Biweekly Pay
Definition, rules and examples

What biweekly pay means

Biweekly is one of the most common pay frequencies for hourly workforces. Paydays fall every 14 days, such as every other Friday, which is easy for employees to remember and lines up neatly with weekly time tracking. Because a year has 52 weeks, a biweekly schedule produces 26 paychecks, and every few years the calendar produces a 27th payday.

Biweekly is often confused with semimonthly pay. Semimonthly means twice a month on fixed dates, such as the 15th and the last day, for 24 paychecks a year. The difference matters for salaried employees, whose per-check amount changes, and for hourly employees, because a semimonthly period does not contain a whole number of workweeks.

How biweekly pay works

The key rule for hourly employees is that overtime is calculated by the workweek, not by the pay period. DOL Fact Sheet #23 defines a workweek as “a fixed and regularly recurring period of 168 hours — seven consecutive 24-hour periods” and states that “averaging of hours over two or more weeks is not permitted.” A biweekly paycheck therefore covers two separate overtime calculations.

Worked example (hypothetical): A warehouse associate earns $18.00 an hour and is paid biweekly. In week one she works 46 hours; in week two she works 34 hours. The total is 80 hours, which might look like two normal 40-hour weeks, but each week stands alone.

If payroll had averaged the two weeks, it would have paid $1,440.00 and shorted the employee $54.00. The overtime calculator can help you check weekly overtime math.

Biweekly pay for salaried employees

For salaried staff, divide the annual salary by 26. A $52,000 salary becomes $2,000 per biweekly check. In a 27-payday year, employers either pay 27 checks of $2,000 (raising the year’s cost) or divide by 27 (lowering each check). Decide and communicate the approach in advance. Exempt status also depends on a weekly salary level, so confirm that the biweekly amount divided by two meets the threshold that applies; see exempt employee.

Federal and state rules on pay frequency

The FLSA does not set a pay frequency, but it does require overtime to be paid on time. DOL Fact Sheet #23 says overtime earned in a workweek “must be paid on the regular pay day” for the pay period in which the wages were earned. Pay frequency itself is mostly governed by state law. The DOL’s state payday requirements table, dated January 1, 2023, shows the variation. Examples from that table:

• California: payday frequency depends on the occupation; with some exceptions, wages must be paid at least twice each calendar month on designated regular paydays.
• New York: weekly paydays for manual workers, with semimonthly paydays allowed upon approval for manual workers and for clerical and other workers.
• Texas: employees exempt from FLSA overtime must be paid at least once a month; others at least twice a month.
• Florida: the table shows no state regulation specified.

Because state rules change, confirm the current requirements with each state labor department before setting or changing a pay schedule.

Converting other pay amounts to biweekly

Benefits, garnishments, and allowances are often quoted monthly or annually, so they need conversion. A monthly health premium of $150 the employee pays becomes $150 × 12 ÷ 26 = about $69.23 per biweekly check. Many employers instead deduct the monthly amount from only the first two checks in each month and skip deductions in the two months that contain a third payday. Either approach works if it is applied consistently and explained to employees in advance. The same logic applies to hourly-equivalent calculations: a full-time biweekly period normally contains 80 scheduled hours, so a salaried employee earning $2,000 biweekly has an hourly equivalent of $25.00.

For hourly employees, also consider how corrections are handled. If a missed punch from week one is discovered after payroll closes, decide whether it is paid as an adjustment on the next check and record which workweek the hours belong to, because overtime depends on the workweek in which the time was actually worked.

Pros and cons of biweekly pay

• Pros: fewer payroll runs than weekly; easy overtime tracking because each period contains exactly two workweeks; predictable paydays.
• Cons: employees wait longer between checks than with weekly pay; 27-payday years need planning; benefit deductions set as monthly amounts need conversion.

Best practices

1. Align the pay period start with the start of your defined workweek.
2. Calculate overtime separately for each workweek in the period.
3. Publish the full year’s payday calendar in advance.
4. Decide how 27-payday years and per-check benefit deductions will be handled.
5. Close timecards a set number of days before payday and resolve exceptions first.

Common mistakes

• Averaging hours across the two weeks to avoid overtime.
• Starting the pay period on a different day than the workweek.
• Forgetting state minimum pay frequency rules for certain occupations.
• Delaying overtime to a later check without a valid reason.

How EZTime helps

EZTime keeps biweekly payroll accurate by tracking time workweek by workweek. Employees clock in with the GPS mobile time clock with geofencing, NFC tags, tablet kiosk, or biometric clocks, overtime and break alerts flag hours approaching 40 before the week ends, and timecard corrections keep an audit trail. When the period closes, payroll-ready Excel/PDF exports for any payroll software show hours by week. Read about the attendance clock or see pricing, from $2/employee/month with a 14-day trial.

This is general information, not legal advice.