Hourly to Annual Salary Calculator Guide: How to Convert Your Pay Rate and Understand What You Actually Earn

Whether you are comparing a salaried job offer against your current hourly contract, working out whether a pay rise is meaningful in annual terms, or simply trying to understand how your weekly earnings add up over a year, converting between hourly and annual pay is something most workers need to do at some point — and most do it incorrectly.

The basic maths is straightforward. The complications come from public holidays, paid leave entitlements, overtime, and the fact that not all countries define a standard working year in the same way. This guide walks through the conversion formula, the adjustments that matter in practice, and what different hourly rates actually look like as annual gross salaries in the USA, UK, Canada, Australia, and Germany.

The Basic Formula: How to Convert Hourly to Annual Salary

The standard conversion assumes a full-time work schedule of 40 hours per week across 52 weeks per year. Multiplying these together gives 2,080 working hours in a standard year — the figure used by most employers, payroll systems, and salary comparison tools across the English-speaking world.

The formula is:

Annual Salary = Hourly Rate × 40 hours × 52 weeks

Or simply: Hourly Rate × 2,080

So a worker earning $20 per hour on a standard full-time schedule earns a gross annual salary of $41,600. A worker on $30 per hour earns $62,400 annually. The reverse conversion — annual to hourly — simply divides the annual salary by 2,080.

Why the 2,080-Hour Figure Is Not Always Accurate

The 2,080-hour standard assumes you work every single week of the year without exception. In reality, most workers do not. Public holidays, paid annual leave, and sick leave all reduce the number of hours actually worked — though in most salaried roles, these do not reduce your pay.

The distinction here is important: your gross annual salary includes pay for days you are not working — holidays, bank holidays, and paid leave. But if you are calculating your effective hourly rate based on hours actually worked rather than hours paid, the denominator changes significantly.

A US worker with 10 days of paid annual leave and 10 federal public holidays takes 20 days off per year — four working weeks. Their actual working hours are 2,080 minus 160 hours = 1,920 hours worked. A UK worker entitled to 28 days of statutory leave (including bank holidays) works roughly 1,776 hours per year. An Australian worker on the standard four weeks annual leave plus public holidays works around 1,824 hours.

This does not affect your annual salary if you are paid for those days. But it does affect how you compare an hourly contract role — which typically does not pay for days off — against a salaried position that includes paid leave. According to the Wikipedia article on working time, average annual working hours vary considerably across developed economies, from around 1,600 in Germany to over 1,800 in the US and over 2,000 in some Asian economies.

Hourly Rate vs. Salaried Role: What the Comparison Actually Involves

When a recruiter or client presents an hourly contract rate alongside a salaried offer, the headline numbers are rarely comparable at face value. A salaried role typically includes paid holiday, sick pay, employer pension contributions, and various other benefits. An hourly contract rate includes none of these — the rate is simply the rate.

To make a fair comparison, you need to load the salaried package into the hourly equivalent, or load the hidden costs of the contract role into the annual equivalent. The most common approach is to calculate a comparable day rate for the salaried role, then compare it against the contract rate after accounting for non-working days.

A salaried worker in the UK earning £45,000 per year with 28 days of paid leave (statutory minimum including bank holidays) works approximately 233 days per year. Their effective day rate is £45,000 ÷ 233 = approximately £193 per day. A contract worker who needs to earn the same net amount — and fund their own pension, holiday pay, sick cover, and employer NI — needs a significantly higher day rate to break even. A common rule of thumb in the UK contracting market is that a contract day rate should be at least 1.5 to 2 times the equivalent permanent day rate to compensate for all missing benefits and employment protections.

Standard Working Hours by Country

The number of hours used to define a standard working year varies slightly by country and industry. The table below shows the figures most commonly used for salary conversion purposes in each of the five countries covered by this site.

These are the figures used in our salary calculators to convert between hourly, weekly, monthly, and annual pay.

Hourly to Annual Salary Conversion Table: Common Rates in Multiple Currencies

The table below shows gross annual salary equivalents for a range of hourly rates, based on a standard 40-hour week and 52-week year (2,080 hours). These are pre-tax gross figures. Use the country calculators linked below to see after-tax take-home pay for your specific rate and location.

