Time and a half calculator — price the premium hours on their own
Gross only, tier by tier, with a switch for the federal weekly threshold and the daily threshold some states use. Start here if the tax side is not the question.
Paycheck Calculator With Overtime
Rate, hours, filing status in — gross pay, what gets withheld and take-home out. The overtime premium is taxed as ordinary wages, so the second number is the one that changes.
This week
Results
Gross pay
$0.00
—
Withheld
$0.00
—
Take-home
$0.00
gross minus everything withheld
How the gross is worked out
—
Federal income tax$0.00
Social Security — 6.2%$0.00
Medicare — 1.45%$0.00
State / local at the rate you set$0.00
Total withheld$0.00
Estimate only: no pre-tax deductions (401(k), health premiums, HSA), no W-4 elections beyond filing status, no credits, and no tracking of year-to-date pay against the $184,500 Social Security wage base.
Where the overtime money actually goes
Overtime is not a tax category. The extra hours are wages, and wages are taxed the same way regular hours are — which is why an overtime check is not “taxed at a higher rate” but still often arrives smaller than the hours suggest.
$20.00 an hour — 40 regular hours and 5 overtime hours, single, no state tax entered
Regular pay = 40 × $20.00 = $800.00
Overtime pay = 5 × $30.00 = $150.00
Gross pay = $950.00
Federal income tax = $72.08 · Social Security = $58.90 · Medicare = $13.78
Take-home = $950.00 − $144.76 = $805.24
Three stages, and only the first one is arithmetic on your rate. Gross is hours priced at the rate and at 1.5×. Withholding is the employer sending part of that gross to the IRS and to Social Security on your behalf — an estimate of your tax, not your tax. Take-home is what is left. The overtime premium never appears in stage two as a separate line, because there is no such line in the tax code.
The reason an overtime week can feel heavily taxed is the annualising step. Withholding is figured as if every week of the year looked like this one. A week with 5 overtime hours is treated as 52 such weeks, which pushes the whole check — regular hours included — further up the rate schedule. The extra withholding is usually larger than the tax you will actually owe on the extra hours, and the difference comes back when you file.
The same week at three filing statuses
Same rate, same hours, same week. Only the filing status changes, and with it the standard deduction and the bracket thresholds the annualised pay is measured against.
| Filing status | Standard deduction | Federal withheld | Total withheld | Take-home |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single | $16,100.00 | $72.08 | $144.76 | $805.24 |
| Married filing jointly | $32,200.00 | $33.08 | $105.76 | $844.24 |
| Head of household | $24,150.00 | $51.46 | $124.14 | $825.86 |
Gross is $950.00 in all three rows; Social Security ($58.90) and Medicare ($13.78) do not depend on filing status. Figures assume the week is typical of all 52.
Two ways payroll can withhold the overtime premium
The IRS lets an employer treat overtime pay as supplemental wages and withhold a flat 22% on it instead of running it through the annualised schedule. Both methods are in Publication 15 for 2026. They give different answers on the same $$150.00.
| Method | Rate applied to the $$150.00 premium | Withheld from it |
|---|---|---|
| Annualised schedule (this page) | 12% — the marginal band this single filer is in | $18.00 |
| Flat supplemental rate | 22% | $33.00 |
The flat method takes $15.00 more out of this check than the annualised method. It is not an extra tax — it is an extra payment, refunded at filing if it turns out to be more than you owed. Employers choose the method, so if a payroll department uses the flat 22%, a large overtime check will look worse than the annualised figure on this page.
Why the last checks of the year look bigger
Social Security tax is 6.2% only up to an annual wage base — $184,500 for 2026 in Publication 15. Once your year-to-date pay passes that, the 6.2% stops for the rest of the calendar year and every later check is larger by exactly that amount. Medicare has no wage base: 1.45% continues all year, and an additional 0.9% applies once wages pass $200,000 in the calendar year.
This page does not track year-to-date pay, so it always shows the 6.2% as if you were still under the base. If you are near or past it, subtract 6.2% of the gross from the withheld figure yourself — that is the whole adjustment, and it is the single largest reason a December check does not match a March one with the same hours.
