PTO and sick leave · rules read October 11, 2026
PTO accrual calculator
Turn a yearly vacation allowance into the hours each paycheck should add, and see when a cap stops the balance.
Written by Radif Partners · How the hours are counted · Editorial policy
Hours earned each paycheck
4.62 h
120.0 hours a year · 0.0577 h per hour worked on 2,080 hours
| Balance after one year | 120.00 h |
| Cap reached at paycheck | not reached |
| Hours not earned because of the cap | 0.00 h |
A cap stops accrual until hours are used; it does not take away hours already earned. How this is calculated.
PTO accrual spreads a yearly allowance across the year, so the hours per paycheck equal the yearly hours divided by the number of paychecks. Fifteen vacation days at 8 hours a day are 120 hours a year, which accrue at 2.31 hours a week, 4.62 hours every biweekly paycheck, 5 hours twice a month or 10 hours a month. Policies that accrue per hour worked divide the same 120 hours by a full-time year of 2,080 hours, giving 0.0577 hours of PTO for every hour on the clock, about one hour for every 17.3 worked. That method rewards overtime and scales down for part-time staff: at 25 hours a week the same policy yields 75 hours a year. Many plans also set a cap, often expressed as a multiple of the yearly allowance, and once the balance reaches it accrual pauses until time is used. Vacation accrual comes from the employer's policy; in California, paid sick leave accrues by statute at 1 hour per 30 hours worked.
Days a year to hours per paycheck
Hours per paycheck
4.62
| Hours a year at 8 a day | 120.0 |
| Per hour worked (2,080 h) | 0.0577 |
| Paychecks a year | 26 |
From days a year to hours on each pay stub
Offer letters speak in days or weeks; payroll speaks in hours per period. The conversion takes two steps. First turn days into hours with the length of your normal workday, 8 hours in most full-time jobs, 10 for a four-day schedule, 12 for some healthcare rotations. Then divide by the paychecks in a year: 52 weekly, 26 biweekly, 24 semimonthly, 12 monthly. The table does this for the allowances that come up most often, so you can check the accrual line on a stub at a glance.
| Days a year | Hours a year | Weekly | Biweekly | Semimonthly | Monthly | Per hour worked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | 40 | 0.77 | 1.54 | 1.67 | 3.33 | 0.0192 |
| 10 | 80 | 1.54 | 3.08 | 3.33 | 6.67 | 0.0385 |
| 12 | 96 | 1.85 | 3.69 | 4.00 | 8.00 | 0.0462 |
| 15 | 120 | 2.31 | 4.62 | 5.00 | 10.00 | 0.0577 |
| 18 | 144 | 2.77 | 5.54 | 6.00 | 12.00 | 0.0692 |
| 20 | 160 | 3.08 | 6.15 | 6.67 | 13.33 | 0.0769 |
| 25 | 200 | 3.85 | 7.69 | 8.33 | 16.67 | 0.0962 |
A schedule of 10-hour days changes the first step, not the second. Fifteen days of 10 hours are 150 hours, which is 5.77 hours a biweekly paycheck. Some employers keep the hours at 8 per day of allowance even for 10-hour shifts, in which case a "day" off uses more than a day of PTO; the policy wording decides.
Accrual per hour worked
Hourly employers often express the rate per hour on the clock rather than per paycheck. The figure is the yearly allowance divided by 2,080, the hours of a full-time year. It behaves differently from per-period accrual in three situations. A part-timer at 25 hours a week on a 15-day policy accrues 75 hours a year instead of 120. Overtime, the hours past 40 in a workweek under Fact Sheet #23, adds PTO too, unless the policy excludes it. And unpaid leave stops accrual automatically, because no hours are worked. Per-period accrual, in contrast, gives the same hours every check whether the period held 70 hours or 90.
California's paid sick leave is the statutory example of per-hour accrual: 1 hour for every 30 hours worked, with use that can be limited to 40 hours or 5 days a year and a cap of at least 80 hours or 10 days, according to the Labor Commissioner. The California sick leave page works through that case in detail.
Caps, carryover and the year-end check
A cap limits the balance, not the yearly accrual. When the balance reaches it, new hours are not credited until some time is used, so a worker who never takes vacation stops earning it. With 120 hours a year accrued biweekly and a cap of 180 hours, a starting balance of 100 hours hits the cap on paycheck 18; from then on, 40 hours that would have been earned during the year are lost if nothing is taken. The PTO calculator above shows the check on which your own balance would stop growing.
Carryover limits are a different rule: they cut the balance at year end to a set number of hours. Both come from the employer's policy, since federal wage law has no paid vacation requirement. Before the year closes, compare the hours on your last stub with the hours the table predicts. Rounding to two decimals on every check can leave you a fraction short, and a missed accrual is easier to fix in December than in March. The PTO calculator then plans the balance against a trip, using the 2026 federal holidays to count only the workdays you will miss.