PTO Accrual Calculator
Where the balance comes from: an accrual rate like 1 hour per 26 hours worked, turned into hours and days, with caps.
PTO Payout Calculator
A balance in hours, priced at an hourly rate. Three things decide what actually lands, and most calculators take all three for granted: which rate the hours are priced at, whether the payout touches your overtime that week, and what happens when the balance is short.
One balance, from hours to dollars
Results
Gross payout
$2,496.00
96 hours × $26.00
Days of leave
12
96 ÷ 8 hours a day
One PTO day
$208.00
8 hours × $26.00
Over the cap
$0.00
No cap set
How the figure is worked out
96 hours × $26.00 = $2,496.00 · 96 ÷ 8 = 12 days · one day is $208.00
The rate that prices the balance is the part nobody prints
Every calculator in the results for this phrase asks for an hourly rate and multiplies. None of them asks which rate, and on a balance built up over a year in which the rate moved, the three defensible answers are three different amounts of money. The federal regulation on unused leave does not settle it either: in its own worked example it notes that nothing in the example implies a statutory right to the vacation pay, and that the amount is “a matter of private contract between the parties”. So the rate is whatever your handbook or your state’s statute names — and the point of printing all three is that you can see which one your policy is describing.
96 hours accrued over a year that started at $24.00 and ended at $26.00
Each hour at the rate in effect when it was earned — 48 × $24.00 + 48 × $26.00 = $2,400.00
The whole balance at the final rate — 96 × $26.00 = $2,496.00
The whole balance at the starting rate — 96 × $24.00 = $2,304.00
The spread is $192.00 on one balance, and it is decided by one sentence in a document
The same 96 hours, priced three ways
| Basis | Working | Payout |
|---|---|---|
| Rate when each hour was earned | 48 × $24.00 + 48 × $26.00 | $2,400.00 |
| Final rate on the whole balance | 96 × $26.00 | $2,496.00 |
| Starting rate on the whole balance | 96 × $24.00 | $2,304.00 |
Two of the nine pages in the results are not payout calculators at all. One is an accrual calculator that already converts a balance into days on 8, 10 and 12-hour schedules, and it is the only page of the nine that mentions a negative balance. Of the seven that do price a payout, none of them asks this question: the word lookback appears zero times across all nine, and no page uses the phrase average rate. Every one takes the rate box at face value, which is the right thing to do only when the rate never moved.
Cashing out does not raise your overtime rate
This is the question the payout pages leave out, and it has a written answer. 29 CFR 778.219(a) covers sums paid for forgoing leave: where an employee gives up the leave and receives a payment that is roughly what the leave would have paid, in addition to normal compensation for hours worked, “the sum allocable to the forgone leave may be excluded from the regular rate”, and “since it is not compensation for work, pay for unused leave may not be credited toward overtime compensation due under the Act”. The regulation’s third example is the plain case: $12.00 an hour, a 40-hour week, one week of paid time off taken during the year, and a $480.00 payout for one week of unused time at year end. The payout is excludable, and none of it may be offset against overtime owed.
So a cash-out is money, not hours. Take a 48-hour week at $26.00 an hour with 24 hours cashed out in the same week. The wages are 48 hours at the straight rate plus the half-time premium on the eight hours over 40, and the payout rides on top without changing either.
48 hours worked, 24 hours cashed out, $26.00 an hour
Wages — 48 × $26.00 = $1,248.00, plus the premium 8 × $13.00 = $104.00 → $1,352.00
Payout — 24 × $26.00 = $624.00, and the check is $1,352.00 + $624.00 = $1,976.00
Count the 24 payout hours as hours worked — 72 hours, premium 32 × $13.00 = $416.00, check $2,288.00
The second figure is $312.00 more than the rules allow — 24 hours of half-time that was never earned
The same week, with and without the payout counted as hours
| Reading | Hours that count | Premium | Check |
|---|---|---|---|
| Payout excluded, as 778.219(a) says | 48 | $104.00 | $1,976.00 |
| Payout counted as hours worked | 72 | $416.00 | $2,288.00 |
One condition travels with the exclusion, and it is in the text: the payment has to be in addition to the normal compensation for hours worked. A payout that replaces pay for hours you actually worked is wages for those hours, and the arithmetic above does not apply to it. The difference matters on a final check, where a short week and a payout can arrive together.
