California Paycheck Calculator

Three worked examples, line by line

Each example is one workweek at a $20.00 regular hourly rate. The seven daily boxes decide which hours land in which band, and every dollar below is computed from those inputs rather than copied from another printed figure.

The same three examples, side by side

Example A, day by day

Why the same 52 hours pays two different amounts

Examples A and B both hold 52.00 hours. A weekly test alone would give both the same answer: 40.00 straight hours and 12.00 hours at 1.5×, so $800.00 plus $360.00, or $1,160.00. The daily rule changes A and only A, because A concentrates its hours into one 14.00-hour day.

On Thursday in Example A the first 8.00 hours are straight time, the next 4.00 hours are at 1.5×, and the last 2.00 hours — those past twelve in that workday — are at 2×. Compared with Example B, those 2.00 hours move from $30.00 an hour to $40.00 an hour, which is exactly the $20.00 difference between $1,180.00 and $1,160.00. A weekly total cannot see that, because it never asks when in the day the hours were worked. Splitting the week into days is the whole point of this calculator.

Example C shows the second rule. With hours on all seven days, Sunday is the seventh consecutive day of work in the workweek, and the FAQ gives that day its own bands: the first eight hours at 1.5× and hours past eight at 2×. A 10.00-hour Sunday therefore pays $240.00 plus $80.00, or $320.00. Priced as an ordinary 10.00-hour day it would pay 8.00 straight hours plus 2.00 hours at 1.5×, or $220.00. The seventh-day rule is worth $100.00 on that Sunday alone. If any day in the week has zero hours, the seven days are not consecutive and the calculator leaves that rule off, which is stated again in the line under the results.

The DIR Overtime FAQ also states a weekly test at 40 hours and names exemptions and alternative workweek schedules. We do not apply those here. The source we read on 11 November 2026 does not state how that weekly test combines with the daily bands when both would cover the same hour, and we would rather print that limit than invent a combination rule. The calculator applies only the daily bands and the seventh-consecutive-day rule, both listed with their source below. No exemption determination, no meal-break rule and no industry or locality minimum is made on this page.

What the pages at the top of the results did not show

We read the natural results for this phrase once, on 11 November 2026, in the browser we use for research. Nine results came back. Four answered with an access-denied response and are recorded as unreadable, not as zero. The following counts come from the five pages we could read.

These are counts of the phrases we looked for in those pages that day, written from our own notes; they are not a claim about what those sites do elsewhere, and we have not copied a sentence from any of them. What this page adds is narrow and specific: the daily bands themselves, printed day by day for three weeks, with the eighth-hour, twelfth-hour and seventh-day thresholds visible as inputs rather than described in prose.

California rules and the sources behind this page

This page quotes no state income tax rate, no tax bracket, no filing status, no pay frequency, no deadline and no penalty. Where we could not reach a primary source for a 2026 figure, the table below says “Source not found” rather than carrying a plausible-sounding number.

The bands in the calculator come from the California DIR / DLSE Overtime FAQ, read on 11 November 2026. It states that eight hours of labor constitutes a day's work, and that hours in excess of eight up to and including twelve in any workday — and the first eight hours on the seventh consecutive day of work in a workweek — are paid at not less than one and one-half times the regular rate, while hours in excess of twelve in any workday and hours in excess of eight on that seventh day are paid at not less than double the regular rate. The same FAQ notes that there are exemptions and describes alternative workweek schedules; neither is applied here.

Two other official facts are printed but not used as rates. The DIR / DLSE Minimum Wage FAQ, read on 11 November 2026, states that effective January 1, 2026, the minimum wage is $16.90 per hour for all employers not otherwise covered by a higher minimum wage specific to an industry or a locality; we print that as a sourced fact, not as a floor the calculator enforces, because the rate box takes the rate you type. The EDD Rates and Withholding page, read the same day, states that effective January 1, 2024, all wages are subject to SDI contributions and names Form DE 4 as the California withholding certificate; that same page gives an SDI withholding rate for 2027, not for 2026, so we print no SDI rate and apply none.

Federal FICA figures — Social Security at 6.2% up to a $184,500.00 wage base, Medicare at 1.45% with no wage base limit, and 0.9% Additional Medicare Tax on wages above $200,000.00 in a calendar year — were read from IRS Publication 15 on 11 November 2026. They are not applied by this calculator; they are printed with their source on our Texas Paycheck Calculator page, which covers those three federal lines.

Source check, 11 November 2026

Questions this calculator answers

Related pages

General information only — not tax, legal or payroll advice. Published 11 November 2026. No state income tax rate, no SDI rate, no federal income tax rate, no filing status, no payment deadline, no penalty and no exemption determination is made on this page. The comparison above was read from the natural results for this phrase on 11 November 2026 and describes what those pages showed that day.