Holiday Pay Rate Calculator
Working a holiday usually earns a premium, most often time and a half, sometimes double time. The paycheck is not always just the holiday hours at the premium rate, though: if the holiday week runs past 40 hours, federal overtime enters the same check. This calculator runs all three pieces: holiday pay at any multiplier, a full holiday-week breakdown with the overtime premium shown separately, and a salary-to-hourly conversion for staff who do not have an hourly rate to start from.
Results
Quick Answer
At $20 an hour, an 8-hour holiday shift at time and a half (1.5x) pays $240.00: the holiday rate is $30.00 an hour, which is $80.00 more than the $160.00 the same shift pays on a normal day. The calculator above is pre-filled with this exact shift, and its Holiday + Overtime Week mode prices the same week at 48 total hours at $1120.00.
Key takeaways
- Holiday pay is one multiplication: regular rate × multiplier × holiday hours. The multiplier comes from your employer's policy, not from federal law.
- No federal law requires a private employer to pay any holiday premium. The Fair Labor Standards Act only mandates overtime past 40 hours worked in a week.
- When the same week passes 40 hours, the overtime premium is an extra 0.5x on the hours past 40. Federal rules let an employer credit a 1.5x holiday premium against overtime owed on the same hours, so the legal minimum can be lower than the fully stacked figure this tool shows.
- Salaried staff need an hourly rate first: annual salary ÷ 2,080. A $50,000 salary is $24.04 an hour, and its time-and-a-half rate is $36.06.
- Quick Answer
- How to use the holiday pay rate calculator
- The holiday pay formula
- Worked examples: one shift, one long week, one salary
- Quick-reference table: an 8-hour holiday shift
- Holiday pay and overtime in the same week: the stacking rule, and its limit
- Who actually gets holiday pay
- What competing calculators miss
- Frequently asked questions
- Add This Calculator to Your Website
- References
How to use the holiday pay rate calculator
Pick the mode that matches your question, check the pre-filled values, and click Calculate. Results stay hidden until you click.
- Holiday Pay answers the single-shift question. Enter your regular hourly rate, the multiplier your policy pays (or tap the 1.5x, 2x or 2.5x preset), and the hours you worked on the holiday. You get the holiday hourly rate, the total for the shift, and how much extra that is versus a normal day.
- Holiday + Overtime Week answers the whole-week question. Enter your rate, the holiday hours (priced at a fixed 1.5x in this mode), and every hour worked that week. You get the holiday pay, the straight-time pay for the remaining hours, the overtime premium on hours past 40, and the week total. If part of your week was worked but never paid at all, that separate problem belongs to the unpaid overtime calculator.
- Salary to Hourly is the on-ramp for salaried staff. Enter the annual salary and the tool divides by 2,080 and shows the 1.5x and 2x holiday rates for that hourly figure, ready to carry back into the first mode. The same 2,080-hour conversion, run in both directions, sits in the annual income to hourly calculator.
- Read the badge and the note. The badge restates the premium in plain terms, and the note under the main mode shows the exact formula line with your numbers in it, so you can check a pay stub line by line.
Two behaviours worth knowing. In the week mode, holiday hours of zero are accepted on purpose, so the mode doubles as a plain overtime-week check. And the multiplier in the first mode has no upper cap: a contract that pays 3x on a specific holiday runs here exactly as written.
The holiday pay formula
Holiday pay equals your regular hourly rate times the holiday multiplier times the hours worked on the holiday. Everything else on this page is a variation on that one line.
Holiday week total = (Rate × 1.5 × Holiday hours) + (Rate × Remaining hours) + (Rate × 0.5 × Hours past 40)
Hourly rate from salary = Annual salary ÷ 2,080
The week formula deserves a second look, because it is built the way payroll actually builds it. The holiday hours are paid in full at 1.5x. Every other hour is first paid at straight time, and the hours past 40 then collect an additional half-time premium, which is what brings them to 1.5x in total. That extra 0.5x structure is the federal structure: the U.S. Department of Labor's overtime fact sheet (Fact Sheet 23) describes overtime as the regular rate plus a half-time premium on hours over 40, and the underlying statute is section 7 of the Fair Labor Standards Act (29 U.S.C. 207). Turning a block of hours at one flat rate into gross pay, without any premium logic, is the job of the hours to money calculator.