When the balance is negative
Take 108 hours against a 96-hour balance and you are 12 hours short. Employers handle that by reducing the final check, and federal law puts one floor under the reduction: 29 CFR 531.35 requires wages to be paid “finally and unconditionally” or free and clear, and treats a deduction that cuts into the minimum or overtime wages required to be paid as a violation. The same 12 hours is therefore legal on one rate and not on another.
12 hours short, on a 40-hour final week
At $26.00 — 40 × $26.00 = $1,040.00, less 12 × $26.00 = $312.00 → $728.00, which is $18.20 an hour
At $7.50 — 40 × $7.50 = $300.00, less 12 × $7.50 = $90.00 → $210.00, which is $5.25 an hour
$5.25 is below the $7.25 federal minimum, so the second deduction cannot come off the check
The same 12 hours, two rates, and the floor underneath them
| Hourly rate | 40 hours | 12 hours short | Check | Per hour |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $26.00 | $1,040.00 | $312.00 | $728.00 | $18.20 |
| $7.50 | $300.00 | $90.00 | $210.00 | $5.25 |
The $7.25 figure is the federal minimum wage, which has been at that level since 2009; a state floor above it moves the line up, and this page quotes no state rate. Whether a policy may recover an over-advanced balance at all is a separate question from how much it may recover in one check, and it is answered by the handbook or by state law, not by the regulation above.
What the nine results do not say
The nine organic results for this phrase were read on 2026-11-02 and each page was fetched and word-counted with scripts and styles stripped. One of the nine returned a 403 block page of 18,450 bytes and is recorded as unreadable rather than as a zero. Three terms were counted on the other eight.
Term counts on the nine results, 2026-11-02
| Site | 12-hour | regular rate | negative balance |
|---|---|---|---|
| timesheets.com | unreadable | unreadable | unreadable |
| actiplans.com | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| vacationtracker.io | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| smartovertime.com | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| clockspot.com | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| ptopayout.com | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| pto-planner.com | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| paycheckcalculatorcalifornia.com | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| hivedesk.com | 5 | 0 | 3 |
The single hit for regular rate is actiplans telling the reader to “multiply your regular rate of pay by the total number of vacation hours” — the multiplication this page also does, not the question of whether the payout joins the regular rate. The five hits for 12-hour are all on hivedesk, which is the accrual page: it converts a balance into days on 8, 10 and 12-hour schedules and it discusses negative balances under policy rules. What it does not do is price a payout, which is the whole of this page. The seven payout calculators are silent on all three terms, so the three sections above are the answer to a question the field has not asked.
Hours to days: the conversion behind the day count
The first screen asks for two things and gives one of them back in a different unit. Type the unused balance in hours and the length of one PTO day, and the Days of leave figure is that balance divided by that day length. The dollars never change: the day length only changes how many days the same hours stand for.
Input: 96 unused hours, 8 hours in one PTO day
Days of leave — 96 ÷ 8 = 12 days
One PTO day — 8 × $26.00 = $208.00
Gross payout is unchanged: 96 × $26.00 = $2,496.00
Input: 96 unused hours, 12 hours in one PTO day
Days of leave — 96 ÷ 12 = 8 days
One PTO day — 12 × $26.00 = $312.00
Gross payout is unchanged: 96 × $26.00 = $2,496.00
Why a policy writes a balance in days rather than hours is not something this page can source: no handbook, no plan document and no statute is quoted here. What can be checked is the arithmetic. A day of leave is a length of working time rather than a fixed number of hours, so the same 96 hours is 12 days on an 8-hour schedule and 8 days on a 12-hour schedule. That is why the length of one PTO day is a separate box above instead of a constant — if your balance is quoted in days, multiply the days by your normal shift length to get the hours the calculator needs.
How a payout is worked out, step by step
The calculator above stops at gross. The steps below are a worked example you can check by hand; they are not a second output on the first screen and they are not a net-pay guarantee. A payout paid outside the normal payroll cycle is a supplemental wage, so the figures come off in this order.
- Gross payout = unused hours × hourly rate.
- Federal withholding on a supplemental wage = gross × 22%, the usual flat default.
- Social Security = gross × 6.2%, while you are under the $184,500 wage base.
- Medicare = gross × 1.45%, with no cap.
- Net before any state tax = gross − (steps 2 + 3 + 4).
The 22%, 6.2%, 1.45% and the $184,500 wage base are the rates already used in the FAQ on this page; no new rate is introduced here. The note at the foot of this page sources the FICA rates and the $184,500 wage base to IRS Publication 15 (2026), read 2026-11-02. It quotes no source for the 22% flat federal withholding rate, so that rate is left as the FAQ states it. State tax is not calculated: this page quotes no state rate, so a state figure has to come from that state.
