Unpaid Overtime Calculator
Working 50 hours and getting paid for 40 is wage theft with a paper trail, and the Fair Labor Standards Act gives you a specific dollar figure to recover. For hourly workers the math is straightforward time and a half. For salaried non-exempt workers it is a trap most calculators fall into: the regular rate comes from your salary divided by all hours you actually worked, and you are owed the half-time premium on top, not the full 1.5x rate. This calculator runs both methods correctly, offsets any overtime you were already paid, and projects the claim across weeks, with the liquidated-damages doubling courts can award. If you are modeling forward-looking pay rather than back pay, our overtime rate calculator handles the standard weekly figure.
Pick your pay type below. Enter the numbers from your actual pay records, not your memory of a typical week, because a claim is only as strong as the hours you can document. This is an estimate for planning, not legal advice: exemption status, state law, and your real pay records decide what you can actually recover, and a wage-and-hour attorney should review anything you plan to act on.
Quick Answer
At $20/hr working 45 hours a week with nothing paid in overtime, you are owed $150 per week (5 hours x $30 time-and-a-half). Over 10 weeks that is $1,500 in back pay, and $3,000 if a court awards liquidated damages, which double the unpaid amount. Salaried workers use a different method: an $800/week salary over 50 hours gives a $16 regular rate and an $8 half-time premium, or $80 a week.
Key takeaways
- Hourly overtime is hours over 40 times 1.5x the regular rate. The regular rate legally includes non-discretionary bonuses, not just the base wage.
- Salaried non-exempt workers are owed the half-time premium: salary divided by all hours worked, times 0.5, per overtime hour. This is where most DIY math goes wrong.
- Courts can award liquidated damages equal to the unpaid wages, effectively doubling the claim, unless the employer proves good faith.
- The FLSA lookback is 2 years, extended to 3 for willful violations. Document actual hours from pay records, not memory.
- Quick Answer
- The 40-hour rule and time and a half
- The salaried-worker trap
- Already-paid overtime and partial weeks
- Liquidated damages: when the claim doubles
- What unpaid overtime looks like at common wages
- Hourly vs salaried: which method applies to you
- What competing calculators miss
- Frequently asked questions
- Add This Calculator to Your Website
- References
The 40-hour rule and time and a half
Federal overtime law is a weekly test, not a daily or pay-period one. Every hour past 40 in a single workweek must be paid at no less than 1.5 times the employee’s regular rate. The regular rate is not always the number on the offer letter: the Department of Labor requires non-discretionary bonuses, shift differentials, and similar payments to be folded in, which is why our shift differential overtime calculator exists for night and weekend premiums. For a clean hourly case the calculator’s formula is:
Total claim: unpaid/week x weeks affected (x 2 with liquidated damages)
Two things people get wrong here. First, “unauthorized” overtime still counts: if you worked it and the employer knew or should have known, it is owed, though the employer can discipline you for breaking the policy. Second, you cannot waive the right to overtime, even in a signed agreement; private waivers of FLSA rights are unenforceable.
The salaried-worker trap
Being salaried does not make you exempt. Exemption depends on a salary threshold and a duties test, and millions of salaried workers are legally non-exempt and owed overtime. When they are, the calculation most people attempt is wrong: they divide the salary by 40 to get an hourly rate and multiply by 1.5. The Department of Labor method divides the salary by all hours actually worked, because the salary already straight-time compensates every hour, and only the half-time premium is owed on the overtime hours.
For $800 over 50 hours: regular rate $16, premium $8, ten overtime hours, $80 a week owed. The naive “divide by 40, times 1.5” method would claim $300 a week, which is wrong in the other direction and would embarrass you in front of an attorney. If your salary already includes an overtime component, the salary plus overtime calculator models the forward-looking version of that pay structure.
Already-paid overtime and partial weeks
Many claims are not all-or-nothing. An employer might have paid straight time for the extra hours, or paid 1.5x on a rate that excluded a bonus. The calculator credits whatever you enter as already paid against the correct figure, so enter the premium portion you actually received. For partial weeks, run each week separately and add them: weeks where you worked 40 or under contribute zero. If your schedule varies, the overtime hours calculator can total the overtime hours across a pay period before you bring the number here.
Liquidated damages: when the claim doubles
Under the FLSA, an employee who prevails is generally entitled to liquidated damages equal to the unpaid overtime, effectively doubling the recovery, unless the employer proves it acted in good faith with reasonable grounds for believing it complied. In practice, “good faith” is a high bar when the employer simply never ran the math. The calculator’s damages toggle exists because a $1,500 back-pay figure and a $3,000 court figure are very different settlement conversations.