Worked examples: one shift, one long week, one salary
Each row below is a verified run of the calculator above, starting with the pre-filled examples in each mode.
| Run | Inputs | Headline result | Detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| Holiday shift at 1.5x | $20/hr, 1.5x, 8 hours | $240.00 | $80.00 extra vs a normal day |
| Holiday shift at 2x | $20/hr, 2x, 8 hours | $320.00 | $160.00 extra vs a normal day |
| Holiday shift at 2.5x | $20/hr, 2.5x, 8 hours | $400.00 | $240.00 extra vs a normal day |
| Long warehouse shift at 2x | $25/hr, 2x, 12 hours | $600.00 | $300.00 extra vs a normal day |
| Holiday week, 48 hours | $20/hr, 8 holiday hours, 48 total | $1120.00 | $240.00 holiday + $800.00 regular + $80.00 overtime premium |
| Holiday week, exactly 40 hours | $20/hr, 8 holiday hours, 40 total | $880.00 | No overtime premium: the week never passes 40 |
| Salary conversion | $50,000 a year | $24.04/hr | 1.5x is $36.06/hr, 2x is $48.08/hr |
Inside the pre-filled holiday shift, the premium is a third of the total check for the day. The normal-day pay and the holiday extra split like this:
One formatting note so a stub check does not confuse you: this tool prints amounts exactly as its formula produces them, with two decimals and no thousands separator, so the week total appears as $1120.00 rather than $1,120.00. The value is the same.
Quick-reference table: an 8-hour holiday shift
An 8-hour shift at time and a half pays 12 times the hourly rate; at double time it pays 16 times the rate. Every figure below reproduces in the Holiday Pay mode.
| Hourly rate | Time and a half (8h) | Double time (8h) |
|---|---|---|
| $15.00 | $180.00 | $240.00 |
| $18.00 | $216.00 | $288.00 |
| $20.00 | $240.00 | $320.00 |
| $25.00 | $300.00 | $400.00 |
| $30.00 | $360.00 | $480.00 |
| $35.00 | $420.00 | $560.00 |
| $40.00 | $480.00 | $640.00 |
| $50.00 | $600.00 | $800.00 |
Holiday pay and overtime in the same week: the stacking rule, and its limit
Holiday premium and federal overtime come from two different places, and in a long holiday week both can land on the same check. The holiday premium comes from your employer's policy or contract. The overtime premium comes from federal law, which requires at least 1.5x for hours worked over 40 in a workweek for nonexempt employees, per the Department of Labor's Fair Labor Standards Act overview.
Here is the limit, stated plainly because most pages skip it. The week mode above adds the full holiday premium and the full overtime premium together. That stacked total is exactly right when the overtime hours are different hours from the holiday hours, which is the usual shape of a holiday week: work the holiday early in the week, then run long later. It is also how generous employers and many union contracts genuinely pay. But federal regulation, 29 CFR 778.203 on premium pay for holidays and other special days, allows an employer to treat a holiday premium of at least 1.5x as an overtime premium and credit it against overtime owed. So if the holiday shift itself is what pushed you past 40 hours, your employer's legal minimum for the pre-filled week would be $1040.00, not $1120.00: the $80.00 holiday premium covers the $80.00 overtime premium instead of sitting on top of it. Neither figure is a scam; they are two different pay policies. The calculator shows the stacked figure, and your handbook or contract decides which one your employer owes you. Whatever premium lands in the check is still ordinary wages for withholding, the same as a bonus, which is why the net on a holiday check can look thinner than the gross suggests; the bonus take-home pay calculator shows that withholding side of a premium payment.
Who actually gets holiday pay
Eligibility is set by policy, not by statute, for most private-sector workers in the United States. The Department of Labor says so directly on its holidays guidance page: federal law does not require payment for time not worked, and premium pay for working a holiday is a matter of agreement between employer and employee.
- Hourly nonexempt staff are the group most often covered by a written holiday premium policy, commonly with conditions: a minimum service period (30, 60 or 90 days is typical) and a requirement to work the scheduled shifts on either side of the holiday.
- Part-time staff are frequently covered on a prorated basis for paid holidays, and at the same premium rate as everyone else for hours actually worked on the holiday.
- Exempt salaried staff often receive no premium at all for holiday work, because their salary is not priced by the hour. Nonexempt salaried staff keep their overtime rights past 40 hours regardless of the holiday.
- Federal employees follow a separate statutory scheme administered by the Office of Personnel Management's federal holidays rules, including premium pay for holiday work under 5 U.S.C. 5546. State and local government workers sit under their own state rules, and a few states impose holiday premium requirements on specific industries such as retail.
The practical move is boring and reliable: find the holiday section of your handbook, note the multiplier and the conditions, then run your actual hours here and compare the result with the stub. Discrepancies are usually a missed condition, occasionally a payroll error, and this page gives you the number to point at either way.
