How To Calculate Gross Pay for Employers + Calculator
Charlette has over 10 years of experience in accounting and finance and 2 years of partnering with HR leaders on freelance projects. She uses this extensive experience to answer your questions about payroll.
Heather is a staff writer and payroll specialist with several years of experience working directly with small business owners. Her expertise allows her to deliver the best answers to your questions about payroll.
This article is part of a larger series on How to Do Payroll.
Gross pay is the amount of money you pay an employee before any deductions are withheld, such as for taxes. It’s the basis for figuring everything from FICA withholdings to overtime wages. Learning how to calculate gross pay is simple; most important is that you understand the types of income included in the total. In short, all earnings are included, even tips and bonuses, but employer contributions and benefits are not.
Need help calculating gross pay for an employee or yourself? Here’s a free gross pay calculator:
Gross Pay Calculation Examples
For salaried employees, gross pay is the amount you offer them when hiring—for example, $45,000—plus any additional earnings like bonuses or commissions. If calculating the annual gross salary, it’s the total. If determining the gross salary for each paycheck, you divide the salary by the number of paychecks, then add any commissions, bonuses, or extra income earned during that pay period.
- Weekly: divide by 52
- Biweekly: divide by 26
- Semimonthly: divide by 24
- Monthly: divide by 12
For hourly employees, gross pay equals the hourly rate times the number of hours worked in a pay period, plus additional sources of income like tips, overtime, or commissions.
Expand the headings below for example calculations.
Hourly Employees
Janet works at Tapas House. She earns $10 an hour plus tips and gets a bonus every quarter. This biweekly pay period, she also worked six hours of overtime at the time-and-a-half rate. This is the last paycheck of the quarter, and the store did well, so she gets a $100 bonus.
Therefore, her gross pay for the pay period is $990.
Earning Type | Hours Worked | Rate | Gross Pay |
|---|---|---|---|
Regular (week 1) | 40 | $10 per hour | $400 |
Regular (week 2) | 40 | $10 per hour | $400 |
Overtime | 6 | $15 per hour | $90 |
Bonus | N/A | $100 | $100 |
Total | $990 |
Salaried Employees
Boris is a sales rep at Montague Motors. He earns a $40,000 salary plus commissions on each sale. He is paid biweekly. This pay period, he earned $9,400 in commissions and worked 52 hours. His gross pay is $11,067.67.
Earning Type | Amount | Gross Pay |
|---|---|---|
Salary for Pay Period | $40,000/24 pay periods | $1,666.67 |
Commission | $9,400 | $9,400 |
Total | $11,066.67 |
Nonexempt Salaried Employees
Now, let’s imagine Boris is a nonexempt salaried employee. This just means he is protected by federal labor laws and must be paid for overtime. However, he’s also a salaried employee and will be paid for a fixed minimum number of work hours each week—in this case, 40.
To illustrate, we’ll use the same salary, $40,000 a year but break it down to find the hourly rate, $19.23 per hour (40 hrs. per week x 52 weeks = 2,080 annual hours; $40,000 salary / 2,080 annual hours = $19.23 hourly rate).
Boris worked 92 hours these past two weeks. Twelve of those hours (92-80=12) are considered overtime (OT) and should be paid at the time-and-a-half rate. In this case, the OT rate would be $28.85 per hour ($19.23 regular hourly rate x 1.5 OT rate = $28.85).
Earning Type | Hours Worked | Amount | Gross Pay |
|---|---|---|---|
Salary for Pay Period | 80 | $19.23 per hour | $1,538.40 |
Overtime | 12 | $28.85 per hour | $346.20 |
Commission | N/A | $9,400 | $9,400 |
Total | $11,284.60 |
We had to add Boris’s regular and OT pay and commission to find total gross pay. Look at the difference in his pay as a nonexempt salaried employee vs an exempt salaried employee ($11,067 vs $11,285). He worked the same number of hours but would receive considerably more as a nonexempt employee.
Need help making other payroll calculations? Check out our guide on how to calculate payroll.
What’s Included in Gross Pay
It’s important to understand which payroll costs are included in gross pay and which are not.
The employer and employee should agree on gross pay, whether in an employment contract, pay letter, or union agreements. This way, both parties know what to expect as far as payment for work completed in a certain period.
Gross Pay vs Net Pay
As we’ve covered, gross pay is the total earnings an employee makes before you take out tax withholdings, FICA taxes, their share of benefits payments, and voluntary contributions such as for a 401(k). For salaried workers, think of it as the amount you offered when hiring. If your employee’s salary is $45,000 a year, that is the gross pay amount. If you pay $30,000 plus commissions, the combination of the two are considered gross pay.
Net pay is the amount the employees have remaining after all deductions are subtracted; it’s the amount you pay out when you do payroll for the period.
Gross Pay vs Taxable Income
An employee’s gross pay may differ from their taxable income (what you record on a W-2 form). The IRS considers some income tax-exempt, such as voluntary contributions to 401(k) or flexible spending accounts. Therefore, what is on your employee’s pay stub as gross pay may not be the same as what shows up on Line 1 of the Form W-2.
The amount of Social Security wages may also differ from total gross wages because of deductions like wages paid through employer-sponsored disability insurance or travel reimbursements.
Bottom Line
It’s vital to understand gross wages because so many other calculations depend on that number, from net (take-home) pay to taxable income. In short, gross wage, which differs from taxable income, includes the total amount you pay an employee, including overtime, commissions, and some fringe benefits. However, there are some exceptions.
