PTO Accrual Calculator

Estimate paid time off earned per pay period and per year based on your accrual rate and hours worked. The tool supports weekly, biweekly, semimonthly, and monthly pay periods, and it can apply an optional yearly cap.

Use it during a job offer review when an employer quotes accrual instead of a flat PTO bank, when planning vacation around how much time you will have earned by a date, or when reconciling a PTO balance from a payroll portal that shows accrual line by line rather than a single total.

PTO per period is the accrual rate times the hours worked in that period. The annual estimate sums those periods at the chosen frequency, with an optional cap that applies if the uncapped total exceeds it. Common accrual rates work out to two weeks of PTO per year for a 40 hour week.

The per-period figure tells you what shows up on each paycheck. The annual figure shows your maximum yearly accrual before any rollover or carryover policy. The capped figure is the realistic maximum if your handbook caps total accrual at a fixed number of hours.

An accrual rate of 0.0385 per hour worked at 40 hours a week comes to about 1.54 hours of PTO each week, or roughly 80 hours over a year (two weeks). Bumping the rate to 0.0577 produces about 120 hours a year (three weeks). A semimonthly schedule with 86.67 hours per period at 0.0385 accrues about 3.33 hours per period.

Many employers cap PTO, freeze accrual at a maximum balance, or use a different accrual method (front-loaded at the start of the year, monthly accrual independent of hours, or accrual that starts only after a waiting period). Check your employee handbook for the exact policy before using this estimate for a planning decision. Many employers cap how much PTO you can carry into a new year or pay out at separation, so confirm your handbook policy; a high accrual rate paired with a low cap can quietly cost you days off you thought you had banked.