How Many Hours Is Full Time? 30, 32, 35 and 40 Hours, and Who Decides

How many hours is full time?

There is no single federal answer. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) does not define full-time or part-time employment, and the Department of Labor says it is generally for the employer to decide. Two government sources do set a number for their own purposes: the IRS counts 30 hours a week, or 130 hours a month, as full time under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics counts 35 hours a week in its surveys. Most employers use 40 hours, and some use 32, 35 or 37.5. So whether a schedule is full time depends on who is asking and why.

This article lays the definitions side by side, gives the weekly, monthly and yearly hour totals, answers the common questions about 32, 35 and 37.5 hours, shows how the IRS counts hours and full-time equivalents, and explains what full or part time does not change.

Who decides what full time means?

Full-time hours per week, month and year

Monthly and yearly hours are weekly hours times 52 weeks, divided by 12 for the month. The two right-hand columns show which of the two government lines each schedule reaches.

Thirty hours a week is exactly the ACA’s monthly line: 30 × 52 ÷ 12 = 130. A 40-hour week is 2,080 hours a year before any time off. For working days instead of hours, see the working days in a year calculator.

Is 32, 35 or 37.5 hours full time?

How the IRS counts hours of service

For the ACA, an hour of service is each hour for which an employee is paid, or entitled to payment, for performing duties, and each hour for which the employee is paid, or entitled to payment, during a period in which no duties are performed because of vacation, holiday, illness, incapacity, layoff, jury duty, military duty or a leave of absence. So paid time off counts. A week of 26 hours worked plus 4 paid vacation hours is 30 hours of service. Unpaid time does not count, because it is not an hour for which the employee is paid.

An employer can measure full-time status two ways. Under the monthly measurement method it checks each month for at least 130 hours of service. Under the look-back measurement method it decides an employee’s status for a stability period from their hours in an earlier measurement period. The IRS says the look-back method cannot be used to decide whether the employer is an applicable large employer at all.

Does this month reach 130 hours?

Under the monthly measurement method, the test is hours of service in the calendar month. These six months show how paid and unpaid time off change the answer. A day is counted at the hours shown for that day.

The last two rows have the same hours worked. Four paid days off leave the employee at 126 hours of service, and five reach 132. The fifth paid day is what moves the month over the line.

How many hours is part time?

Part time is the other side of the same lines. Under the ACA it is an average of fewer than 30 hours a week or fewer than 130 in a month. In BLS statistics it is fewer than 35 hours a week. The FLSA has no part-time definition either, and the Department of Labor states that whether an employee is full time or part time does not change the application of the FLSA. Many employers draw their own line, but that is policy, not law.

What full or part time does not change

Overtime does not depend on the label. The Department of Labor says covered employees who are not exempt must receive overtime pay at not less than one and a half times the regular rate for hours over 40 in a workweek, and that the FLSA applies whether the employee is called full time or part time. A part-time employee who works 42 hours in a workweek has 2 overtime hours; a full-time employee who works 38 has none. See the overtime calculator for a week, and do salaried employees get overtime? if you are on a salary.

Full-time equivalents: how part-timers add up

The ACA applies to applicable large employers, which are those with at least 50 full-time employees, including full-time equivalent employees, on average in the prior year. The IRS calculates equivalents each month by adding the hours of service of all non-full-time employees, counting no more than 120 hours per employee, and dividing the total by 120.

For example, 10 employees who each work 20 hours a week average 86.7 hours a month. Together that is 867 hours, and 867 ÷ 120 is about 7.2 full-time equivalents. The IRS’s own example has 15 part-timers at 60 hours a month: 900 ÷ 120 = 7.5.

Other hours tests are different tests

Some rights depend on a separate hours count, not on being called full time. Family and Medical Leave Act eligibility needs at least 1,250 hours of service in the 12 months before leave starts, counted using FLSA principles for hours worked, plus 12 months with the employer and a worksite with 50 or more employees within 75 miles. Across a full 52 weeks, 1,250 hours is 24.04 hours a week, so many part-time schedules qualify. The FMLA eligibility calculator checks your own hours.

What the full-time line actually changes

• Employer health coverage. The IRS says an employer must identify its full-time employees to decide whether it is an applicable large employer, to whom it must offer coverage to avoid an employer shared responsibility payment, and the amount of any potential liability. An applicable large employer need not offer coverage to its part-time employees to avoid that payment.
• Overtime and minimum wage. Nothing. The Department of Labor says full-time or part-time status does not change how the FLSA applies.
• Leave eligibility. Not the label, but a separate hours count, such as the 1,250 hours for the Family and Medical Leave Act.
• Paid time off, retirement plans and schedules. Whatever your employer’s plan, contract or policy says. Read the plan document, because the federal lines above do not set these.

For employers: defining full time in writing

• Write the weekly hours that count as full time in the handbook or offer letter, and say which benefits depend on it.
• If you have 50 or more full-time employees, including equivalents, count hours of service as the IRS defines them, with paid leave included.
• Keep the ACA line (30 hours a week or 130 a month) separate from your own policy line, because they can differ.
• Track hours for every non-exempt employee, whether full or part time, because overtime applies to both.
• Check your state or city for rules that set their own hours thresholds, which this article does not cover.

Common mistakes