, the employer adds all straight-time earnings, divides by total hours worked, and uses that single blended rate for the overtime premium, instead of picking the highest or lowest rate.
Add all straight-time earnings, including any nondiscretionary bonus, then divide by total hours worked in that workweek. For 30 hours at 14 dollars and 20 hours at 10 dollars, that is 620 dollars divided by 50 hours, which gives a regular rate of 12.40 dollars per hour.
Because straight-time pay for the overtime hours is already included in total earnings. The law requires time and a half in total, so the extra amount due on top of straight time is only the half. A 12.40 dollar regular rate therefore adds a 6.20 dollar premium per overtime hour, for 18.60 dollars in total value on that hour.
Nondiscretionary bonuses count. If a bonus is promised in advance under a set plan, such as attendance or production pay, it goes into straight-time earnings before the regular rate is computed. A truly discretionary gift, decided at the end of the period with no prior promise, generally does not count.
Only with a prior agreement, and only if that rate is at least the applicable minimum wage. Without that agreement, the weighted average applies. This tool does not model the prior-agreement alternative, because it needs to know which job the overtime hours belonged to.
Because they are three ways of splitting the same pay. Half-time premium counts all straight-time earnings and adds half the rate on overtime hours. The other methods count threshold hours at the blended rate and overtime hours at the full 1.5 rate. At a 1.5 multiplier those two splits add to the same total. Change the multiplier and only the weighted average and blended rate totals move.
No. Half-time premium mode always adds 0.5 times the regular rate, whatever value is in the multiplier field. The multiplier field affects only the weighted average and blended rate methods. If changing it does not change your result, you are in half-time premium mode.
It answers what you effectively earned per hour when there is one regular rate and one overtime rate. It divides total pay by total hours. For 40 hours at 20 dollars plus 10 hours at 30 dollars, total pay is 1,100 dollars over 50 hours, which gives a weighted average hourly rate of 22.00 dollars. It is not the FLSA blended rate for multiple pay rates.
Under the federal weekly rule, there is no overtime premium and total pay is simply straight-time earnings. The tool still shows the weighted regular rate, with zero overtime hours and zero overtime pay. Daily overtime states are different: a long single day can still earn overtime there even when the weekly total stays under 40.
No. It is a planning and payroll verification tool that implements the federal weighted average method as described in the regulation. Exemptions, state rules, collective bargaining agreements and specific bonus plans can change the result, so confirm figures with your payroll system or counsel before relying on them.
Add This Calculator to Your Website
Embed this calculator on your own site with the code below. Pick a size to preview it live, then copy the code.
Powered by Calculator Zilo
References
- U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division. Overtime Pay (overtime at not less than one and one-half times the regular rate for hours over 40 in a workweek; bonus payments generally included in the regular rate). Accessed October 24, 2026.
- Electronic Code of Federal Regulations, 29 CFR 778.115. Employees working at two or more rates (regular rate for the week is the weighted average of the rates: total earnings divided by total hours worked at all jobs). Accessed October 24, 2026.
- Electronic Code of Federal Regulations, 29 CFR 778.109. The regular rate is an hourly rate (regular hourly rate is total remuneration, except statutory exclusions, divided by total hours actually worked in the workweek). Accessed October 24, 2026.
- Electronic Code of Federal Regulations, 29 CFR 778.110. Hourly rate employee (overtime hours paid at straight time plus one-half the hourly rate; worked example with a production bonus included in the regular rate). Accessed October 24, 2026.
- Texas Workforce Commission. Employees Working at Two or More Rates (weighted average as the default method; the prior-agreement alternative of paying overtime at the rate of the job actually worked). Accessed October 24, 2026.
- California Department of Industrial Relations. Overtime for Agricultural Workers: Frequently Asked Questions (California phase-in to overtime after 8 hours in a day or 40 hours in a workweek, and double time after 12 hours in a workday, illustrating the daily rule that sits on top of the federal weekly rule). Accessed October 24, 2026.