PTO and Leave Calculator

What this calculator does

PTO questions are simple to ask and surprisingly easy to get wrong: how much have I earned, how much do I actually have, what happens at the cap, what will I have by December, and what is the balance worth if I leave. This page answers all five from the rule your employer actually uses. It counts accrual events between your dates (every week, every two weeks, monthly or yearly, or hour by hour for per-hour-worked policies) rather than smearing accrual evenly across the year, because that is how payroll systems post it: a period’s hours land when the period completes, and a balance checked mid-period does not include the half-earned period still in progress.

How to use it

• Find your accrual rule first. It is in your handbook or on your pay stub, usually as hours per pay period (a biweekly earner of 10 days a year at 8 hours a day earns about 3.08 hours a period; 15 days is about 4.62) or as days per year. Enter the rule as written; the page annualises it in the results so you can check it matches the policy’s headline promise.
• The start date anchors the count. Use your hire date if your balance has run since hiring, or the start of the current plan year if balances reset or your rate changed. Accruals before the start date belong in the starting balance, not in the count.
• The cap is a ceiling, not a bank. When the balance hits the cap, accrual stops in most policies until you take time off: hours you would have earned above the cap are not stored anywhere. The results show the hours lost to the cap explicitly, because a use it or lose it ceiling quietly costs heavy savers real days every year.
• Carryover and rollover are policy, not arithmetic. Some employers let a limited number of hours roll into the new year and forfeit the rest. Model that here by setting the starting balance to what actually carried over on the rollover date, and that date as the start.
• Part-time workers: if your policy accrues per hour worked, choose that method and enter your scheduled hours; your accrual follows your hours exactly. If your policy grants a prorated fixed amount per period, enter that amount; the method does not care how the number was derived.
• The payout figure is a value, not a verdict. It multiplies your balance by your pay rate to show the gross amount the balance represents if it were paid out. Whether it must be paid out on separation depends on your state and your employer’s written policy; several states treat vested vacation as wages that cannot be forfeited, others leave it to policy. The page does the arithmetic and leaves the law to the sources that govern it.

How it is calculated

• Accrual events are counted between the start date and the as-of date: every 7 days for weekly, every 14 days for biweekly, on the same calendar day each month for monthly, and on the anniversary for yearly. Only completed periods count.
• Per hour worked: accrued hours = rate x hours worked per week x weeks elapsed (weeks = days between the dates / 7, fractions included, because hours worked accumulate continuously).
• Balance = starting balance + accrued – taken. If a cap is set and the balance would exceed it, the balance is the cap and the excess is reported as hours above the cap.
• Days = hours / hours in your workday (default 8).
• Forecast counts further accrual events between the as-of date and the forecast date on the same grid from the start date, adds them to the current balance, subtracts planned leave, and applies the cap again.
• Payout value = balance x hourly pay rate, gross, before any tax.

Worked examples

The standard biweekly earner. Earning 4 hours every two weeks from a start date of 5 January 2026, checked on 13 October 2026: 281 days have passed, which is 20 completed two-week periods, so 80.00 hours have accrued. With a starting balance of 20 hours and 24 hours taken, the balance is 76.00 hours, which is 9.50 days at 8 hours a day, and worth $2,280.00 at a $30 hourly rate. Forecast to 31 December 2026: 5 more periods land, adding 20 hours; after 16 hours of planned leave the forecast balance is 80.00 hours, a tidy 10.00 days.

The monthly earner. Ten hours a month from 1 January 2026, checked 13 October 2026: 9 monthly accruals have landed, 90.00 hours. From a 10 hour starting balance with 30 taken, the balance is 70.00 hours, 8.75 days.

The part-timer on an hourly rate. At 0.05 hours earned per hour worked (a common formula, worth about 2 hours a week full-time) and 40 hours worked a week over the same 281 days, accrual is 0.05 x 40 x 40.14 weeks = 80.29 hours. Work 25 hours a week instead and the same dates produce about 50 hours: the method, not the calendar, does the prorating.

The cap, costing real time. A starting balance of 100 hours, the same 80 hours accrued, 40 taken, and a cap of 120: the raw balance is 140, so the payable balance is 120.00 hours and 20.00 hours, two and a half days, sit above the cap. In a stop-accrual policy those hours were never earned at all; either way, they are gone, and taking leave earlier in the year was worth real money.

Reading your result

Compare the annualised rate in the results with your handbook’s headline (ten days, fifteen days). If they disagree, the rule was entered wrong, and every later number inherits the error. Then look at the cap line even if it says nothing today: project the forecast to your plan year end and see whether the cap bites before December, because the cheapest PTO to protect is the PTO you have not lost yet.

If your balance shows negative, you have taken more than the rule has earned by the as-of date. Some employers allow that deliberately (front-loading or negative balances), others have let a payroll error compound quietly. Either way it is worth a conversation now rather than at resignation, when a negative balance can come out of a final cheque where the law allows it.

Limitations

• Policies differ in the seams: waiting periods before accrual starts, tiered rates that rise with years of service, front-loaded grants, and accrual that pauses during leave are all real policy features this single-rate model does not reproduce. If your rate changes with tenure, run the page separately for each stretch.
• Dates count completed periods. An employer who accrues at the start of each period, or daily, will be a few hours ahead of this count mid-period. The difference is timing, not error, and it vanishes at each period boundary.
• Payout law varies by state and policy, and sick leave is governed separately from vacation PTO in a growing number of jurisdictions, often with its own accrual floor and carryover rights. This page models vacation-style PTO under the rule you enter; it is not legal advice and does not apply any jurisdiction’s rules for you.
• The forecast assumes the rule and your schedule hold. A promotion, a schedule change or a policy rewrite between now and the forecast date moves the answer; the forecast is a planning line, not a promise.

Frequently asked questions

How much PTO do I earn per pay period?

Divide your annual entitlement by the number of pay periods: at 26 biweekly periods, 10 days (80 hours) a year is 3.08 hours a period, 15 days is 4.62, and 20 days is 6.15. If your stub shows a different figure, your entitlement is probably defined in hours per hour worked instead, or your rate is tiered by service; either way, enter the rule as written on the stub, because that is the rule payroll applies.

What is the difference between accrual, front-loading and unlimited PTO?

Accrual earns time gradually through the year, which is what this page models. Front-loading grants the whole year’s balance on day one, so the balance starts full and only falls. Unlimited PTO has no balance at all: nothing accrues, nothing is capped, and, importantly where payout law applies, nothing is owed at separation, because there is never a banked balance to pay. The three systems can grant identical holidays and wildly different payouts.

Do I lose my PTO if I do not use it?

It depends on the mechanism. A balance cap stops you earning more until you spend down, which loses future hours but not banked ones. A rollover limit forfeits banked hours above the limit at the plan year turn. A use it or lose it policy forfeits banked hours outright at year end, where state law allows it. This page models the first two directly (cap field; starting balance set to what actually rolled over) and shows the third in the forecast if you set the forecast date to the year turn with no leave planned: the hours at risk are the balance itself.

Is my employer required to pay out unused PTO when I leave?

There is no single US rule. Some states treat earned vacation as wages that must be paid out; others enforce the employer’s written policy, which may forfeit it; many sit in between with conditions. The payout figure on this page tells you the gross amount at stake, which is the number you need before checking your state’s rule and your handbook’s separation clause, the two documents that decide it.

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Method: completed-period accrual counting from the user’s dates and policy rule, caps applied to the balance, forecast on the same accrual grid, exactly as defined on this page. Policy and legal outcomes are not determined here. Last reviewed: 13 October 2026.