Holiday Pay Calculator

About this calculator

Holiday pay in this sense is premium pay for hours worked on a designated holiday, not the paid time off some countries mandate. The formula is simple multiplication: hours worked times your normal hourly rate times a holiday multiplier, most commonly 1.5× (“time and a half”) or 2× (“double time”) for days like Thanksgiving, Christmas, or New Year’s. Retail, hospitality, healthcare, and logistics employers commonly offer this as an incentive to staff shifts nobody wants, even where it isn’t legally required.

In the United States, the Fair Labor Standards Act does not require any extra pay for working a holiday — holiday premiums are a matter of employer policy or a union contract, not federal law (overtime rules still apply separately if the holiday shift pushes weekly hours past 40). This calculator lets you plug in your hours, base rate, and whatever multiplier your employer uses to see the resulting holiday paycheck line item.