Source: https://clockwage44.com/tools/12-hour-shift-pay-calculator/

ClockWage44 is a free hours and pay tracker app for iOS and Android: log shifts across every job and see take-home pay after federal tax, state tax, FICA, overtime and deductions.

Get the ClockWage44 app: [App Store](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hours-tracker-time-pay/id6762208276?pt=120576754&ct=clockwage44.md&mt=8) · [Google Play](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ehmtech.clock&referrer=utm_source%3Dclockwage44.md)

# 12 Hour Shift Pay Calculator

Calculate 12 hour shift pay for 2-2-3, DuPont, and 4-on-4-off rotations. Get true per-week overtime, gross pay, and an estimated take-home figure.

_Interactive tool: open [the web page](https://clockwage44.com/tools/12-hour-shift-pay-calculator/) to use it. This Markdown copy has the text only._

Pick your rotation and this prices every workweek on its own, the way the FLSA requires. No 42-hour averaging, no pretending a 12-hour shift is 12 paid hours.

A bona fide meal period is not hours worked (29 CFR 785.19), so it comes off before the 40-hour test. Set it to 0 if your break is paid.

Your unpaid break is as long as the shift, so paid hours are zero. Lower the break or raise the shift length.

A nightshift differential belongs in the regular rate (29 CFR 778.207), so it raises your overtime rate too. This assumes the premium is paid on every hour in the rotation.

A 1.0x multiplier means no overtime premium. Under the FLSA a non-exempt employee must be paid at least 1.5x the regular rate for hours over 40 in a workweek.

Used only for the estimated take-home figure below.

No workweek in this rotation exceeds 40 hours, so no federal overtime is owed. Check your state's daily rule if your shifts run past 8 hours.

Each workweek is evaluated on its own against the 40-hour line, per 29 CFR 778.104. Cycle hours are never averaged first.

This estimate applies 2026 federal income tax brackets and the standard deduction for your filing status, plus employee FICA (6.2% Social Security up to the annual wage base and 1.45% Medicare). It excludes state and local income tax, pre-tax deductions like 401(k) or health premiums, extra W-4 withholding, and any credits. Federal figures come from the IRS annual inflation adjustments and the SSA 2026 COLA. For state tax and pre-tax deductions, use the [take-home pay calculator](https://clockwage44.com/tools/take-home-pay-calculator/). Estimates only, not tax or legal advice.

## How 12-hour shift pay actually works

Start with paid hours, not scheduled hours. A 12-hour shift with a 30-minute unpaid meal period is 11.5 paid hours, because a bona fide meal period where you are fully relieved of duty is not hours worked under 29 CFR 785.19. Short rest breaks of roughly 5 to 20 minutes are different: those are compensable and stay in the count. That one deduction moves real money. Four shifts a week is 48 scheduled hours but 46 paid hours, which is 6 overtime hours instead of 8.

Next, the rate that multiplier gets applied to. It is your regular rate, which is not always your base rate. 29 CFR 778.207 requires nightshift differentials to sit inside the regular rate, whether they arrive as a percentage of base or as flat cents per hour. At $25 an hour with a $2 night differential, your regular rate is $27 and your overtime rate is $40.50, not $37.50. Skipping that step costs you $3 on every overtime hour. (If only some of your shifts carry the premium, the FLSA requires a weighted-average regular rate, which this page does not attempt.)

Then the overtime line. Federal law draws it at 40 hours in a workweek, and a workweek is a fixed, recurring period of 168 consecutive hours that your employer designates. Not a pay period, not a calendar week, not an average. That definition is where most 12-hour rotation confusion begins.

## Overtime on rotating schedules: each workweek stands alone

Search for any 12-hour rotation and you will be told it averages 42 hours a week. True, and useless for payroll. 42 minus 40 reads like 2 overtime hours a week, and that number is wrong on every rotation in this calculator.

29 CFR 778.104 is explicit: the FLSA "takes a single workweek as its standard and does not permit averaging of hours over 2 or more weeks. Thus, if an employee works 30 hours one week and 50 hours the next, he must receive overtime compensation for the overtime hours worked beyond the applicable maximum in the second week, even though the average number of hours worked in the 2 weeks is 40. This is true regardless of whether the employee works on a standard or swing-shift schedule."

Run a Pitman rotation at $25 an hour with no break deduction and the gap shows up immediately.

| Two-week period | Averaging (wrong) | Per workweek (correct) |
| - | - | - |
| Total hours | 84 | 84 |
| Regular hours | 80 | 76 (36 + 40) |
| Overtime hours | 4 | 8 |
| Gross at $25/hr | $2,150.00 | $2,200.00 |

$50 per pay period is about $1,300 a year at that rate, and DuPont is worse: averaging pays roughly 8 overtime hours per 28-day cycle where the per-week math owes 48.

One honest caveat. The 36 and 48-hour split assumes your employer's designated workweek falls where the rotation intends it. The same seven shifts, cut on a different day boundary, can produce a 60-hour week and a 24-hour week, which would be 20 overtime hours per 14 days instead of 8. If your stub disagrees with this page, the workweek boundary is the first thing to check, and it is a payroll configuration decision your employer makes.

