PTO Accrual Calculator
Work out PTO accrued per pay period or per hour worked, your balance by a future date, and when you hit your balance cap. Pick a mode: per pay period for a yearly allowance, per hour worked for hourly and shift staff, or balance by a date to plan time off.
Your numbers
Turns hours into days. Use 12 for 12-hour shifts.
PTO earned each pay period
- In days
- –
- PTO a year
- –
- Pay periods a year
- 26
An estimate. Accrual rates, caps, carryover and payout of unused time are set by your employer's policy and, in some places, by state law.
The calculation runs in your browser and ParrotNotes does not store your numbers. They sit in the page address so you can bookmark or share the result.
How PTO accrual works
Most employers do not hand over the year's paid time off on day one. You earn it a little at a time, usually on each paycheck. The amount per paycheck is your yearly PTO in hours divided by the number of pay periods.
Example: 15 days of 8 hours is 120 hours a year. Paid every two weeks (26 paychecks), you earn 120 ÷ 26 = 4.62 hours a paycheck. Paid twice a month (24 paychecks) it is exactly 5 hours, weekly 2.31 hours and monthly 10 hours. After three months paid every two weeks, about 6 or 7 paychecks, you have roughly 28 to 32 hours: three and a half to four days.
PTO per hour worked
Hourly and shift staff, including many hospital staff, often earn PTO for each hour worked instead. A policy of 1 hour for every 30 worked is 0.0333 hours per hour: 80 hours in a pay period earns 2.67 hours, and three 12-hour shifts a week (72 hours every two weeks) earn 2.4 hours.
If your policy gives a yearly figure, divide it by the hours in a full-time year: 120 hours ÷ 2,080 = 0.0577 an hour. Check whether overtime hours count toward accrual under your policy; some do and some do not.
Days or hours
Policies are often written in days or weeks, while pay slips count hours. Multiply days by the hours in your workday to convert: 15 days is 120 hours on 8-hour days. On 12-hour shifts a day off uses 12 hours, so 120 hours covers 10 shifts, not 15. Set the hours in a workday and the calculator shows both.
Caps and carryover
Many policies cap the balance. Once you reach it, you stop earning until you take time off, so the hours you would have earned are gone rather than saved. Example: 40 hours in the bank, 5 more each paycheck and a 60-hour cap means the balance is full on the fourth paycheck; every paycheck after that earns nothing until you use some time. The balance mode shows the date you hit the cap and the hours you would miss.
A carryover limit is a different rule: it caps how much unused PTO moves into the next year. Some employers pay out unused time when you leave and some do not. Your employer's policy decides all of these, and in some places state law sets rules on them too; federal law does not require paid vacation at all.
An estimate. Accrual rates, caps, carryover and payout of unused time are set by your employer's policy and, in some places, by state law.
More for shift staff and managers: Charge nurse duties, Nurse manager one-on-ones, Field sales management.
Hand over before you go
Plan the time off here; for the handover before you go, ParrotNotes turns a voice note into your own to-do list.
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