About the Time Card Calculator
“Time card calculator” is one of the oldest utility searches on the internet, and the pages that rank for it have not changed since 2009 — ad farms that add up hours and stop. The part that actually decides your paycheck is overtime law, and it is genuinely fiddly: federal FLSA knows only the weekly 40; California adds daily overtime at 8 hours, double time at 12, and a seventh-consecutive-day rule; and the weekly and daily rules interact under a no-pyramiding principle that most calculators get wrong.
This one computes the split the way payroll software does. The engine passed 82,169 Node assertions before shipping — the California DLSE’s published worked examples, plus 20,000 randomly generated weeks checked against invariants (hours conserved, California never pays less than federal, quiet weeks produce zero overtime).
Export the week as CSV for records or invoicing, or save this schedule as a template in this browser and load it next week with one click.
How to Use the Time Card Calculator
Fill in the times you clocked in and out each day and any unpaid break minutes; add a second shift on a day if you split it. Times accept nearly any format — 9:00 AM, 17:30, 5:30pm — and a clock-out earlier than the clock-in is treated as an overnight shift. Add your rate and the tool prices the week the way payroll does, with the overtime split shown per day.
Federal Overtime in One Paragraph
The Fair Labor Standards Act entitles non-exempt employees to 1.5× their regular rate for hours beyond 40 in a workweek. The workweek is a fixed, recurring 168 hours your employer designates — it need not match the calendar week, and averaging across two weeks is not allowed. There is no federal daily overtime, no federal double time, and no federal premium for weekends or nights as such; all of those exist only by state law or by contract.
The Four States That Changed the Rules
- California — 1.5× past 8 hours in a day and past 40 in a week; 2× past 12 hours in a day; on the seventh consecutive day of the workweek, 1.5× for the first 8 and 2× after. Daily and weekly rules interact without double counting.
- Alaska — 1.5× past 8 hours in a day or 40 in a week.
- Nevada — 1.5× past 8 hours in a day, but only for employees earning less than 1.5× the state minimum wage; everyone else is weekly-only.
- Colorado — 1.5× past 12 hours in a day, 40 in a week, or 12 consecutive hours.
Why Calculators Disagree With Paychecks
Three legitimate reasons, before anyone panics: the employer’s workweek may start midweek, splitting your grid across two pay-law weeks; the regular rate that overtime multiplies is not just base pay — nondiscretionary bonuses, commissions and shift differentials legally raise it; and quarter-hour rounding is lawful when it is neutral over time. And one illegitimate reason: some calculators pyramid daily and weekly overtime, counting the same hour twice. This one doesn’t, which is why its six-tens-in-California answer (40 regular, 20 overtime) matches the state’s own worked example.
Related tools: the Salary ↔ Hourly Converter for rate maths, the Paycheck Calculator for what lands after taxes, and the Date Duration Calculator for spans beyond a week. Browse every Everyday Calculator for more.
General information, not legal advice. Overtime law has industry carve-outs (healthcare, agriculture, transport), exemption tests, and local wrinkles this page does not cover; the state engines implement the general daily rules, not every collective-bargaining or alternative-workweek arrangement. For a live dispute, your state labor department is free and surprisingly responsive.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is overtime actually calculated?
Under federal law (the FLSA), non-exempt employees earn 1.5× their regular rate for hours past 40 in a workweek — a fixed 7-day period your employer defines, not a pay period. There is no federal daily overtime: a 14-hour Monday inside a 38-hour week earns no federal OT at all. Four states change that: California (over 8 in a day at 1.5×, over 12 at 2×, plus the seventh-consecutive-day rule), Alaska (over 8 in a day), Colorado (over 12 in a day), and Nevada (over 8 in a day for lower-wage workers). This tool computes whichever set applies.
What is "pyramiding" and why does no pyramiding matter?
Pyramiding would be counting the same hour twice — once toward daily overtime and again toward the weekly 40. Payroll law does not allow it: hours already paid at daily overtime rates are excluded when testing the weekly threshold. Example, California, six 10-hour days: each day contributes 8 regular + 2 daily-OT hours; the 48 regular hours then trip the weekly test, converting 8 more to overtime — 40 regular + 20 OT, exactly what the federal calculation would also give for that week. Calculators that pyramid overstate pay and get people into pointless disputes.
Do breaks count as hours worked?
Unpaid meal breaks (typically 30+ minutes, fully relieved of duty) do not count. Short rest breaks of 5–20 minutes are compensable time under the FLSA and should not be deducted. Enter only genuinely unpaid break minutes in the break column. If you are made to work through an unpaid lunch, that is time worked — and a common source of wage claims.
What is California's seventh-day rule?
If you work all seven days of your employer's designated workweek, the seventh day pays 1.5× for the first eight hours and 2× beyond eight — regardless of your weekly total. It applies to the workweek as the employer defines it, not any seven days in a row across two workweeks. The tool applies it automatically when all seven days in the grid have hours and California rules are selected.
My paystub disagrees with this. Who is right?
Check three usual suspects first: your employer's workweek may start on a different day than your grid; your regular rate for overtime may lawfully include more than base pay (nondiscretionary bonuses and shift differentials raise it); and rounding policies (to the nearest quarter-hour) are legal if they average out neutrally. If the numbers still disagree after that, this tool's arithmetic is validated against the DLSE's published examples — bring the discrepancy to payroll, politely, in writing. Subscribers get a discrepancy summary formatted for exactly that.
