Paycheck Calculator for Overtime

You picked up extra hours and expected a bigger paycheck — but the bump was smaller than you thought. Here's how overtime actually flows through your pay, what taxes take, and how to figure out what you'll really bring home.

How Overtime Pay Works

Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), non-exempt workers earn at least 1.5 times their regular hourly rate for every hour worked beyond 40 in a workweek. That's the federal minimum. Some states add their own rules — California, for example, requires 1.5x after 8 hours in a single day and 2x after 12 hours. Union contracts sometimes define custom multipliers or additional tiers.

The gross pay formula is straightforward:

If your base rate is $25/hr and you work 80 regular hours plus 10 overtime hours in a biweekly period, your gross is: 80 × $25 + 10 × $37.50 = $2,375. Simple enough on the gross side. The tax side is where it gets interesting.

Why Withholding Looks Higher on Overtime Paychecks

This is the single biggest source of confusion about overtime pay. Your coworker tells you “overtime is taxed at a higher rate” — but that's not what's happening. Here's the truth:

Your employer's payroll system takes your total gross pay for the period and annualizes it (multiplies by the number of pay periods per year). A biweekly paycheck of $2,375 becomes $2,375 × 26 = $61,750 annualized. That's higher than your normal $2,000 × 26 = $52,000, which can push the annualized amount into a higher federal withholding bracket. The system withholds more federal tax because it assumes you'll earn that higher amount all year.

But you won't earn overtime every period. So the system over-withholds on OT paychecks and under-withholds on lighter ones. Over the full year, it roughly balances out. If it doesn't, you get the excess back as a tax refund. Overtime is not taxed at a special rate — it goes through the same progressive brackets as your regular wages. Learn more about this in our guide on how overtime affects your paycheck.

FICA on Overtime: No Special Treatment

FICA taxes — 6.2% Social Security and 1.45% Medicare — apply to overtime wages the same as regular wages. There's no OT exemption or reduced rate. On that $375 of overtime pay, you'll pay $23.25 in Social Security tax and $5.44 in Medicare tax, for a combined $28.69 in FICA.

The one break: if your year-to-date wages have already exceeded the $184,500 Social Security wage base cap (2026), no more Social Security tax is withheld on any wages — including overtime. Medicare, at 1.45%, never stops.

Worked Example: $25/hr With and Without Overtime

Let's compare a biweekly paycheck with and without overtime for a single filer in a state with roughly 5% income tax:

No Overtime: 80 Hours

With 10 Hours Overtime at 1.5x

What the Overtime Actually Earned You

The extra $375 in gross from overtime produced about $245 in additional take-home pay. Roughly $130 went to taxes: ~$82 in additional federal withholding, ~$29 in FICA, and ~$19 in state tax. Your effective take-home rate on those overtime hours works out to about $24.50/hr — compared to the $37.50/hr gross rate. Still well worth it, but noticeably less than the headline number.

Multi-Tier Overtime

Not all overtime is 1.5x. Depending on your state or contract, you might have multiple tiers:

Each tier feeds into the same tax calculation. The gross goes up, the payroll system annualizes, and withholding adjusts accordingly. The more you earn in a period, the more aggressive the withholding — but again, the actual tax rate on those dollars is the same as your regular wages.

Does Overtime Ever “Not Worth It”?

There's a persistent myth that working too much overtime pushes you into a higher tax bracket and you end up losing money. This is false. Tax brackets are progressive — only the dollars above the bracket threshold are taxed at the higher rate. Every hour of overtime adds to your take-home pay. Period. The rate of return decreases slightly as you move into higher brackets, but it never goes negative. If someone tells you they “lost money on overtime,” what actually happened is their withholding was temporarily higher and they'll get it back at tax time.

How TakeHome IQ Handles Overtime

Set your earnings mode to hourly, enter your base rate and regular hours, then add overtime hours with the multiplier (1.5x, 2x, or any custom value). The app calculates your projected net pay with the overtime included, showing every line item: federal withholding, Social Security, Medicare, state tax, and deductions. You can adjust the overtime hours and watch your net pay update instantly.

Want to compare? Check the difference between a normal paycheck and one with overtime side by side. See how the numbers stack up against your salary vs. hourly comparison, or find out where the rest of your paycheck goes.

See what overtime actually adds to your take-home — download TakeHome IQ and get your breakdown before your next shift.

Now see it in your own paycheck. Before payday.

TakeHome IQ turns paycheck concepts into a real pay-period comparison, so you can see what changed in your next paycheck and why.

Join the WaitlistHow It Works

See how overtime, bonuses, deductions, and withholding changes affect what you actually keep.

More paycheck guides