To find your PTO accrual per pay period, divide your yearly PTO hours by the number of pay periods. 80 hours a year paid biweekly (26 periods) is 3.08 hours per pay period. Enter your own numbers below to see your rate, your balance on any date and the days a leave will use.
3.08 hours of PTO per pay period (0.38 days), 26 biweekly pay periods a year.
Per year: 80 hours (10 days). Per month on average: 6.67 hours.
Your balance on a date appears here once the calculator has loaded.
A two-week leave, from a Monday to the Friday of the next week, is 10 business days: 80 hours at 8 hours a day, minus any holiday that falls inside it.
Today is Thursday, October 22, 2026. The leave counter skips weekends and the public holidays of the calendar you pick, and counts both the first and the last day of your leave. To count business days for anything else, use the business days calculator.
How PTO accrual per pay period is calculated
Most employers that accrue PTO add a small amount to your balance every payday. The calculator uses three plain formulas:
- Days to hours: PTO days × hours in a workday. 15 days × 8 hours = 120 hours.
- Accrual per pay period: PTO hours per year ÷ pay periods per year. 80 hours ÷ 26 = 3.08 hours; 120 hours ÷ 24 = 5 hours.
- Accrual per hour worked: hours worked × (PTO hours earned ÷ hours worked to earn them). At 1 hour for every 30 hours, a 40-hour week earns 1.33 hours, and a year of 2,080 hours earns 69.33 hours.
- Balance on a date: current balance + (accrual per pay period × paydays until that date). If your plan has a carryover cap, anything above the cap is removed on January 1.
Pay periods per year: weekly 52, biweekly 26, semi-monthly 24, monthly 12. A few years have 27 biweekly or 53 weekly paydays; the pay period calculator shows when. Most employers set the accrual rate on 26 or 52 periods regardless, so the calculator does the same.
PTO accrual per pay period: quick table
| PTO per year | Weekly (52) | Biweekly (26) | Semi-monthly (24) | Monthly (12) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 40 hours (5 days) | 0.77 h | 1.54 h | 1.67 h | 3.33 h |
| 80 hours (10 days) | 1.54 h | 3.08 h | 3.33 h | 6.67 h |
| 120 hours (15 days) | 2.31 h | 4.62 h | 5 h | 10 h |
| 160 hours (20 days) | 3.08 h | 6.15 h | 6.67 h | 13.33 h |
| 200 hours (25 days) | 3.85 h | 7.69 h | 8.33 h | 16.67 h |
Worked examples
10 days a year, paid biweekly
10 days × 8 hours = 80 hours a year. 80 ÷ 26 = 3.08 hours per paycheck. After 13 paydays (half a year) you have about 40 hours, or 5 days.
1 hour for every 30 hours worked
A part-time employee working 25 hours a week works 1,300 hours a year. 1,300 ÷ 30 = 43.33 hours of PTO a year, or 1.67 hours per biweekly paycheck (50 hours worked ÷ 30).
Balance with a carryover cap
You have 70 hours on December 1, earn 4.62 hours per biweekly paycheck (120 hours a year) and may carry over 40 hours. Two December paydays bring you to 79.23 hours. On January 1 the balance drops to 40 hours; the other 39.23 hours are lost unless you use them in December.
How many PTO days a vacation uses
PTO is charged only for the days you would have worked. A leave from Monday, December 20 to Friday, December 31, 2027 has 10 weekdays, but two of them are federal holidays that year (Christmas is observed on Friday, December 24 and New Year’s Day 2028 on Friday, December 31):
- On the federal holiday calendar: 8 business days, 64 hours at 8 hours a day.
- At a bank, which follows the Federal Reserve calendar and stays open on those Fridays: 10 business days, 80 hours. See US bank holidays for why.
Your employer’s own holiday list decides which days are free. Private employers often give fewer holidays than the federal calendar, so pick the closest calendar above and check the result against your holiday schedule. A full year has 250 federal business days in 2026; the breakdown is in how many business days are in a year.
PTO rules differ by employer and state
This calculator does arithmetic only. Accrual caps, carryover limits, waiting periods, whether unused PTO is paid out when you leave, and sick-leave rules vary by employer and by state or province. Check your employer’s PTO policy and your state’s labor department before relying on a number for a decision.
PTO calculator FAQ
How do I calculate PTO accrual per pay period?
Divide your yearly PTO hours by your pay periods per year. 120 hours a year paid biweekly is 120 ÷ 26 = 4.62 hours per paycheck; paid semi-monthly it is 120 ÷ 24 = 5 hours.
How many hours of PTO is 80 hours per year per pay period?
3.08 hours per biweekly paycheck, 1.54 hours per weekly paycheck, 3.33 hours semi-monthly and 6.67 hours monthly. 80 hours is 10 days at 8 hours a day.
How do I convert PTO hours to days?
Divide the hours by the length of your workday. 60 hours is 7.5 days at 8 hours a day, or 6 days at 10 hours a day.
Do weekends and holidays count as PTO days?
Usually not. PTO is charged for scheduled workdays, so a week off from Monday to Friday uses 5 days, and a paid holiday inside that week uses none. The leave counter above does this for you.
What is a PTO carryover cap?
The most unused PTO you may take into a new year. Hours above the cap are lost (or paid out, under some policies) at the reset date. The calculator applies the cap on January 1; if your plan resets on your work anniversary, project your balance to that date instead.
Related: pay period calculator (every payday of the year), biweekly pay schedule, working hours in a year, working days per month, US bank holidays, counting business days in Excel, business days calculator.