Holiday Pay Calculator

How to calculate holiday pay at time and a half

The formula is short: hourly rate times the multiplier times the holiday hours worked. At $20 an hour for an 8-hour holiday shift at time and a half, that is $20 x 1.5 x 8 = $240. Two numbers get confused here, and the calculator above separates them. Holiday pay is the full $240 for those hours. The holiday premium is only the extra above straight time, $80 in the same example ($20 x 0.5 x 8). The premium is the figure that matters later, because it is the part that can be credited against overtime.

Eight holiday hours at a few common rates:

• $18/hr: $144 at straight time, $216 at time and a half, $288 at double time
• $20/hr: $160 at straight time, $240 at time and a half, $320 at double time
• $25/hr: $200 at straight time, $300 at time and a half, $400 at double time
• $30/hr: $240 at straight time, $360 at time and a half, $480 at double time

Be clear about where that multiplier comes from. Federal law does not require holiday pay at all: the FLSA does not require payment for time not worked, and it does not require a premium for working a holiday, a Saturday, a Sunday, or a regular day of rest (DOL Holiday Pay topic page; DOL Fact Sheet #23). Every multiplier in this tool comes from employer policy, a contract or collective bargaining agreement, or a state rule. The only federal floor on a holiday shift is minimum wage for the hours worked plus normal overtime past 40.

Does a paid holiday count toward the 40-hour overtime test?

It depends on one thing: whether you worked it. Holiday hours you actually worked are ordinary hours worked and count toward the 40-hour weekly test like any other hour. Holiday hours that were paid but not worked are not hours worked, so they stay out of that count. The regulation is explicit: pay for holidays, vacation, and idle time is excludable from the regular rate, and no part of it may be credited toward overtime compensation due under the Act (29 CFR 778.218(a)). The DOL Hours Worked Advisor says the same thing.

So the hours test is:

• Hours toward 40 = other hours worked + (holiday hours, only if worked)
• Hours over 40 = whatever is left after subtracting 40, floored at zero

Two cases at $20 an hour show why it matters. Work 40 other hours plus an 8-hour holiday at 1.5x and you have 48 hours toward the test, 8 of them over 40. Work 40 other hours and take a company-paid 8-hour holiday off and you have 40 hours toward the test and no overtime at all: $800 for the hours worked plus $160 of holiday pay, $960 total. A calculator that counts the paid day off as hours worked returns $1,040 for that week, inventing 8 hours of overtime that nobody owes. Check the pure overtime side with the overtime pay calculator, and total the weekly hours with the timesheet hours calculator.

When the holiday premium counts as your overtime pay

This is the rule almost no consumer calculator models. Extra compensation paid at a premium rate for work on a holiday is excluded from the regular rate when the premium is at least one and one-half times the rate established in good faith for like work in nonovertime hours on other days (29 USC 207(e)(6)). That excluded premium is then creditable toward the overtime the employer owes (29 USC 207(h)(2), implemented at 29 CFR 778.203). Below 1.5x, the extra pay is neither excludable nor creditable: it has to be folded into the regular rate, which raises the overtime rate. That is why the multiplier select here stops at 1x, 1.5x, and 2x.

Take 40 other hours plus 8 holiday hours worked at 1.5x on a $20 rate. All 48 hours are already paid at straight time ($960), the holiday premium adds $80, and the statute then wants an extra half the regular rate on the 8 hours over 40, which is $80. The $80 premium already paid covers that $80 exactly, so nothing further is owed and the week totals $1,040. Paying the premium and then stacking the full half-time overtime on top without taking the credit gives $1,120, which double counts. At 2x the premium is $160, more than the $80 due, so no overtime is owed and nobody claws the extra back.

The regulation works its own example at 29 CFR 778.205: a $12 bona fide rate, $18 for holiday and Sunday work, 8 hours a day Sunday through Saturday for 56 hours, with Tuesday a holiday. Straight time on 56 hours is $672. The two premium days add $48 each, $96 of premium. The half-time due on the 16 hours over 40 is also $96, fully covered by that credit, so the total is $768. Entering $12, 16 holiday hours at 1.5x, and 40 other hours above reproduces $768 line for line.

State holiday pay rules and employer policy

The federal baseline is that nothing is required, so state law and your handbook do the real work. Rhode Island is the outlier: most nonexempt employees there must be paid at least one and one-half times their normal rate for work performed on Sundays and covered holidays, independent of the 40-hour test and subject to statutory exemptions (R.I. Gen. Laws 25-3-3). Massachusetts used to have a retail Sunday and holiday premium under the Blue Laws, but it finished phasing out on January 1, 2023, and only the operating restrictions in Chapter 136 remain. California has no holiday premium either, though its daily overtime rules are the most common reason real double time shows up on a holiday shift. Everywhere else it is policy, contract, or a collective bargaining agreement.

Each fixed seven-day workweek stands alone under 29 CFR Part 778, so a holiday week is never averaged against the week beside it. A night or weekend differential on the same shift works the other way: it gets folded into the regular rate rather than credited against overtime, and the shift differential calculator handles that. Once the gross for the week is settled, the hourly paycheck calculator takes it down to net.

To run holiday hours through a real payroll, use the WorkLogs44 Payroll Calculator app. It takes several hours-and-rate overtime entries per employee, so a holiday premium line drops straight into a full payroll with federal, state, and FICA math plus employer SUTA and FUTA.