How to Convert Hourly Pay to Annual Salary

Direct Answer

To convert hourly pay to annual salary, multiply your hourly wage by the number of hours worked per week and then multiply that result by the number of weeks worked per year. For a full-time employee working 40 hours per week and 52 weeks per year, the formula is:

Annual Salary = Hourly Rate × 40 × 52

For example, $25 per hour equals approximately $52,000 per year.

This calculation comes up constantly, whether you're comparing a job offer that pays hourly against one that pays salary, budgeting around a new wage, or just trying to understand what an hourly number actually means over a full year. The math itself is simple, but a few common assumptions baked into it are worth understanding, since they can meaningfully change the real number.

Hourly pay and annual salary are often treated as if they're interchangeable ways of describing the same job, but they're really two different framings of compensation, and converting between them cleanly requires a consistent set of assumptions about hours and weeks worked. A wage that sounds modest on an hourly basis can look substantial once annualized, and a salary that sounds impressive can look less so once you break it down to an hourly rate and compare it against your actual time commitment. Understanding the conversion in both directions gives you a clearer, more accurate picture of what any given pay structure is really worth.

Hourly to Annual Salary Formula

There are a few ways to express this formula, depending on how much detail you want to include.

Standard Formula

Annual Salary = Hourly Rate × Hours Per Week × Weeks Per Year

Full-Time Formula

Annual Salary = Hourly Rate × 40 × 52

Simplified Formula

Annual Salary = Hourly Rate × 2,080

The simplified version works because 40 hours per week multiplied by 52 weeks per year equals 2,080 total work hours in a year. Once you know this number, converting any hourly rate to an annual salary becomes a single multiplication step, as long as the 40-hour, 52-week assumption applies to your situation.

How to Convert Hourly Pay to Annual Salary Step by Step

If you want to work through your own conversion manually, here's the process broken into five steps.

Step 1: Identify your hourly wage.

Example: $25 per hour.

Step 2: Determine your weekly hours.

Example: 40 hours per week. If you work part-time or a non-standard schedule, use your actual average weekly hours instead of assuming a full 40.

Step 3: Determine the weeks worked annually.

Example: 52 weeks. If you take unpaid time off during the year, this number should be lower — more on that in the mistakes section below.

Step 4: Apply the formula.

$25 × 40 × 52

Step 5: Calculate the annual salary.

$52,000

Once you've worked through this once, you'll notice the formula is really just three numbers multiplied together, which is why a calculator makes it faster for repeated use, especially when comparing several different hourly rates or schedules at once.

Hourly to Annual Salary Examples

Seeing the formula applied at a few common hourly rates makes the pattern easier to internalize.

Example 1: $15/hour

Calculation: 15 × 2,080 = $31,200

Annual Salary: $31,200

Example 2: $20/hour

Calculation: 20 × 2,080 = $41,600

Annual Salary: $41,600

Example 3: $25/hour

Calculation: 25 × 2,080 = $52,000

Annual Salary: $52,000

Example 4: $30/hour

Calculation: 30 × 2,080 = $62,400

Annual Salary: $62,400

Notice that each additional $5 per hour adds exactly $10,400 to the annual total, since the formula scales linearly. This makes it easy to estimate roughly how much a raise or a new job offer's hourly rate would be worth annually, without recalculating the full formula from scratch each time.

Hourly Wage to Annual Salary Table

Use this table as a quick reference for common hourly rates.

Hourly Rate	Annual Salary
$10	$20,800
$15	$31,200
$20	$41,600
$25	$52,000
$30	$62,400
$35	$72,800
$40	$83,200
$50	$104,000

If your exact hourly rate isn't listed, the hourly to annual calculator can run the conversion instantly for any rate and schedule.

Converting Part-Time and Non-Standard Schedules

The 40-hour, 52-week formula only applies cleanly to standard full-time work. Plenty of jobs don't follow that pattern, and the conversion needs to be adjusted accordingly.

Part-time schedules simply use fewer weekly hours in the same formula. For example, someone working 25 hours a week at $20/hour would calculate:

$20 × 25 × 52 = $26,000 per year

Seasonal or temporary work should use the actual number of weeks worked, not a full 52. Someone earning $22/hour for a 16-week seasonal role working 35 hours a week would calculate:

$22 × 35 × 16 = $12,320 for that work period, not an annualized $47,960 figure, since the work itself doesn't continue year-round.

Variable schedules, common in retail, hospitality, and gig-adjacent work, are harder to convert precisely, since weekly hours change from one week to the next. In these cases, using an average of several recent pay periods gives a more realistic estimate than assuming a single fixed number of weekly hours.

In each of these cases, the core formula doesn't change — what changes is which numbers you plug into it. Using the standard 40-hour, 52-week assumption for a part-time or seasonal role will produce a number that significantly overstates actual annual income.

Converting Annual Salary Back to an Hourly Rate

Sometimes you need to go in the opposite direction — you know an annual salary and want to understand what it works out to per hour, often to compare it against a separate hourly offer. This uses the reverse of the same formula:

Hourly Rate = Annual Salary ÷ (Hours Per Week × Weeks Per Year)

For example, a $65,000 salary based on a standard 40-hour week works out to:

$65,000 ÷ 2,080 = $31.25 per hour

This reverse calculation is especially useful when a salaried role realistically requires more than 40 hours a week. If that same $65,000 salary actually requires a consistent 48-hour week, the true effective hourly rate drops to:

$65,000 ÷ (48 × 52) = $65,000 ÷ 2,496 = $26.04 per hour

That's a meaningful difference from the $31.25 figure calculated at 40 hours, and it illustrates why comparing a salaried offer's stated number against its realistic hourly workload matters more than comparing the salary figure alone.