What competing calculators miss
The single-multiplication tools get the easy shift right and stop there. The gaps show up in exactly the cases that send people searching:
- Omni Calculator's time-and-a-half tool handles 1.5x, 2x and 3x cleanly, but it is an overtime tool wearing a holiday label: there is no holiday-week mode, so the question of what happens when the holiday week passes 40 hours is never asked, let alone priced line by line.
- OT Pay Calculator's holiday page is the closest rival, with the same presets and a similar reference table. Its table starts at $12 and runs to $50, which is genuinely useful, but the page still treats the week question in one sentence ("add the standard overtime premium on top") without a mode that computes the week, and it never mentions the federal credit rule that can make the stacked answer more than the legal minimum.
- Back of Napkin's time-and-a-half calculator adds taxes and deductions, which helps with net pay, but it frames everything as overtime. A holiday shift inside a 36-hour week earns a premium with no overtime anywhere in sight, and that case has no clean home there.
- Legal explainer pages (law-firm and legal-information sites) describe the rules well, including the day-off-plus-worked layering some employers use, but ship no calculator at all, so the reader still has to do the arithmetic by hand.
- The gap this page fills: three modes on one page (single shift, full holiday week, salary conversion), the overtime premium itemised as its own line instead of folded into a total, and the credit-rule limit disclosed next to the stacked result instead of left for a payroll dispute to surface.
Frequently asked questions
Multiply your regular hourly rate by the holiday multiplier, then by the hours you worked on the holiday: rate x multiplier x hours. At $20 an hour, time and a half for an 8-hour shift is $20 x 1.5 x 8 = $240, which is $80 more than the $160 the same shift pays on a normal day.
Time and a half is 1.5 times your regular hourly rate. At $20 an hour it pays $30 an hour, and at $25 an hour it pays $37.50 an hour. It is the most common holiday premium and also the federal overtime rate for hours worked over 40 in a week.
No. No federal law requires a private employer to pay a premium for working on a holiday, or to pay for a holiday you do not work. Holiday premium pay comes from your employer's policy, an employment contract or a union agreement. Federal employees and workers covered by some state laws and public-sector rules follow different arrangements.
Hours you actually work on the holiday count toward the 40 hours, because they are hours worked. Paid holiday hours for time you did not work, such as a paid day off, generally do not count, because the FLSA threshold is based on hours worked. Your employer's policy can be more generous than the federal floor.
Yes, but read the fine print. This calculator's Holiday + Overtime Week mode adds the full holiday premium and the full overtime premium, which is correct when the overtime hours are different hours from the holiday hours, and it is how generous policies and many union contracts pay. Federal rules also allow an employer to credit a holiday premium of at least 1.5x against overtime owed on the same hours, so if your holiday shift itself pushed you past 40 hours, your employer's legal minimum can be lower than the stacked figure. Check your handbook or contract to see which treatment your employer uses.
Convert the salary to an hourly rate first: annual salary divided by 2,080 hours (40 hours x 52 weeks). A $50,000 salary is $24.04 an hour, so time and a half is $36.06 an hour. Many exempt salaried employees get no extra premium for holiday work at all; nonexempt salaried staff are still owed overtime past 40 hours.
It is a premium of 2.5 times the regular rate, found in some union contracts for the busiest holidays of the year. At $20 an hour it pays $50 an hour, or $400 for an 8-hour shift. Use the 2.5x preset in the Holiday Pay mode to run it.
Often yes, but usually prorated to the hours they normally work. A part-timer scheduled for 20 hours a week might receive 4 hours of holiday pay for a day off instead of 8, and premium rates for hours actually worked on the holiday usually match the full-time policy. The exact rule lives in your employer's handbook.
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References
- U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division. Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Accessed October 22, 2026.
- U.S. Department of Labor. Holidays: Work Hours Topic. Accessed October 22, 2026.
- U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division. Fact Sheet 23: Overtime Pay Requirements of the FLSA. Accessed October 22, 2026.
- Electronic Code of Federal Regulations. 29 CFR 778.203, Premium Pay for Work on Saturdays, Sundays, Holidays, or Regular Days of Rest. Accessed October 22, 2026.
- Electronic Code of Federal Regulations. 29 CFR 778.207, Other Payments (Regular Rate). Accessed October 22, 2026.
- Cornell Law Institute, Legal Information Institute. 29 U.S. Code 207, Maximum Hours (FLSA Overtime). Accessed October 22, 2026.
- U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Federal Holidays. Accessed October 22, 2026.
- U.S. Department of Labor. elaws: Fair Labor Standards Act Advisor. Accessed October 22, 2026.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Employee Benefits in the United States, March 2025. Accessed October 22, 2026.
- Internal Revenue Service. Publication 15 (Circular E), Employer's Tax Guide. Accessed October 22, 2026.