Find pay per period for a semi-monthly payroll — paid twice a month, 24 times a year, typically on set dates like the 1st and 15th.
How it works
Semi-monthly pay is annual salary ÷ 24. A $60,000 annual salary works out to $2,500 per semi-monthly paycheck.
What this does not include
Semi-monthly is not the same as biweekly (paid every two weeks), which has 26 pay periods a year, not 24 — this site’s salary-to-hourly calculator explicitly documents that distinction as a common source of payroll confusion. Mixing up the two schedules under- or over-estimates per-paycheck pay.
How to use this calculator
- Enter the annual salary.
A worked example
A $60,000 annual salary paid semi-monthly (24 pay periods): each paycheck = 60,000 ÷ 24 = $2,500.
A $52,000 annual salary: each paycheck = $2,166.6667.
What the variables mean
| Variable | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Annual salary | Total yearly salary |
Edge cases worth knowing
Semi-monthly and bi-weekly pay schedules aren’t the same, despite sounding similar. Semi-monthly means exactly 24 paychecks a year (twice a month), while bi-weekly means 26 (every two weeks) — the per-paycheck amount differs even for the identical annual salary.
A missing annual salary makes the calculation impossible, so the calculator declines to show a result without one.
Why does semi-monthly have 24 periods but biweekly has 26?
Semi-monthly is tied to the calendar month (twice per month, 12 months × 2 = 24), while biweekly is tied to a fixed 14-day cycle, and 52 weeks divided into 14-day chunks comes out to 26, not 24.
Which schedule pays more per check for the same annual salary?
Biweekly pays slightly less per check but produces two “extra” paychecks a year compared to semi-monthly’s fixed 24, since 26 periods split the same annual total into more, smaller pieces.
Why do semi-monthly paycheck dates sometimes fall on a weekend?
Because pay dates are tied to fixed calendar days (like the 1st and 15th) rather than a fixed day of the week, they can land on any day, including weekends — many employers move the pay date earlier in that case.