How Many Work Hours Are in a Year?

Standard Full-Time Employee

40 hours per week × 52 weeks = 2,080 hours per year

This 2,080-hour figure is a common employer assumption used across payroll systems, job postings, and salary comparison tools. It's useful as a general benchmark for salary estimates, but it's worth remembering that it represents a theoretical maximum for a standard full-time schedule — it doesn't automatically account for holidays, sick days, vacation time, or any unpaid leave you might take during the year.

Hourly vs Salary Jobs

Converting between hourly and salaried pay is useful, but it's also worth understanding how the two pay structures differ beyond the raw numbers.

Hourly Pay

Benefits:

Overtime eligibility in many jurisdictions
Paid for actual hours worked, with no ambiguity about unpaid extra time
Often comes with more flexible scheduling

Challenges:

Income may fluctuate week to week based on hours scheduled
Fewer guaranteed hours during slow periods

Salary Pay

Benefits:

Predictable income every pay period
Often includes bundled benefits like health insurance or retirement matching
Easier to budget around, since the number doesn't change week to week

Challenges:

May not receive overtime pay, even during unusually demanding weeks
The "40 hours" assumption behind the salary doesn't always match actual hours worked

Neither structure is inherently better — the right one depends on your specific role, how consistent your hours are, and whether overtime is a realistic part of your work.

How Overtime Affects Annual Income

The standard formula assumes exactly 40 hours a week with no overtime, but many hourly workers regularly work beyond that, which changes the real annual total.

Example:

Hourly Rate = $20 Overtime Hours = 5/week Overtime Rate = $30/hour (time-and-a-half)

Base annual income (40 hours/week):

$20 × 2,080 = $41,600

Additional overtime income:

$30 × 5 × 52 = $7,800

Total annual income with overtime:

$41,600 + $7,800 = $49,400

In this example, five hours of weekly overtime adds nearly $7,800 to the base annual figure, a meaningful difference that the standard formula alone wouldn't capture. If overtime is a regular and reliable part of your schedule, it's worth including it in any annual income estimate rather than relying on the base hourly-to-annual conversion alone.

Common Mistakes When Converting Hourly Pay

A few recurring errors can throw off an hourly-to-annual conversion.

Mistake 1: Assuming everyone works 2,080 hours.

The 2,080-hour figure assumes a full 40-hour week, every week, for 52 weeks straight. Part-time schedules, seasonal work, and roles with fluctuating hours won't match this assumption, so the calculation should use your actual average weekly hours instead.

Mistake 2: Ignoring unpaid leave.

If you take unpaid time off during the year — whether for personal reasons, an unpaid holiday, or a gap between jobs — your real annual income will be lower than the standard formula suggests, since those weeks contribute zero hours toward the total.

Mistake 3: Ignoring overtime.

As shown above, regular overtime can add a meaningful amount to your real annual income. Leaving it out of the calculation understates your actual yearly earnings if overtime is a consistent part of your work.

Mistake 4: Forgetting taxes and deductions.

The hourly-to-annual formula calculates gross income, before taxes and other deductions. Your actual take-home pay will be lower, and the gap depends on your tax bracket, benefits elections, and location.

Mistake 5: Using annual salary instead of actual take-home pay.

When budgeting, it's easy to mentally treat the calculated annual salary as what you'll actually have available to spend. For accurate budgeting, it's worth working from an estimated take-home figure instead, particularly when comparing a new hourly role against your current one.

Comparing an Hourly Offer to a Salaried Offer

One of the most practical uses of this formula is comparing two job offers that use different pay structures — one hourly, one salaried — since they don't look directly comparable at first glance.

The cleanest way to compare them is to convert both into the same unit, typically annual income, and then adjust for anything the raw numbers don't capture:

Convert the hourly offer to an annual figure using your realistic expected weekly hours, not just the standard 40.
Check whether the hourly role includes overtime pay, and factor in a reasonable overtime estimate if it's a regular occurrence in that type of role.
Check whether the salaried role realistically involves more than 40 hours a week, since unpaid overtime effectively lowers its true hourly value.
Compare bundled benefits, since salaried roles more often include health insurance or retirement contributions that add real value beyond the base number.
Compare the two adjusted annual figures, rather than the raw hourly or salary numbers as originally presented.

A job offer comparison calculator can help formalize this comparison further, factoring in benefits and other compensation details alongside the base pay conversion covered here.

Use Our Hourly to Annual Calculator

Running this formula by hand works fine for a single estimate, but a calculator makes it instant, especially when you want to check multiple pay periods at once.

Try the Hourly to Annual Calculator →

With the calculator, you can instantly get:

Annual salary — your yearly income based on hourly rate and hours worked
Monthly salary — what that breaks down to per month
Weekly salary — your expected weekly gross pay
Daily earnings — useful for estimating income on a per-shift basis

It's a fast way to sanity-check a new hourly offer, plan a budget around a wage change, or compare pay across different roles without doing the math by hand each time.

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Frequently Asked Questions

How do I convert hourly pay to annual salary?

Multiply your hourly wage by the number of hours worked per week and the number of weeks worked per year.

How much is $20 an hour annually?

Assuming 40 hours per week and 52 weeks per year: $20 × 2,080 = $41,600.

How much is $25 an hour annually?

Assuming full-time work: $25 × 2,080 = $52,000.

What is the formula for converting hourly pay to salary?

Annual Salary = Hourly Rate × Hours Per Week × Weeks Per Year.

How many work hours are in a year?

A full-time employee working 40 hours per week for 52 weeks works approximately 2,080 hours per year.