Hourly to Salary: What Your Pay Rate Is Really Worth Per Year
Job offers arrive in two currencies: hourly rates and annual salaries. Comparing them requires one conversion, and getting it wrong by assuming the wrong work year is how people accept lower pay than they realised.
The Standard Conversion
The US full-time baseline is 40 hours a week for 52 weeks - a 2,080-hour year. Multiply any hourly rate by 2,080 for the annual equivalent:
$15/hr → $31,200 a year ($2,600/month) · $20/hr → $41,600 · $25/hr → $52,000 · $30/hr → $62,400
Reverse: a $50,000 salary is about $24.04 an hour.
Run your own numbers - including part-time hours - with our free Hourly to Salary Calculator; it converts in both directions and shows the monthly and weekly figures side by side.
Why Hours-per-Year Is the Whole Ballgame
The 2,080 figure is a US convention. Actual annual hours differ sharply: Germany averages around 1,340, France around 1,500, the UK around 1,530, the US around 1,790. The same hourly rate produces very different annual pay across those work years - a 35-hour French contract pays about 12 percent less per year than a 40-hour US one at the same rate. If you are comparing a European and American offer, enter the real contracted weekly hours in the calculator rather than assuming 40.
The PTO Trap
Salary presumes you are paid for every week of the year, including holidays and vacation. True hourly work often is not: unpaid time off means your real annual income falls short of the headline conversion unless the hours are guaranteed. Two offers with identical annual totals can differ by thousands once unpaid weeks are counted. Ask one question of any hourly offer: how many of the 52 weeks are actually paid?
From Gross to Reality
All these figures are gross - before federal and state tax, social contributions, and deductions. A $31,200 gross in Texas and in California land at very different net amounts, and EU payslips deduct social insurance before tax. Budget from net, negotiate in gross, and sanity-check affordability for big purchases with our Loan Payment Calculator before signing anything.
Quick Reference
- $15/hr = $31,200/yr · $20/hr = $41,600 · $25/hr = $52,000 (at 40h × 52).
- $50,000/yr ≈ $24.04/hr; $60,000 ≈ $28.85/hr.
- Part-time: multiply by your real weekly hours, not 40.
- US work year ≈ 1,790 hours; Germany ≈ 1,340; France ≈ 1,500; UK ≈ 1,530.