Salary Converter
Enter any salary figure, in any pay period, and see it converted to all the others instantly. Works with any currency. See Minimum Wage in Canada and the Canada Income Tax Calculator for related tools.
| Pay period | Amount |
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Gross amounts only — before tax or any deductions. Your row is highlighted; every other row is derived from it.
Salary Converter
Job offers, pay stubs, and salary listings all use different pay periods — an hourly rate here, an annual figure there, a biweekly paycheque amount on your actual stub. This tool converts any one of them into all the others instantly, so you can compare an hourly gig to a salaried offer, or work out what a $65,000/year role actually means per paycheque, without doing the arithmetic yourself.
How the Conversion Works
Every figure is derived from an annual base using the standard payroll convention of 52 weeks a year (not the technically more precise 52.14): annual = hourly × hours/week × 52. For a standard 40-hour week, that’s hourly × 2,080 — so $25/hour becomes exactly $52,000/year, $30/hour becomes $62,400/year, and so on. Weekly, biweekly, semi-monthly and monthly figures are then all divided down from that same annual number (÷52, ÷26, ÷24, ÷12 respectively), and daily is derived from days per week the same way hourly is derived from hours per week.
The hours-per-week and days-per-week assumptions default to a standard full-time 40-hour, 5-day week, but you can adjust both — a 37.5-hour week, a 4-day compressed schedule, or part-time hours all change the hourly-to-annual relationship materially, and this converter lets you set your real numbers rather than forcing the standard assumption on everyone.
Biweekly vs. Semi-Monthly — Not the Same Thing
These two get mixed up constantly because both feel like “paid twice a month,” but they’re genuinely different pay schedules. Biweekly means every 14 days, always the same weekday — 26 pay periods a year, which means two months out of twelve get a rare third paycheque. Semi-monthly means exactly twice a month, typically the 1st and 15th or the 15th and last day — always 24 pay periods a year, no exceptions. For the same $60,000 annual salary, a biweekly paycheque is $2,307.69 while a semi-monthly one is $2,500.00 — the biweekly amount is smaller specifically because there are two more of them across the year. If you’re comparing a job offer’s stated paycheque amount to your current one, checking which of these two schedules each employer actually uses matters more than it might seem.
Why Your Pay Period Matters for Budgeting
Beyond just knowing the numbers, the pay period itself affects how you budget in practice. Someone paid biweekly gets two months a year with a third paycheque — a predictable extra payment that’s easy to plan around once you know which two months it falls in, but easy to accidentally spend as if it were “extra” money rather than part of the same annual total. Someone paid semi-monthly never gets that bonus paycheque, but their two paycheques a month are more consistent in timing (always the 1st/15th-style pattern) even though the dollar amount per cheque is slightly higher than a biweekly equivalent for the same annual salary. Neither schedule pays you more over a year — they’re mathematically equivalent once you account for the different number of paycheques — but the cash-flow timing genuinely differs, which is worth knowing before you build a monthly budget around whichever pay period your employer uses.
A Worked Example
Someone offered $28.50/hour at a standard 40-hour week: weekly is $1,140.00, biweekly is $2,280.00, semi-monthly is $2,470.00, monthly is $4,940.00, and annual is $59,280.00. Compare that to a salaried offer quoted as “$60,000/year” and the two are close enough that the real deciding factor is likely benefits, guaranteed hours, or overtime eligibility — not the base pay itself, which is exactly the kind of side-by-side comparison this tool is built to make fast.
Common Hourly-to-Annual Conversions (40-Hour Week)
| Hourly | Weekly | Monthly | Annual |
|---|---|---|---|
| $15.00 | $600.00 | $2,600.00 | $31,200.00 |
| $20.00 | $800.00 | $3,466.67 | $41,600.00 |
| $25.00 | $1,000.00 | $4,333.33 | $52,000.00 |
| $30.00 | $1,200.00 | $5,200.00 | $62,400.00 |
| $40.00 | $1,600.00 | $6,933.33 | $83,200.00 |
| $50.00 | $2,000.00 | $8,666.67 | $104,000.00 |
A useful shortcut for quick mental math at a standard 40-hour week: double your hourly rate and add three zeros. $25/hour → $50,000/year is close (the precise figure is $52,000 — the shortcut rounds down slightly because it’s really ×2,000 instead of the exact ×2,080). It’s accurate enough for a rough gut-check, but use the calculator above for an exact figure, especially at higher rates where the rounding gap grows in absolute dollar terms.
Who Should Use This Tool
Anyone comparing job offers quoted in different formats (an hourly contract role next to a salaried position), freelancers or contractors setting an hourly rate and wanting to sanity-check it against an equivalent annual income, employees trying to understand what a raise or a new pay period structure (a switch from biweekly to semi-monthly, for instance) actually means per paycheque, and anyone budgeting who needs to convert a stated annual salary down to what actually lands per week or per month.
What This Tool Doesn’t Do
This converts gross pay between periods only — no tax, CPP/QPP, EI/QPIP, or other deductions are calculated here. For actual take-home pay in Canada, use the Canada Income Tax Calculator, which takes a salary through federal and provincial tax plus payroll deductions for any of the 13 provinces and territories. It also assumes a consistent schedule year-round — it doesn’t account for unpaid time off, seasonal work, or irregular hours, all of which would make actual annual earnings lower than the straight-line conversion shown here.
Part-Time Hours and Non-Standard Schedules
The default 40-hour, 5-day week assumption is a starting point, not a rule — adjust it for your real schedule before trusting the annual figure. Someone working 25 hours a week at $25/hour earns $32,500/year, not the $52,000 the full-time conversion would suggest, because the annual figure scales directly with hours per week. This matters most for part-time workers, anyone on a compressed schedule (four 10-hour days instead of five 8-hour days changes the daily-rate conversion even though weekly and annual stay the same), and contractors comparing an hourly rate against a full-time salaried role they’d actually work standard hours for. This tool doesn’t account for overtime premiums, unpaid leave, or seasonal gaps in work — it assumes the entered hours/days repeat consistently for the full 52 weeks, which is a simplification worth keeping in mind for anyone whose actual schedule varies week to week.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you convert an hourly wage to an annual salary?
Multiply hourly rate × hours per week × 52. At a standard 40-hour week, that’s hourly × 2,080 — $25/hour becomes $52,000/year.
What’s the difference between biweekly and semi-monthly pay?
Biweekly is every 14 days (26 pay periods/year); semi-monthly is twice a month (24 pay periods/year). The same annual salary produces a smaller biweekly paycheque than semi-monthly, since there are more of them.
Does this converter account for taxes?
No — gross pay conversion only. Use the Canada Income Tax Calculator for take-home pay after tax and payroll deductions.
This tool converts gross pay figures between pay periods using the standard 52-weeks-a-year payroll convention and your entered hours/days-per-week assumptions. It does not calculate tax, CPP/QPP, EI/QPIP, or any other deduction, and assumes a consistent schedule with no unpaid time off. For actual take-home pay estimates, use the Canada Income Tax Calculator.