What unpaid overtime looks like at common wages
Weekly unpaid amounts for 10 overtime hours a week at the 1.5x multiplier, nothing already paid:
| Hourly rate | Overtime rate (1.5x) | Owed/week (10 hrs) | 10-week back pay | With liquidated damages |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $15.00 | $22.50 | $225.00 | $2,250.00 | $4,500.00 |
| $20.00 | $30.00 | $300.00 | $3,000.00 | $6,000.00 |
| $25.00 | $37.50 | $375.00 | $3,750.00 | $7,500.00 |
| $35.00 | $52.50 | $525.00 | $5,250.00 | $10,500.00 |
Scale the weeks column to your real lookback: 104 weeks at $300 a week is $31,200 before damages, which is why systematic underpayment is worth documenting even when the weekly figure feels small.
Hourly vs salaried: which method applies to you
Hourly method
- You have a stated hourly rate
- Overtime rate is rate x multiplier (usually 1.5x)
- Owed = overtime hours x overtime rate, minus anything paid
- Non-discretionary bonuses must be folded into the regular rate
Salaried half-time method
- Fixed weekly salary, but non-exempt under the duties test
- Regular rate = salary / all hours worked that week
- Owed = overtime hours x regular rate x 0.5, minus anything paid
- Fluctuating workweek agreements use this same math by contract
What competing calculators miss
The ranking overtime tools are built for the easy case and stop there. OvertimePayCalculatorUSA and GetHarvest’s calculators handle hourly 1.5x math, sometimes with double-time, but none of them model unpaid overtime as a claim: no multi-week projection, no already-paid offset, and no liquidated damages. AIOnlineCalculator verifies its arithmetic publicly, which is admirable, but it is hourly-only. The gap that costs salaried workers real money is the half-time premium method: nearly every general overtime tool either ignores salaried non-exempt workers or applies the wrong “salary / 40 x 1.5” math, which overstates the claim and falls apart under scrutiny. This calculator’s winning moves are the correct DOL half-time method for salaried workers, the already-paid credit for partial-payment situations, week-count projection against the 2- and 3-year lookbacks, and the damages toggle, with every step shown so an attorney can audit the number in one glance.
Frequently asked questions
Divide your weekly salary by all hours you worked that week to get the regular rate, then multiply the regular rate by 0.5 for each hour over 40. For $800 over 50 hours: $16 regular rate, $8 premium, 10 overtime hours, $80 owed for the week. Do not divide by 40 and multiply by 1.5; that is not the legal method.
No. Under the FLSA, work the employer suffered or permitted must be paid, including unauthorized overtime, as long as the employer knew or should have known about it. The employer can discipline you for violating the approval policy, but it still owes the wages.
An additional amount equal to the unpaid wages that courts award on top of back pay, effectively doubling the recovery. The employer avoids them only by proving good faith and reasonable grounds for believing it was in compliance.
Two years under the FLSA as standard, extended to three years if the violation was willful. Some states have longer lookbacks under their own wage laws, so the federal period is the floor, not the ceiling.
No. Salary alone does not make you exempt. The DOL applies a salary-basis test, a salary-level threshold, and a duties test; fail any of them and you are non-exempt and owed overtime. Job titles do not decide it either; actual duties do.
Not under federal law, which tests the 40-hour week. But several states add daily rules: California requires 1.5x past 8 hours in a day and 2x past 12, plus premiums on the seventh consecutive day. Check your state’s rules before finalizing any number.
Pay stubs showing hours and rates, time records or schedules, texts or emails proving you worked the hours, and your own contemporaneous log. Courts can shift the burden to the employer when its records are inadequate, but a personal log kept at the time is your strongest asset.
Retaliation for asserting FLSA rights is itself illegal, and retaliation claims often succeed even when the underlying overtime claim is disputed. Document the timing of any adverse action after you raise the issue, and raise retaliation concerns with an attorney promptly.
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References
- U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division. “Fact Sheet #23: Overtime Pay Requirements of the FLSA.” DOL Fact Sheet 23: FLSA Overtime Pay Requirements Accessed October 19, 2026.
- U.S. Department of Labor. “The Fair Labor Standards Act: Overtime Pay.” DOL Fair Labor Standards Act Overview Accessed October 19, 2026.
- Cornell Legal Information Institute. “29 U.S.C. Section 207: Maximum Hours.” 29 U.S.C. 207: Maximum Hours (FLSA Overtime) Accessed October 19, 2026.
- U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division. “Fact Sheet #17A: Exemption for Executive, Administrative, Professional, Computer and Outside Sales Employees.” DOL Fact Sheet 17A: FLSA Exemptions Accessed October 19, 2026.
- Cornell Legal Information Institute. “29 U.S.C. Section 216: Penalties Including Liquidated Damages.” 29 U.S.C. 216: FLSA Penalties and Liquidated Damages Accessed October 19, 2026.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Employer Costs for Employee Compensation.” BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation Accessed October 19, 2026.