Input: 96 unused hours at $26.00 an hour
Gross — 96 × $26.00 = $2,496.00
Federal withholding — 22% × $2,496.00 = $549.12
Social Security — 6.2% × $2,496.00 = $154.75
Medicare — 1.45% × $2,496.00 = $36.19
Withheld in total — $549.12 + $154.75 + $36.19 = $740.06
Net before any state tax — $2,496.00 − $740.06 = $1,755.94
Input: 40 unused hours at $25.00 an hour
Gross — 40 × $25.00 = $1,000.00
Federal withholding — 22% × $1,000.00 = $220.00
Social Security — 6.2% × $1,000.00 = $62.00
Medicare — 1.45% × $1,000.00 = $14.50
Withheld in total — $220.00 + $62.00 + $14.50 = $296.50
Net before any state tax — $1,000.00 − $296.50 = $703.50
This figure uses a flat 22% federal withholding. Your actual withholding depends on the W-4 you filed, so the amount you receive can differ by a few hundred dollars.
State income tax is not included here. Your state will take its own share on top of the federal amount.
Before you use this figure with an employer or a state labour office, check it against the deductions shown on your actual pay stub.
What this page does not do
A calculator that does not say where it stops invites you to read more into the number than is there.
- No tax in the calculator. The four figures on the first screen are gross, and the steps in the section above are a worked example you can check by hand, not a second output. The full withholding mechanics are on the paycheck calculator with overtime.
- No state law. Whether unused time must be paid at all, and at which rate, is set by statute in some states and by policy in others. None of it is quoted here, and nothing on this page should be read as saying a payout is owed.
- No accrual. How the balance got to 96 hours is the subject of the PTO accrual calculator.
- No cap rule. The cap box is a number you type; what your plan caps, and whether it caps hours or dollars, is in the plan.
- No eligibility test, no waiting period, no forfeiture clause.
Questions people actually ask
How much tax comes out of a PTO payout?
A payout is paid outside the normal payroll cycle, so it is a supplemental wage: 22% flat federal withholding is the usual default, and FICA comes off on top at 6.2% for Social Security while you are under the $184,500 wage base and 1.45% for Medicare with no cap. On $2,496.00 that is $549.12 + $154.75 + $36.19 = $740.06, leaving $1,755.94 before any state tax. The 22% is a withholding rate, not your bracket — if your marginal rate is lower, the difference comes back at filing.
Is a PTO payout the same as PTO cash out?
Yes. Both names describe the same transaction: hours in the balance converted to money instead of time off. The queue of results for this phrase mixes the two, and the arithmetic does not change with the label.
Do I have to be paid for unused PTO?
Not under federal law. 29 CFR 778.219 is about how a payout that does exist is treated for overtime, and its first example says in terms that nothing in it implies a statutory right to the vacation pay, which is “a matter of private contract between the parties”. Some states do require it; this page quotes no state statute, so the answer for your state has to come from that state.
Does a payout push me into overtime for that week?
No. The hours are not hours worked, and 778.219(a) says no part of the payout may be credited toward overtime due. On a 48-hour week at $26.00 with 24 hours cashed out, the check is $1,976.00; counting the payout hours as worked would produce $2,288.00, which is $312.00 too much.
My balance is quoted in days, not hours. What do I type?
Multiply the days by the length of your normal shift. Ten days on an 8-hour schedule is 80 hours; ten days on a 12-hour schedule is 120 hours. The dollars follow the hours, so the day count on its own is not enough to price a payout — which is why the day length is a separate box here.
What happens if I used more PTO than I accrued?
The balance goes negative and the shortfall is normally recovered from the final check. At $26.00 an hour, 12 hours short is $312.00 off a $1,040.00 week, leaving $728.00. At $7.50 the same 12 hours would leave $210.00, which is $5.25 an hour — below the federal minimum, and 29 CFR 531.35 does not allow a deduction to cut into minimum or overtime wages.
Related pages
Severance Pay Calculator
The other payment that arrives at separation, built from a week of pay — with the lookback average and the gross-up.
Paycheck Calculator With Overtime
Where a supplemental payment is withheld: the flat rate against the aggregate method, and what a check looks like once the wage base is passed.
General information only — not tax, legal or payroll advice. 29 CFR 778.218, 778.219 and 531.35 were read from the eCFR on 2026-11-02, and the FICA rates and the Social Security wage base from IRS Publication 15 (2026) the same day. No state law, no plan rules, and no eligibility test.