Finance · 3 min read
Converting Salary to Hourly (and Back)
How to turn an annual salary into an hourly rate, why 2,080 hours matters, and how to compare job offers fairly.
Try the salary to hourly calculatorPut these numbers to workOpen →Comparing a salaried job with an hourly one — or a full-time role with freelance work — means putting both on the same footing. The bridge between them is the number of hours you work in a year.
The 2,080-hour rule
A standard full-time year is 40 hours × 52 weeks = 2,080 hours. Hourly rate = annual salary ÷ 2,080. So $60,000 ÷ 2,080 ≈ $28.85/hour.
If you take unpaid time off, your effective hourly rate on the hours you actually work is a little higher; if you work overtime unpaid, it's lower.
Going the other way
To annualize an hourly rate, multiply by the hours you work per week and by the weeks you work per year: $30/hour × 40 × 52 = $62,400 a year.
Comparing offers fairly
- •Benefits: health insurance, retirement match and paid leave can be worth thousands.
- •Hours: a “salary” that expects 55-hour weeks has a lower real hourly rate.
- •Taxes and self-employment: freelance rates need to cover taxes and gaps between gigs.
- 1Choose salary → hourly or hourly → salary.
- 2Enter the amount and your typical hours and weeks.
- 3Read the hourly, weekly, monthly and annual equivalents.