PTO Accrual Calculator
On the common sick-leave deal of 1 hour for every 30 you work, a 40-hour week banks you about 2.67 hours of PTO each two-week paycheck. Keep that up for a year and you'd have 69.33 hours saved, just short of nine full 8-hour days. Want your own numbers? Plug your policy in below.
PTO calculator: what you earn and your balance
Don't know your accrual rate? Look in the employee handbook, or check your pay stub, since many show PTO earned and the running balance. Then choose the matching option. The cap and carryover boxes can stay empty if they don't apply to you.
How to calculate PTO accrual
Most policies work one of three ways. Hourly accrual is the one sick-leave laws tend to use: take the hours you worked, divide by the hours needed to earn one hour of PTO, and that's what you got. So 80 hours over two weeks at one per 30 earns 2.67 hours.
A fixed amount per paycheck needs no math at all. Four hours every pay period works out to 104 hours a year when you're paid every two weeks, but 96 if you're paid twice a month. A yearly allowance is the reverse. Split it across your paychecks, and 120 hours a year turns into 4.62 hours biweekly, 5 hours semimonthly or 10 hours monthly.
PTO accrual rate chart
Most offer letters quote PTO as days or weeks a year, which doesn't tell you much about a single paycheck. This chart does the split for a 40-hour week (2,080 hours a year) and 8-hour days. Part-timers on hourly accrual will see bigger hourly figures, because the same allowance is spread over fewer hours.
| Yearly PTO | Days | Weekly | Every two weeks | Twice a month | Monthly | Per hour worked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 hour per 30 worked | 8.67 | 1.33 | 2.67 | 2.89 | 5.78 | 0.0333 |
| 40 hours (5 days) | 5 | 0.77 | 1.54 | 1.67 | 3.33 | 0.0192 |
| 80 hours (10 days) | 10 | 1.54 | 3.08 | 3.33 | 6.67 | 0.0385 |
| 120 hours (15 days) | 15 | 2.31 | 4.62 | 5.00 | 10.00 | 0.0577 |
| 160 hours (20 days) | 20 | 3.08 | 6.15 | 6.67 | 13.33 | 0.0769 |
| 200 hours (25 days) | 25 | 3.85 | 7.69 | 8.33 | 16.67 | 0.0962 |
PTO caps and carryover
A cap works like a ceiling: your balance stops growing when it gets there, and starts again once you take time off. You keep what you have. A carryover limit is a January 1 thing, where anything over it is either wiped or paid out, depending on the policy. Enter either one above and you'll see when you'd hit the cap, and how much you'd lose at New Year.
Some states won't let an employer claw back vacation you've earned. In California it's legally wages, so a "use it or lose it" deadline isn't allowed, though a cap is. Leave the job with unused vacation and it has to be paid out at your final rate.
Is paid time off required by law?
Not under federal law. The Fair Labor Standards Act doesn't require pay for time not worked, such as vacations, sick days or holidays, and the Department of Labor leaves that to you and your employer. Lots of states and cities do require paid sick leave, though. California's minimum is one hour for every 30 worked. Employers there can cap how much you use at 40 hours or five days a year, and how much you build up at 80 hours or ten days. Rules shift and vary a lot by place, so check with your state's labor department. Nothing on this page is legal advice; see our disclaimer.
PTO accrual in Excel or Google Sheets
Put the hours you worked in A2. For a 1-for-30 policy, =A2/30 gives the PTO earned. For a yearly allowance in B2, =B2/26 gives each biweekly paycheck's share, and =B2/24 a semimonthly one. To turn a balance in C2 into 8-hour days, use =C2/8.
PTO accrual questions
How much PTO do I accrue per hour?
You'd divide your yearly PTO by the hours you work in a year. Someone with 80 hours of PTO on a 40-hour week earns 80 ÷ 2,080, about 0.0385 hours for every hour they work. Put another way, that's one hour of PTO roughly every 26 hours. California's 1-for-30 sick leave minimum works out to 0.0333.
How do I calculate PTO accrual per pay period?
Split the yearly amount by how many times you're paid. Every other week means 26 paychecks, twice a month means 24, and weekly means 52. With hourly accrual you multiply instead: the hours on that stub times your rate. At one per 30, an 80-hour pay period earns 2.67.
How many hours is two weeks of PTO?
On a regular five-day, 8-hour schedule, two weeks is 80 hours. Four-10s workers burn the same 80 hours for two weeks away. The difference is it only covers eight shifts, not ten.
What happens when my PTO hits the cap?
You stop earning more until your balance drops below it. You don't lose what you already have, but every paycheck you sit at the cap is PTO you never get, so it's worth booking time off before you get there.
Related pages
Sources
Cite this page
APA: ClockTotals. (2026, October 29). PTO Accrual Calculator. https://clocktotals.com/pto-accrual-calculator/
MLA: “PTO Accrual Calculator.” ClockTotals, 29 Oct. 2026, clocktotals.com/pto-accrual-calculator/.
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