The 2026 federal numbers this page uses
Every threshold below is the published figure, not an estimate: rate tables from Revenue Procedure 2025-32 section 4.01 and standard deductions from section 4.14, both for tax years beginning in 2026.
| Rate | Single | Married filing jointly | Head of household |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10% | up to $12,400 | up to $24,800 | up to $17,700 |
| 12% | $12,400 – $50,400 | $24,800 – $100,800 | $17,700 – $67,450 |
| 22% | $50,400 – $105,700 | $100,800 – $211,400 | $67,450 – $105,700 |
| 24% | $105,700 – $201,775 | $211,400 – $403,550 | $105,700 – $201,750 |
| 32% | $201,775 – $256,225 | $403,550 – $512,450 | $201,750 – $256,200 |
| 35% | $256,225 – $640,600 | $512,450 – $768,700 | $256,200 – $640,600 |
| 37% | over $640,600 | over $768,700 | over $640,600 |
| Standard deduction | $16,100.00 | $32,200.00 | $24,150.00 |
Those are the thresholds the annualised gross is measured against. A $$950.00 week annualises to $49,400.00, which is why the single filer’s withholding lands in the 12% band while the same pay in a married-filing-jointly household lands near the bottom of the same band.
A week at 40, 45, 50 and 55 hours
$20.00 an hour, single, no state tax entered. The hours past 40 are priced at $30.00.
| Hours | Gross | Withheld | Take-home | Extra take-home vs 40 h |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 40 | $800.00 | $115.28 | $684.72 | — |
| 45 | $950.00 | $144.76 | $805.24 | $120.52 |
| 50 | $1,100.00 | $174.23 | $925.77 | $241.05 |
| 55 | $1,250.00 | $203.71 | $1,046.29 | $361.57 |
Five extra hours add $120.52 to take-home, not the $150.00 the premium is worth on paper, because $29.48 of the extra is withheld. That gap is the whole subject of this page: the premium is real money, and withholding takes a share of it like any other dollar.
What this page does not do
- No pre-tax deductions. A 401(k) percentage, a health premium or an HSA contribution comes out before most of this arithmetic and would lower both the withholding and the take-home.
- No state rules. Nine states have no wage income tax and the rest differ in rates, brackets and local add-ons; the state field is a rate you supply, not a lookup.
- No W-4 detail. Filing status is one input on a real W-4; dependants, other income and extra withholding all move the number.
- No year-to-date tracking, so the Social Security wage base is never reached in the model.
- No tax advice. This is an estimate built from published 2026 federal figures. Your payslip and your tax return are the authority.
Questions people actually ask
Is overtime taxed at a higher rate?
No. Overtime is ordinary wages and there is no overtime tax rate. What happens is that withholding is calculated as though every week of the year paid the same, so an overtime week is annualised and withheld at a higher marginal rate. In the example above, 5 overtime hours add $150.00 to gross and $29.48 to withholding — 12% federal plus 7.65% FICA on the extra — leaving $120.52 more take-home.
Why is my take-home less than gross minus 22%?
Because 22% is only one of the layers. A single filer on $950.00 a week also pays 6.2% Social Security and 1.45% Medicare, and the federal slice is set by the annualised bracket, not by a flat rate. Here that is $72.08 federal, $58.90 Social Security and $13.78 Medicare on $950.00 gross.
Does the filing status change what an overtime check pays?
It changes the withholding, not the gross. The same $950.00 week is $805.24 for a single filer, $844.24 for a married couple filing jointly and $825.86 for a head of household, because the standard deduction and the bracket thresholds differ. The gross and the FICA amounts are identical in all three.
Do I get the extra withholding back?
Often, yes. Withholding is a prepayment; the return settles it. If the annualised assumption overstates your yearly pay — because this was an unusual overtime week rather than a typical one — part of what was withheld comes back as a refund. If you would rather have it during the year, a new W-4 with the right filing status and dependants reduces the withholding at source.
Why did my check get bigger in November?
The Social Security wage base for 2026 is $184,500. Once your year-to-date pay passes it, the 6.2% employee share stops for the rest of the year and Medicare’s 1.45% continues on its own. On a $$950.00 week that is a swing of $58.90. This page does not model year-to-date pay, so it keeps charging the 6.2%.
Can I use this for a biweekly check?
The arithmetic is per week: 40 regular hours plus overtime hours. For a two-week check, add the two weeks’ hours together and halve the annualising factor — or simply treat the result as two weeks of withholding, which is what annualising over 52 weeks already assumes.
Related pages
Overtime calculator — split a workweek across a threshold
Give it one week’s total hours and it separates regular from overtime before any of the withholding arithmetic above.
From a time card to gross pay
The chain from clock-in and clock-out times to hours, then hours to gross. That page stops at gross; this one carries it to take-home.
General information only — not tax, legal or payroll advice. Federal figures are the published 2026 amounts (Revenue Procedure 2025-32; Publication 15 for 2026). Your employer’s payroll system, your W-4 and your tax return remain the authority on what is actually withheld.