Table 1 — Hourly Rate to Annual Gross Salary (40 hrs/week × 52 weeks = 2,080 hours)

Hourly Rate ($ / £ / €)	Weekly Gross (40 hrs)	Monthly Gross (÷ 12)	Annual Gross (× 2,080)
10.00	400.00	1,733.33	20,800
12.00	480.00	2,080.00	24,960
15.00	600.00	2,600.00	31,200
18.00	720.00	3,120.00	37,440
20.00	800.00	3,466.67	41,600
25.00	1,000.00	4,333.33	52,000
30.00	1,200.00	5,200.00	62,400
35.00	1,400.00	6,066.67	72,800
40.00	1,600.00	6,933.33	83,200
50.00	2,000.00	8,666.67	104,000
60.00	2,400.00	10,400.00	124,800
75.00	3,000.00	13,000.00	156,000
100.00	4,000.00	17,333.33	208,000

Minimum Wage Hourly Rates and Annual Equivalents by Country

Each country covered in this guide sets a national minimum wage — the lowest hourly rate an employer is legally permitted to pay most adult workers. The following table shows current minimum wage rates and their annual equivalent on a standard 40-hour, 52-week schedule. These are gross figures before tax, National Insurance, or social contributions.

Table 2 — National Minimum Wage Rates and Annual Equivalents (Current Rates, Standard Full-Time Hours)

Country	Minimum Wage (per hour)	Annual Equivalent (2,080 hrs)	Monthly Gross	Notes
🇺🇸 USA	$7.25 federal	$15,080	$1,257	Many states and cities set higher minimums — e.g. California $17.00, Washington $16.28, NYC $16.50
🇬🇧 UK	£12.21 (21+, National Living Wage)	£25,397	£2,116	Lower rates apply for workers aged 18–20 (£10.00) and under 18 (£7.55)
🇨🇦 Canada	$17.30 CAD federal	$35,984 CAD	$2,999 CAD	Provinces set their own minimums — Ontario $17.20, BC $17.40, Alberta $15.00
🇦🇺 Australia	$24.10 AUD	$50,128 AUD	$4,177 AUD	Set by the Fair Work Commission annually; applies to most award-covered workers
🇩🇪 Germany	€12.82	€26,666	€2,222	Applies to most workers; some sectors covered by collective agreements (Tarifvertrag) set higher rates

Australia's minimum wage stands out as the highest among these five countries in absolute terms — reflecting both a higher cost of living and a labour market structure where award wages are more prevalent than in North American economies. The US federal minimum wage of $7.25 has not been raised since 2009, making it particularly low in real terms — most workers in practice earn significantly above it due to state-level minimums. More context on minimum wage policy internationally is available in the Wikipedia article on minimum wage.

How Overtime Affects Your Annual Salary Calculation

In most countries, hours worked beyond the standard threshold — typically 40 hours per week in the US and Canada, 48 hours averaged across a reference period in the UK under the Working Time Regulations — attract a higher pay rate. In the US, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) requires overtime pay of at least 1.5 times the regular rate for non-exempt employees working beyond 40 hours in a week. In Australia, most awards specify overtime rates of 1.5x for the first two or three hours and 2x beyond that.

For workers who regularly earn overtime, the 2,080-hour annual conversion understates true earnings. A worker earning $20 per hour who consistently works 45 hours per week earns:

Regular pay: 40 hrs × $20 = $800 per week
Overtime pay: 5 hrs × $30 (1.5x) = $150 per week
Total weekly gross: $950
Annual gross (× 52): $49,400 — nearly $7,800 more than the base calculation suggests.

When comparing job offers, always ask whether overtime is paid, at what rate, and how many additional hours are typically expected. An offer that looks equivalent on base pay can be substantially different in practice depending on overtime policy.

Part-Time Hourly to Annual: Adjusting for Fewer Hours

The 2,080-hour figure only applies to a standard full-time schedule. Part-time workers need to adjust based on their contracted hours. The formula remains the same — hourly rate multiplied by contracted weekly hours multiplied by 52 — but with a different hours figure.

A part-time worker on $22 per hour working 25 hours per week earns:

$22 × 25 × 52 = $28,600 per year gross

A worker on £15 per hour working 20 hours per week in the UK earns:

£15 × 20 × 52 = £15,600 per year gross

In the UK, £15,600 sits above the £12,570 Personal Allowance, meaning income tax applies to approximately £3,030 of earnings — at the Basic Rate of 20%, that is £606 in income tax for the year. National Insurance also applies on weekly earnings above the threshold. Use the salary calculators below to calculate exact take-home figures for any hours and rate combination.

Frequently Asked Questions About Hourly to Annual Salary Conversion