How to Calculate Hourly Rate From Salary in the US (With Examples)

A recruiter says "$60,000" and your brain quietly asks: but what is that per hour? It's one of the most useful numbers you can know. It lets you compare a salaried job with an hourly one, judge whether a side gig is worth your time and see what a long commute is really costing you. The arithmetic is easy. The assumptions behind it are where people go wrong.

The formula

Hourly rate = annual salary ÷ (hours per week × weeks per year). For a standard full-time job that's 40 hours × 52 weeks = 2,080 hours. So a $52,000 salary equals $25.00 an hour, and $60,000 equals $28.85.

Why you sometimes see 2,087

If you look up how the US federal government does this, you'll find a slightly different number. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) divides annual pay by 2,087 hours to get a federal employee's hourly rate. Its own regulation gives an example: $50,000 ÷ 2,087 = $23.96. Using 2,080, the same salary gives $24.04. The extra seven hours account for the way the calendar works, since a year isn't exactly 52 weeks, and the formula keeps pay consistent in years with 26 or 27 biweekly paydays.

For most private-sector jobs, 2,080 is the convention, and that's what we use in the tables below. Just know that a federal worker's rate will come out a few cents lower. If you work for the government, use 2,087.

A quick conversion table

If you just want a number fast, use the salary to hourly converter.

When the week is longer than 40 hours

The table above assumes a neat 40-hour week, but salaried jobs often stretch. Take $60,000 again. At 40 hours it's $28.85 an hour. At 45 hours it's $60,000 ÷ (45 × 52) = $25.64. At 50 hours it falls to $23.08. Nothing about your salary changed, yet your effective hourly pay dropped almost $6.

That's why you should always ask how many hours a role really takes. Compare two offers: $65,000 at 45 hours a week works out to $27.78 an hour, while $58,000 at 37.5 hours a week works out to $29.74 an hour. The lower salary pays better per hour worked. We explore this trade-off in salary vs hourly pay and how to compare job offers.

Do your commute and prep time count?

Strictly speaking, no, because you aren't paid for them. But they take real time. If your 40-hour job comes with 10 hours of commuting a week, you're spending 50 hours for $60,000, and your honest rate drops to $23.08. It won't change your paycheck, though it can change whether the job is a good deal.

Adjusting for time off

The 2,080-hour formula already includes paid vacation and holidays, because you're paid for them. If you want your rate for hours you actually work, take them out. With 15 vacation days and 10 holidays (200 hours), you work about 1,880 hours: $60,000 ÷ 1,880 = $31.91. If you use 50 working weeks instead, you get 2,000 hours and $30.00. Neither number is wrong. They answer different questions: your contract rate or your rate for time on the job.

Part-time salaries

The same method works for a reduced schedule. A $39,000 salary for 30 hours a week is $39,000 ÷ (30 × 52) = $25.00 an hour. Part-time roles are easy to compare with full-time ones once you convert both to hourly.

Gross vs. take-home

Every rate above is before tax. After federal income tax, Social Security and Medicare, a single worker earning $60,000 in a state with no income tax keeps about $50,390 a year in 2026, which is roughly $24.23 per paid hour. State tax and benefit deductions lower it further. Take-home pay vs salary shows typical percentages, and the US paycheck calculator will estimate yours.

For freelancers: charge more than you think

If you work for yourself, don't just divide a salary by 2,080. You pay both halves of Social Security and Medicare, buy your own insurance and can't bill every hour, since time goes to admin, marketing and gaps between projects. To match a $60,000 salary, add around $8,000 for insurance and benefits and roughly $4,600 for the extra payroll tax. That's about $72,600. If you can bill 1,500 hours a year, you need to charge about $48 an hour. The self-employed tax calculator helps with the tax side.

So which hourly rate should you use?

It depends on the question you're asking. For a quick comparison with an hourly job offer, use the plain contract rate (salary ÷ 2,080). To decide whether a job is worth the effort, use the effective rate, which divides your salary by every hour the work really takes, including unpaid overtime. And to judge your real buying power, use the take-home figure after tax. Write all three down for any offer you're considering. Seeing $28.85, $25.64 and $24.23 side by side for the same $60,000 salary tells a much more honest story than the headline number alone, and it makes negotiating easier because you know exactly what you're trading.

Does the answer change for overtime?

For hourly workers, overtime is paid at 1.5 times the regular rate after 40 hours in a workweek, but whether a salaried employee gets overtime depends on their classification, not on being paid a salary. How overtime pay works explains the rules.

Going the other way

To convert hourly to annual, multiply rate × hours × weeks. $25 × 40 × 52 = $52,000. See the $25 an hour breakdown for scenarios with overtime.

Common questions

Should I use 2,080 or 2,000? Use 2,080 for a full-time job with paid leave included. Use about 2,000 for a 50-week year or if you want a rough figure for hours worked.

Why does my employer's number differ slightly? Employers may use different divisors, such as 2,087 for federal pay, or round hourly rates to the nearest cent.

Written by Muhammad Tabish. Examples show gross pay before tax; take-home uses 2026 US federal rules for a single filer. The 2,087-hour divisor is checked against OPM's guidance on computing rates of pay (October 2026). Not financial advice.