12 Hour Shift Pay Calculator for US Employees

How does 12 hour shift pay work?

Under federal law you are paid your regular rate for every hour and time and a half for hours over 40 in the workweek, not for hours over 8 in a day. At $22 an hour, three 12-hour shifts are 36 hours and pay $792.00, with no overtime. Four 12-hour shifts are 48 hours: 40 hours at $22 plus 8 overtime hours at $33 is $1,144.00.

The workweek is a fixed period of 168 hours that your employer sets. The 40 hours are counted inside it, so a pattern that straddles two workweeks, such as a night shift that crosses the weekly boundary, needs the workweek start time to be right. Each workweek stands on its own.

3x12 vs 4x12 vs 5x8: which pays more?

A 5 × 8 week and a 4 × 10 week both pay $880.00 at $22, because both are exactly 40 hours with no overtime. Three 12-hour shifts pay $792.00 for 36 hours, and a fourth 12-hour shift adds $352.00 because its hours are mostly overtime. More hours earn more weekly pay; the effective hourly rate is what rises with overtime.

Overtime for 12-hour shifts by state

Most states follow the federal weekly rule. Alaska and California add daily overtime, so four 12-hour shifts pay $1,232.00 in either state instead of the federal $1,144.00: each 12-hour shift has 8 regular and 4 overtime hours, which is 32 regular and 16 overtime for the week. California’s double time starts after 12 hours in a day, so a 12-hour shift has none.

Some other states have their own daily or special overtime rules. They are not built into this calculator, because each rule has to be read from a state agency page first. If you work in one, check your state labor department. Pay from collective bargaining agreements and health care 8-and-80 schedules also follows different rules.

Is 7am to 7pm a 12 hour shift?

Yes, 7am to 7pm is 12 hours on the clock. How many of them are paid depends on the meal break: with a 30-minute unpaid break it is 11.5 paid hours, with a 60-minute unpaid break 11 paid hours. Enter the unpaid break in minutes and the calculator subtracts it from each shift. A paid or on-duty meal break stays in the paid hours.

How much is 12 hours a day for a week?

Twelve hours a day for 7 days is 84 hours. At $22 an hour under the federal rule that is 40 regular hours and 44 overtime hours, $2,332.00. In California the seventh-consecutive-day rule applies, and the same week pays $2,376.00. For 5 days it is 60 hours, $1,540.00 federal.

What is my salary if I make $12 an hour on 12-hour shifts? Each shift pays $144.00 before overtime, and 2,080 hours a year at $12 is $24,960.00 before tax. Overtime and the number of shifts you work change the real figure.

Night differential and 12-hour shifts

A night differential is part of the regular rate used for overtime. At $22 an hour, four 12-hour shifts with 24 night hours at +$2 have straight-time pay of $1,104.00, a regular rate of $23.00, and a weekly total of $1,196.00, which is $52.00 more than without the differential because the overtime hours are paid on the higher rate too.

This applies when the differential is a flat amount for the night hours. Enter the dollars per hour and the number of night hours in the week, and the calculator adds both to straight-time pay and recalculates the overtime premium.

Breaks on 12-hour shifts

Federal law does not require meal or rest breaks. Short rest breaks of about 5 to 20 minutes are generally paid time, and bona fide meal periods of 30 minutes or more when you are fully relieved of duty can be unpaid. If you work during the meal, it is paid time. States set their own break rules, and the Department of Labor lists them by state.

This calculator only needs to know how many minutes are unpaid, so the break rule that applies to you can be entered as that number. Our guide on breaks in an 8-hour shift explains the federal and state rules in more detail.

Healthcare workers and 12-hour shifts

Hospitals and residential care establishments can use an 8 and 80 agreement, which counts overtime over 8 hours a day and over 80 hours in 14 days instead of over 40 in a week. It needs an agreement made before the work, so most staff are on the normal 40-hour week. The 8 and 80 calculator compares the two for a 14-day schedule.

Common 12-hour shift pay mistakes

Most errors come from using daily overtime where the state has none, or from counting unpaid break time as paid.

• Expecting overtime after 8 hours a day in a state that follows the federal weekly rule.
• Counting an unpaid meal break as paid hours.
• Forgetting that three 12-hour shifts are only 36 hours and have no federal overtime.
• Leaving the night differential out of the regular rate.
• Applying California double time to a 12-hour shift. It starts after 12 hours.
• Counting hours across two workweeks as one.

When to ask a professional

If a paycheck looks short, start with your timecard and the written pay policy, then ask payroll. For a state rule that is not built in here, your state labor department can explain what applies. Results here are estimates, not legal, tax, payroll or financial advice.

What do 10-hour, 8-hour and other shift lengths pay?

The calculator works as a shift length calculator for any schedule, not only 12-hour shifts. Enter the hours for each day; the page adds the daily working hours, the total hours worked and the pay. If a shift has an unpaid meal break, subtract it from the shift length, since only paid hours count. This makes it a shift calculator with breaks: a 10-hour day with a 30-minute unpaid lunch is 9.5 paid hours.

These use the federal rule: overtime after 40 hours in the workweek. In a state with daily overtime, the 4 × 10 week above would have overtime after 8 hours in each day; choose the state in the calculator to see it.