What is a pay period? The days one paycheck covers

What is a pay period, and what is a payday

A pay period is the block of work one check pays for. Publication 15 (Circular E) is the IRS Employer’s Tax Guide. It calls this a payroll period: a period of service for which you usually pay wages. The pay date, also called a payday, is the day the worker gets that money. The pay date can fall after the period ends. Pay frequency is how often those periods come. Weekly, biweekly, semi-monthly, and monthly are four common frequencies.

The job is to pick one frequency your state allows and stay with it. The FLSA is the Fair Labor Standards Act, the federal wage-and-hour law. It does not pick weekly, biweekly, semi-monthly, or monthly. The DOL Handy Reference Guide says wages the Act requires are due on the regular payday for the pay period. It does not set how far apart those paydays may be.

The DOL payday chart was last revised January 1, 2023. The marks are not the same in every row. The Labor Department says to confirm the row with the state labor office. Do not copy one row onto a worker in another state. Hiring your first employee walks that chart. How to pay employees is the handoff of the check. How to run payroll is one payday, from the hours to the deposit.

How many pay periods in a year

Count the pay dates. The usual counts are below. A year is not an even stack of weeks, so two of the rows can gain an extra payday.

Weekly is 52 pay periods in the usual count. Seven days times 52 is 364 days. A calendar year has 365 days, or 366 in a leap year, so some years place a 53rd weekly payday on the calendar.

Biweekly is 26 pay periods in the usual count. Fourteen days times 26 is also 364. Some years place a 27th biweekly payday. Semi-monthly is 24, because two paydays a month times 12 months is 24. It does not pick up a 27th period. Monthly is 12. One payday each month does not become 13 because the year has an extra day.

What is a semi-monthly pay period

A semi-monthly pay period is half a month, paid twice. People also write that as semimonthly. A common pair of dates is the 15th and the last day of the month. You can pick other dates. You still have 24 periods in the year.

Biweekly is not that schedule. Biweekly pays every 14 days, on the same weekday. Semi-monthly pays twice a month, on two calendar dates. The checks do not land on the same weekday all year. A Friday biweekly check stays on Friday unless you move that date. A semi-monthly date such as the 15th moves across the weekdays.

The length is different too. Every biweekly period is 14 days. A semi-monthly period is not a fixed number of days. The 1st through the 15th is 15 days. The rest of the month is 13, 14, 15, or 16 days. Do not call a twice-a-month check biweekly. Do not divide a yearly salary by 26 when you pay 24 times.

How long is a pay period

It is as long as the schedule you picked. Weekly is 7 days. Biweekly is 14 days. Monthly is the calendar month, from 28 days to 31. Semi-monthly is about half a month, and the two halves are not always equal.

If you pay on the 15th and the last day, the first half is the 1st through the 15th. The second half is the rest of the month. In February that second half is 13 days, or 14 in a leap year. In a 30-day month it is 15 days. In a 31-day month it is 16 days. The table above is the map. Your calendar is the count.

A period shorter than a week is a different withholding case. Publication 15 has a path for it. The employee signs a statement under penalties of perjury. The statement says they are not working for any other employer that week for wages subject to withholding. You then figure withholding on a weekly payroll period. If that worker later takes another job with wages subject to withholding, they must tell you within 10 days. You then use the daily or miscellaneous period.

If you have no regular payroll period at all, Publication 15 says to withhold as if the wages were paid for a daily or miscellaneous payroll period. Count the days in the period the check covers, including Sundays and holidays.

A workweek is not a pay period

A workweek is the seven-day stretch you use for overtime. 29 CFR 778.105 says an employee’s workweek is a fixed and regularly recurring period of 168 hours, seven days in a row. It does not have to start on Sunday. It can start on any day and at any hour. Once you set that start, it stays fixed. You may change the start only if the change is meant to last and is not designed to evade the overtime rules.

A pay period can hold more than one workweek. A biweekly pay period holds two. You still count hours inside each workweek. You do not average the two weeks to skip overtime. The Handy Reference Guide says a covered worker who is not exempt gets at least one and one-half times the regular rate after 40 hours in a workweek. How to run payroll puts that count in payday order. This page is the difference between the workweek and the check.

What does per pay period mean

Per pay period means one paycheck, not the whole year. A deduction that says “per pay period” comes out of each check. It does not come out once in January and then stop.

A yearly salary is split the same way. Say the offer is $62,400 for the year. That figure is an example you can redo. It is not a wage the IRS set. Weekly gross pay is $1,200. Biweekly gross pay is $2,400 if you have 26 checks. Semi-monthly gross pay is $2,600. Monthly gross pay is $5,200. Those are one salary cut into different checks. If the calendar has 27 biweekly paydays, dividing by 26 does not describe that year. Count the pay dates before you divide.

Withholding follows the same split. Publication 15 says that when you have a regular payroll period, you withhold income tax for that period even if the employee does not work the full period. Publication 15-T is the federal income-tax withholding methods book. It has tables for a weekly, biweekly, semimonthly, monthly, and daily or miscellaneous payroll period. Use the table that matches the check. Do not use the weekly table on a monthly check.

Form W-4 is the Employee’s Withholding Certificate. Publication 15-T says that if the employee completes only Step 1 and Step 5, you withhold from the filing status, the wages, and the payroll period. Step 4(c) is an extra dollar amount on each paycheck. Publication 15-T says you increase withholding by that per pay period amount. It is not a once-a-year number.

Social Security tax and Medicare tax are a percent of the wages on this check. They are not a yearly bill you slice into equal deposits. What is withholding tax is those percents, and the states that take income tax off the check. The employer share you add on top of wages is a different bill. Employer payroll taxes percentage is that share. It does not come out of the worker’s “per pay period” line.

What changes on the check from state to state

The pay period does not open a state tax account. Paying wages can. These pages print what comes off the check, or what you must not take off. They do not print the payday gap. The DOL chart is that map. Do not paste one state’s paycheck rule onto another state.

In California, wages above $100 in a calendar quarter start a 15-day clock to register with the Employment Development Department, the state payroll-tax office. A weekly period and a monthly period can both cross that dollar line. The clock follows the wages, not the row you picked above.

In New York, state withholding on each check still uses Form IT-2104, the Employee’s Withholding Allowance Certificate. A federal Form W-4 does not replace it. In Illinois, workers still complete Form IL-W-4, and you still file Form IL-941 for the quarter. The pay period does not replace either certificate.

In Pennsylvania, each check still withholds a flat 3.07 percent for the state. Local earned income tax is still a second amount on that same check, paid to a local collector. In Connecticut, workers still complete Form CT-W4. Covered employers still withhold 0.5 percent for CT Paid Leave from pay. That worker share is not the income-tax account. In Oregon, workers still complete Form OR-W-4. Paid Leave Oregon is still a separate amount on the same wages. Do not use Oregon’s form as Connecticut’s form.

Texas and Florida still take no state income tax off the check. Texas still bars a deduction of the unemployment contribution from wages. Florida still bars taking reemployment tax from wages. Reemployment tax is Florida’s name for the employer unemployment tax. A shorter pay period does not open a state withholding account in either state.

The methodology page grades how much of the state paperwork software takes off your desk. A login does not pick the legal gap, and it does not open the state account. Gusto is one plain link. Patriot is the other service on this site.