Standard workforce FTE
Divide total hours worked by the hours of one full-time employee for the same period:
FTE = Total hours worked ÷ Full-time hours
Example: a team logs 100 hours in a 40-hour week → 100 ÷ 40 = 2.5 FTE.
Free Employee FTE Calculator
Convert weekly hours and headcount into full-time equivalents (FTE) instantly. Add your team, set your full-time week, and get the total FTE — or switch to ACA mode to check the 50-FTE threshold.
What is FTE (full-time equivalent)?
Full-time equivalent, or FTE, is a unit that expresses an employee's workload as a fraction of a full-time schedule. One person working a full week equals 1.0 FTE; someone working half a full week equals 0.5 FTE. Adding everyone up turns a mixed team of full-time and part-time staff into a single, comparable number.
FTE matters because headcount alone is misleading — ten part-timers are not the same labor capacity as ten full-timers. Employers use FTE for budgeting and workforce planning, for grant and loan applications, and for compliance checks such as the US Affordable Care Act (ACA), which uses FTE to decide whether a business is a large employer.
How to calculate FTE
Calculating FTE takes four quick steps with the calculator above.
Set your full-time week — the number of hours that equals one full-time employee (usually 40).
Add each employee and enter the hours they work in a week.
The calculator divides every person's hours by your full-time week to get their individual FTE.
Read the total FTE and headcount, then export or print the breakdown.
The FTE formula
There are two common ways to calculate FTE, and the calculator above covers both.
ACA full-time equivalent
For US Affordable Care Act reporting, add your full-time employees to your part-time hours divided by 120:
Total FTE = Full-time employees + (Total monthly part-time hours ÷ 120)
Example: 30 full-time employees + 2,400 part-time hours ÷ 120 = 30 + 20 = 50 FTE.
Why calculate FTE?
Workforce planning
Compare real labor capacity across teams and periods instead of raw headcount, and size staffing to actual demand.
Budgeting & costs
Express salaries, benefits and overhead per FTE to forecast labor cost accurately, even with a mix of part-time staff.
ACA & compliance
Check whether you cross the 50-FTE Applicable Large Employer threshold and other FTE-based reporting rules.
Grants & loans
Many grant, loan and headcount-retention programs ask for FTE figures rather than a simple employee count.
FTE and the ACA 50-employee threshold
Under the US Affordable Care Act, a business with 50 or more full-time equivalent employees is an Applicable Large Employer (ALE) and must offer health coverage or face a penalty. Full-time employees (30+ hrs/week) count as one each; part-time employees are converted by dividing their total monthly hours by 120. Switch the calculator to ACA mode to add the two together and see where you stand against the threshold.
Know your hours before you calculate FTE
FTE is only as accurate as the hours behind it. WebWork tracks every employee's real working hours automatically, so your FTE math starts from solid numbers.
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From FTE math to accurate hours
A calculator answers a one-off question; running your team needs accurate, ongoing hours. WebWork Time Tracker records time automatically, breaks it down by employee and project, and gives you the precise weekly and monthly hours that feed straight into your FTE calculations and payroll. Explore more free tools and resources.
Try WebWork freePlan Your Workforce with WebWork
An FTE number tells you headcount. WebWork helps you act on it — staffing, scheduling, and budgets based on real hours.
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Plan headcount, capacity, and staffing across teams from one place.
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Tie FTE and labor costs to project budgets and stay on plan.
Explore Project BudgetsFrequently asked questions
FTE stands for full-time equivalent. It expresses the combined hours of your employees as the number of full-time staff it would take to work them. One full-time employee is 1.0 FTE, while a part-timer working half a full week is 0.5 FTE.
Divide the total hours worked by the hours of one full-time employee for the same period. For a 40-hour full-time week, a team that logs 100 hours equals 100 ÷ 40 = 2.5 FTE. The calculator above does this for every employee and adds the results.
The standard formula is: FTE = total hours worked ÷ full-time hours for the period. For ACA reporting the formula is: full-time employees + (total monthly part-time hours ÷ 120).
It depends on how your organisation defines a full-time week. Most employers use 40 hours per week (about 2,080 hours per year), but 35 and 37.5 hours are also common. Whatever number you set as full-time becomes 1.0 FTE in the calculator.
Divide each part-timer's hours by your full-time hours for the same period. Someone working 20 hours in a 40-hour week is 20 ÷ 40 = 0.5 FTE. Add every employee's FTE together for the workforce total.
Under the US Affordable Care Act, count every employee working 30+ hours a week as one full-time employee, then add your total monthly part-time hours divided by 120. If the result is 50 or more, you are an Applicable Large Employer.
The ACA treats 120 hours a month as the equivalent of one full-time employee for counting purposes. Dividing total monthly part-time hours by 120 converts them into full-time-equivalent employees. Each part-timer's hours are capped at 120 in this calculation.
Headcount is the number of people on your team; FTE measures the workload they represent. Four people each working 10 hours in a 40-hour week are a headcount of 4 but only 1.0 FTE. FTE gives a truer picture of labor capacity.
In standard workforce calculations a single employee tops out at 1.0 FTE even if they work overtime, because FTE measures full-time equivalence rather than total hours. If you want to capture overtime hours and pay, use our overtime calculator instead.
Yes. The WebWork FTE calculator is completely free, works in your browser with no sign-up, and never sends your numbers anywhere. For accurate hours to feed into it, you can track time automatically with WebWork.