PTO Accrual Calculator

Multiplied across 26 biweekly pay periods, 3.08 hours per period accrues 80.08 hours a year — ten full days on an 8-hour schedule, or two standard working weeks. Employers pick 3.08 rather than 3.07 because dividing 80 hours by 26 periods gives 3.0769, and rounding up to the nearest hundredth keeps the annual total from falling short of the promised two weeks.

Divide your annual PTO allowance in hours by the number of pay periods in your year. Two weeks of PTO on an 8-hour day is 80 hours; across 26 biweekly periods that is 3.08 hours per period. If your policy accrues per hour worked instead, divide the annual hours by the hours you actually work in a year — usually 2,080 for full-time staff.

A ceiling on your total balance. Once you reach it, you stop earning new time off until you use some, which prevents large payouts building up. Caps are often set at 1.5 or 2 times the annual allowance. This matters for planning: if you hit the cap in March, every pay period after that earns you nothing, so the time is genuinely lost rather than deferred.

For a standard full-time employee working 8-hour days, two weeks is 80 hours. On a 10-hour four-day schedule it is also 80 hours, because two weeks is eight shifts rather than ten. This is why PTO is tracked in hours rather than days — the same hour balance buys a different number of days depending on shift length, so hours are the unambiguous unit.

It depends entirely on your state and your employer's policy. Some states treat accrued PTO as earned wages that must be paid out on separation; others let employers apply use-it-or-lose-it rules if the policy is clearly stated in advance. There is no federal requirement — the Fair Labor Standards Act does not mandate paid vacation at all. Check your state labor department and your handbook.

Usually yes for salaried employees, because accrual is tied to pay periods rather than hours at a desk. For hourly staff on a per-hour-worked accrual, it depends on whether the policy counts paid leave hours as hours worked — many do not, so taking time off slows the rate at which you earn more. Your handbook's accrual basis is the deciding detail.

Accrued PTO builds gradually — a set amount added each pay period or per hour worked — so your balance only ever reflects time you've actually earned so far. A lump sum grants the entire year's allowance at once, usually on January 1st or your hire anniversary, before you've technically earned any of it through work performed. That difference matters most if you leave the company early in the year, since a lump-sum employer is more likely to prorate or reclaim unearned days from your final paycheck than a per-period employer is.

Typically yes, when PTO is accrued rather than granted as a flat lump sum. Hours-worked accrual scales naturally with a part-time schedule, since the rate is applied per hour actually clocked — someone working 20 hours a week earns proportionally less than a 40-hour employee on the same per-hour rate. Per-pay-period accrual can go either way depending on the handbook: some employers prorate the flat per-period amount by scheduled hours, others pay the same flat rate to every employee regardless of hours worked.

A minority of states, including California and Montana, treat accrued vacation as earned wages that vest as you work, making a payout at termination legally required regardless of what the handbook says. Most other states leave the decision to the employer's written policy, and if that policy is silent or explicitly denies payout, nothing may be owed. Because the rules genuinely differ by state and change over time, check your specific state labor department rather than relying on a general rule.

No. Unlimited PTO policies don't track a balance at all, so there's nothing to accrue and nothing this calculator can project for you. Employees request time off as needed, subject to manager approval and team norms, rather than drawing down earned hours. Because no PTO is ever technically "earned" in discrete units under this structure, there's also typically no payout owed at termination — a genuine trade-off against the wage-like protections accrued PTO carries in states like California.

On a standard 8-hour schedule, 200 hours is 25 full workdays — five 40-hour weeks. On a 10-hour compressed schedule the same 200 hours only covers 20 days, because a compressed shift burns through the balance faster per day worked. This is exactly why PTO balances are tracked in hours rather than days: the hour figure stays fixed while the day-equivalent shifts with your schedule.

It depends entirely on your policy's hours-worked accrual rate, since there's no universal figure — multiply your stated rate by 40. A common rate is roughly 0.04 hours of PTO per hour worked, which is what produces about 80 hours a year for someone clocking a full 2,080-hour work year; at that rate, a 40-hour week earns 1.6 hours of PTO. If your handbook quotes a different rate, use that number instead of assuming 0.04.

Start with your employee handbook's PTO or leave policy section, which is required to state the rate and the basis it's measured against. Many payroll systems also print it directly on your pay stub as a line labeled "PTO accrued" or "vacation accrued" next to the hours added that period. If your pay stub only shows a running balance and not the rate itself, subtract last period's balance from this period's (before accounting for any time used) to back into the per-period figure, or ask HR directly — they're required to know it even if it isn't printed anywhere you can see.