How salary and hourly pay relate
Turning a salary into an hourly rate is simple once you know your working hours. Divide the annual salary by the number of hours you work in a year. At 40 hours a week for 52 weeks, that is 2,080 hours, so a €45,000 salary works out at about €21.63 an hour.
Why "weeks per year" matters
If you take unpaid time off, you work fewer paid weeks, which raises your effective hourly rate for the time you are actually there. Salaried workers with paid holiday usually use the full 52 weeks; freelancers and contractors often use fewer to reflect unpaid breaks. Adjust the weeks field to match your situation.
Gross, not take-home
These figures are gross — before tax, social contributions and any deductions. Your actual take-home pay will be lower and depends on where you live. Treat the results as a way to compare offers on a like-for-like basis, not as the amount that lands in your account.
Worked example: salary to hourly
Take a salary of €36,000 a year, working 40 hours a week for 52 weeks. Yearly hours are 40 × 52 = 2,080, the standard full-time year the page cites. The hourly rate is €36,000 ÷ 2,080 = €17.31. The daily rate is €17.31 × (40 ÷ 5) = €138.46, the weekly rate is €36,000 ÷ 52 = €692.31, and the monthly rate is €36,000 ÷ 12 = €3,000. Every figure here is gross pay before tax, as the calculator states. The weeks input does real work in this formula: if the same €36,000 came with 48 weeks instead of 52 — four weeks of unpaid time off — yearly hours would be 40 × 48 = 1,920 and the hourly rate would be €36,000 ÷ 1,920 = €18.75, because the same salary spread over fewer hours is worth more per hour. Change the weeks if you take unpaid time off, exactly as the calculator advises.
| Per hour | Per day | Per week | Per month | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| €36,000, 40 h/week, 52 weeks | €17.31 | €138.46 | €692.31 | €3,000.00 |
| €18,000, 20 h/week, 52 weeks | €17.31 | €69.23 | €346.15 | €1,500.00 |
The second row makes the point the table exists to show: half the salary at half the hours gives the same hourly rate, €18,000 ÷ (20 × 52) = €18,000 ÷ 1,040 = €17.31. Part-time work is not lower-paid per hour by definition; it is lower-paid per month because there are fewer hours in it. Comparing jobs by monthly pay alone hides that, which is why the hourly conversion exists.
Worked example: hourly to salary
The other direction works the same way. A rate of €25 an hour at 30 hours a week for 48 weeks gives a yearly figure of €25 × 30 × 48 = €36,000, a monthly figure of €36,000 ÷ 12 = €3,000, a weekly figure of €25 × 30 = €750, and a daily figure of €25 × 30 ÷ 5 = €150. Notice the symmetry with the first example: €36,000 a year appears in both, once as a salary converted down and once as a rate converted up. That round trip is a useful check on any conversion — convert in one direction, convert back, and you should land where you started. Where the two directions differ in real life is what they leave out: the calculator's figures are gross, before tax and contributions, which vary by country, and a freelancer comparing against a salary must also cover their own time off, equipment and contributions, as the page notes — so a higher hourly rate is often needed to match a salary, not the same rate.
A quick sanity check on any conversion
The €36,000 example converts to €17.31 an hour, but €17.31 is the rounded figure: the exact rate is €36,000 ÷ 2,080 = €17.3077. Multiply the rounded rate back and you get €17.31 × 2,080 = €36,004.80, which is €4.80 above the original salary. The drift comes from rounding the hourly rate to cents, not from an error in the formula. The calculator carries full precision internally and only rounds for display, which is why converting back inside the tool lands exactly, while converting back by hand from a rounded figure drifts by a few euros. If a hand check looks a few euros off, rounding is almost always the explanation, not a wrong formula.
Frequently asked questions
How many work hours are in a year?
A standard full-time year is about 2,080 hours (40 hours × 52 weeks). Part-time or reduced schedules will be lower.
How do I compare a salaried job with a freelance hourly rate?
Convert both to the same basis first — that is what this calculator does. On this page's numbers, €25 an hour at 30 hours a week for 48 weeks totals €36,000 a year, the same annual figure as the €36,000 salary example, before any extra costs. A freelancer usually covers their own time off, equipment and contributions from the rate itself, while a salary bundles paid time off, equipment and employer contributions into the package — so a higher hourly rate is often needed to match a salary, not the same rate.
Why do the weeks matter so much?
Because the hourly rate is salary divided by hours, and hours are hours per week times weeks per year. A €36,000 salary at 40 hours a week is €17.31 an hour over 52 weeks but €18.75 over 48 weeks — the same salary, different hourly value, because four unpaid weeks remove 160 hours from the year. Enter the weeks you actually work, including unpaid time off, or the hourly figure will understate what each hour is really worth.
Should a freelancer charge the same hourly rate as a salary?
Usually more, not the same. A salary bundles paid time off, equipment and employer contributions into the package, while a freelancer covers all of those from the rate itself. Convert both to the same hourly basis first — that is what this calculator does — then add the freelancer's extra costs on top before comparing. The page makes exactly this point: a higher hourly rate is often needed to match a salary.