Say your policy grants 15 days a year and your workday is 8 hours: that's 120 PTO hours. Paid biweekly, the year has 26 pay periods, so you accrue 120 ÷ 26 = 4.62 hours per paycheck. Your accrued balance is simply that rate multiplied by the pay periods you've completed — plus anything carried over, minus what you've used.
Free PTO Accrual Calculator
Work out your PTO accrual rate and see exactly how much paid time off you've earned so far. Built for any policy — vacation time, annual leave or combined PTO, accrued per pay period or per hour worked.
What is PTO accrual?
PTO accrual is the way paid time off builds up gradually as you work, instead of arriving all at once. Your annual allowance — say, 15 days of vacation — is split across the year, and every pay period adds a slice to your accrued PTO balance. Whether your company calls it vacation time, annual leave or simply PTO, the accrual math works the same way.
This calculator handles both directions of that math. Use it as a rate calculator to see how many hours you earn per week, pay period or month — or as a PTO hours calculator to see the balance you've accrued to date, with carryover, used days and policy caps taken into account.
How to calculate PTO accrual
Four quick steps from policy to balance.
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Enter your annual PTO allowance — in days or hours, whichever your policy uses.
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Pick the accrual frequency that matches your pay schedule: weekly, biweekly, semimonthly, monthly, or per hour worked for hourly jobs.
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Set when your accrual year starts and the date you want the balance for — or, for hourly accrual, the hours you've worked so far.
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Read your accrual rate and accrued PTO balance, then fine-tune with carryover hours, PTO you've already used, and any balance cap.
The PTO accrual formula
Every accrual policy comes down to one division.
Accrual rate = Annual PTO hours ÷ Pay periods per year
Accrual per hour worked
Hourly and part-time roles often accrue PTO per hour worked instead of per pay period. Divide the annual allowance by 2,080 — the hours in a standard full-time year. 120 PTO hours ÷ 2,080 = 0.0577 hours of PTO per hour worked, or about 2.3 hours for every 40-hour week.
Common PTO accrual rates
Hours accrued per period for typical annual allowances, assuming 8-hour workdays.
| Annual allowance | Weekly | Biweekly | Semimonthly | Monthly | Per hour worked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 days (80h) | 1.54 | 3.08 | 3.33 | 6.67 | 0.0385 |
| 15 days (120h) | 2.31 | 4.62 | 5.00 | 10.00 | 0.0577 |
| 20 days (160h) | 3.08 | 6.15 | 6.67 | 13.33 | 0.0769 |
| 25 days (200h) | 3.85 | 7.69 | 8.33 | 16.67 | 0.0962 |
Weekly = 52 periods, biweekly = 26, semimonthly = 24, monthly = 12; per-hour rates use a 2,080-hour work year.
The three common accrual methods
Companies distribute the same annual allowance in different ways — check your handbook for which one applies to you.
Per pay period
A fixed slice of your allowance lands with every paycheck — weekly, biweekly, semimonthly or monthly. The most common method for salaried teams, and the easiest to predict.
120h ÷ 26 paychecks = 4.62h eachPer hour worked
PTO grows with every hour on the clock. Standard for hourly and part-time roles, because the time off you earn scales fairly with the time you actually work.
120h ÷ 2,080 hours = 0.0577h per hourLump sum
The full allowance is granted up front — usually on January 1 or your work anniversary. No accrual math during the year, though caps and proration for mid-year hires still apply.
All 120h granted on day oneCarryover, caps and use-it-or-lose-it
Carryover
Many policies let unused hours roll into the new accrual year, often up to a limit — say, 40 hours. Add your carried-over hours in the calculator's fine-tune row and they're counted into today's balance.
Accrual caps
A cap stops your balance from growing past a maximum — accrual pauses until you use some time off. If your policy has one, set it in the calculator and the balance will stop exactly where your policy would stop it.
Use-it-or-lose-it
Some policies wipe unused PTO at year-end. Rules differ by state and country — several jurisdictions treat accrued PTO as earned wages that can't expire — so check local law before assuming hours are gone.
Stop tracking PTO in spreadsheets
WebWork's leave management applies your accrual rules automatically — balances update themselves, employees request time off in one click, and approvals land on a shared team calendar.
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From estimates to automatic balances
A calculator answers today's question; it won't chase accruals, requests and carryover for a whole team every month. WebWork's leave and holiday management keeps every employee's PTO balance accurate in real time — accrual rules run on their own, and time off syncs with attendance and payroll-ready reports.
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This calculator is one small piece of WebWork — a full time tracking and workforce management platform.
Leave & holiday management
Set accrual rules once — WebWork keeps balances current, handles requests and approvals, and shows who's off on a team calendar.
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See who's working, on break or on leave in real time, with automatic attendance reports for any date range.
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Plan shifts around approved time off so coverage never breaks when vacations overlap.
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Turn tracked hours — including paid time off — into accurate, payroll-ready timesheets.
Simplify payrollFrequently asked questions
PTO accrual is the gradual earning of paid time off as you work. Instead of receiving your full annual allowance on day one, you earn it in slices — per week, per pay period, per month or per hour worked — and the slices add up to your accrued PTO balance.
Convert your annual allowance to hours (days × hours per workday), then divide by the number of accrual periods in a year: 52 for weekly, 26 for biweekly, 24 for semimonthly, 12 for monthly. That's your accrual rate. Multiply it by the periods you've completed to get your accrued balance.
Most full-time policies in the US grant 10 to 20 days per year. At 15 days (120 hours) with biweekly pay, that's 4.62 hours per paycheck; at 10 days it's 3.08 hours. Rates usually rise with tenure — many companies add days after 3, 5 or 10 years of service.
Hourly roles usually accrue PTO per hour worked. Divide the annual allowance in hours by 2,080 (a standard full-time year) to get the rate — 120 PTO hours ÷ 2,080 = 0.0577 per hour worked. Someone working 30-hour weeks then accrues about 1.7 hours of PTO weekly.
It's the paid time off you've earned but not yet used, as of a given date: hours accrued so far this year, plus any carryover from last year, minus the time you've already taken. This calculator shows it in both hours and workdays.
Divide the hours by the length of your workday. 46 accrued hours with 8-hour workdays is 46 ÷ 8 = 5.75 days. If you work 7.5-hour days, the same 46 hours is 6.13 days — always use your real workday length.
The math is identical. Some companies keep separate vacation, sick and personal banks; others combine everything into one PTO balance. Either way, an annual allowance divided across pay periods gives the accrual rate — so you can use this as a vacation accrual or annual leave accrual calculator too.
A cap is the maximum balance your policy allows — once you hit it, accrual pauses until you take time off. Caps are commonly set at 1.5 to 2 times the annual allowance and protect companies from large unused-PTO liabilities.
It depends on the policy and the law where you work: hours may carry over (often up to a limit), be paid out, or expire under a use-it-or-lose-it rule. Some jurisdictions — California, for example — treat accrued PTO as earned wages that cannot expire.
Accrual typically starts on day one, but many companies add a waiting period — often 30 to 90 days — before new hires can actually use accrued time. Mid-year hires accrue proportionally: join on July 1 and you'll earn roughly half the annual allowance by December 31.