PTO Accrual Calculator
Work out how much paid time off you earn per paycheck, per month, and per year from your accrual rate, plus what your balance will be in 12 months. Runs in your browser, no signup.
- PTO earned per month
- 8.7 hours
- PTO earned per year
- 104 hours (13 days)
- Balance in 12 months
- 104 hours (13 days)
Know your real hours, not just your PTO
Chronoid automatically tracks your working time on Mac: every app, website, and document, stored 100% locally. See your true weekly hours, spot overwork early, and make the case for the time off you have earned.
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Reading your PTO policy correctly
The three numbers that matter in any PTO policy are the accrual rate, the cadence, and the cap. “4 hours per pay period” means nothing until you know whether pay periods are weekly, biweekly, or semimonthly; the same rate is 208, 104, or 96 hours a year respectively. Then check for a cap or a use-it-or-lose-it clause, because both quietly change what your accrued hours are actually worth.
Also check when accrual starts (some employers impose a 30- or 90-day waiting period) and what happens when you leave. In several US states, accrued vacation is earned wages and must be paid out with your final paycheck.
PTO only helps if your hours are honest
A generous PTO balance does not fix a schedule that quietly runs 50-hour weeks. If you regularly work through lunch, answer messages at night, or lose weekends to “catching up,” your effective hourly compensation drops and no vacation policy compensates for it.
The first step is knowing your real numbers. An automatic tracker like Chronoid records your actual working time on your Mac without timers, so you can compare real hours against your contract and take the time off you have earned. If you are paid hourly, the free overtime calculator and time card calculator pair well with this one.
Frequently Asked Questions
- How is PTO accrual calculated?
- Multiply your accrual rate by how often it applies. If you earn 4 hours per biweekly paycheck, that is 4 × 26 = 104 hours per year (13 days at 8 hours per day). If you accrue per hour worked, multiply the rate by your weekly hours and then by 52: at 0.038 hours of PTO per hour worked and a 40-hour week, you earn about 79 hours per year. This calculator handles hourly, weekly, biweekly, semimonthly, monthly, and lump-sum schedules.
- What is a typical PTO accrual rate?
- In the US, full-time employees commonly receive 10 to 20 days of PTO per year, which works out to roughly 3.1 to 6.2 hours per biweekly paycheck, or 0.04 to 0.08 hours per hour worked. Rates usually rise with tenure. There is no US federal minimum, so check your employee handbook for your exact rate, any waiting period, and whether accrual pauses at a cap.
- What does "accrual cap" and "use it or lose it" mean?
- An accrual cap is the maximum balance you can hold; once you hit it, you stop earning until you take time off. Use-it-or-lose-it policies wipe unused hours at year end. Some US states (like California) prohibit use-it-or-lose-it for earned vacation, treating it as wages. If your balance is near a cap, plan time off soon; you are effectively working for free PTO you can never receive.
- How many hours of PTO is one day?
- Whatever your standard workday is: 8 hours for most full-time schedules, but 7.5 or even 10 (compressed schedules) are common. Company policies deduct PTO in hours, so a "day off" costs exactly your scheduled hours for that day. Set the "hours in your workday" field above to match your schedule and the calculator converts hours to days for you.
- How do I know if my logged work hours are accurate?
- PTO math is only as good as the hours behind it, and self-reported timesheets drift. If you work on a Mac, Chronoid tracks your actual working time automatically and 100% locally, so you can see your real weekly hours, compare them against your schedule, and catch quiet overwork before it burns you out. It is a 7-day free trial, then a one-time purchase.