## Hours and overtime by rotation pattern

All figures below assume 12 paid hours per shift with no break deduction. Change the shift length or the unpaid break above and every number moves.

| Rotation | Cycle | Hours by workweek | OT per cycle | OT per year |
| - | - | - | - | - |
| 2-2-3 (Pitman, Panama) | 14 days | 36, 48 | 8 | 208 |
| DuPont | 28 days | 48, 72, 48, 0 | 48 | 624 |
| 4 on / 4 off | 8 weeks | four 48s, four 36s | 32 | 208 |
| Fixed 3 x 12 | 1 week | 36 | 0 | 0 |

The Pitman rotation runs seven 12-hour shifts per 14 days: three one week, four the next. 84 hours, a 42-hour average, and 8 overtime hours banked entirely in the four-shift week.

DuPont packs 14 shifts into 28 days as 4 nights, 3 off, 3 days, 1 off, 3 nights, 3 off, 4 days, then 7 off. By workweek that is 48, 72, 48, and 0 hours. The 72-hour week alone carries 32 overtime hours, and the zero-hour week is the reason a DuPont crew asks why one check looks so small.

4 on / 4 off is the awkward one, because an 8-day cycle does not divide a 7-day workweek. It only lines up with the calendar every 56 days: 28 shifts across 8 workweeks, which forces exactly four 48-hour weeks and four 36-hour weeks (4a + 3b = 28 with a + b = 8 has one solution). Only the order changes with the boundary, never the totals, so this page reports an 8-week cycle and annualizes at 6.5 cycles rather than pretending to know which week you are in.

Fixed 3 x 12, the standard hospital week, is 36 hours and zero federal overtime. It is also the rotation where a state daily rule matters most, since every shift runs 4 hours past California's 8-hour daily line. For punch-level accuracy on any of these, the [timesheet calculator](https://clockwage44.com/tools/timesheet-calculator/) takes real in and out times instead of a pattern.

## What lands in your bank account

Gross is the easy half. The take-home figure on this page annualizes your rotation, subtracts the 2026 federal standard deduction for your filing status, runs the result through the federal brackets, then takes 6.2% Social Security up to the annual wage base and 1.45% Medicare on everything. That is a deliberately narrow model: no state or local income tax, no 401(k) or health premiums, no extra W-4 withholding, no credits. State tax alone can be several thousand dollars a year, so treat the number as a ceiling rather than a paycheck.

There is one wrinkle worth knowing on a rotation this overtime-heavy. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (P.L. 119-21) created a federal deduction for qualified overtime covering tax years 2025 through 2028, capped at $12,500 for single and head-of-household filers and $25,000 for joint filers, with married filing separately excluded. Only the FLSA-required premium qualifies, meaning the extra 0.5x above your regular rate rather than the whole overtime check. On a DuPont rotation at $25 an hour, 624 overtime hours a year carry roughly $7,800 of premium, which sits comfortably under the cap. This calculator does not apply the deduction, so your actual federal tax may come in lower than shown.

If you want the real number instead of an estimate, that is what the app is for. [ClockWage44](https://clockwage44.com/#download) tracks shifts across multiple jobs, handles per-shift rate overrides for the nights that carry a differential, and resolves federal tax, all 50 states plus DC, FICA, overtime rules, and deductions into a take-home figure calculated to the cent, entirely on-device. Or start with the [overtime calculator](https://clockwage44.com/tools/overtime-calculator/) for a single week and the [take-home pay calculator](https://clockwage44.com/tools/take-home-pay-calculator/) for the full withholding picture.

This calculator gives estimates only, based on the rotation and figures you enter, and it is not tax, legal, or payroll advice. Your designated workweek moves the result, and so do your state's daily overtime rules and whatever your employer does about breaks and differentials. Check your pay stub and talk to your payroll department, your state labor agency, or an employment attorney about a specific situation.

## Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about 12 hour shift pay calculator

### Do 12-hour shifts get overtime?

Not automatically under federal law. The FLSA has no daily overtime rule, so overtime is owed on hours over 40 in a workweek. Three 12-hour shifts (36 hours) earn no federal overtime, while four (48 hours) earn 8. Several states do have daily rules: in California, hours over 8 in a workday are paid at 1.5x and hours over 12 at 2x, so a 12-hour shift there contains 4 hours of daily overtime no matter what the week totals. The [double-time calculator](https://clockwage44.com/tools/double-time-calculator/) handles that case.

### My 2-2-3 schedule averages 42 hours a week. Is that 2 hours of overtime?

No, and this is the most common mistake on this schedule. 29 CFR 778.104 says the FLSA "takes a single workweek as its standard and does not permit averaging of hours over 2 or more weeks." A Pitman rotation is a 36-hour week and a 48-hour week. The 36-hour week owes nothing; the 48-hour week owes 8 hours of overtime. That is 8 hours per two weeks, not 4, or roughly 208 overtime hours a year.

### How many hours is a 2-2-3 (Pitman) schedule?

84 hours over the 14-day cycle: three 12-hour shifts one week (36 hours) and four the next (48 hours). Averaged out it is 42 hours a week, but payroll has to run each workweek separately.

### How does overtime work on a DuPont schedule?

The 28-day DuPont cycle runs 48, 72, 48, and 0 hours across its four weeks, so 168 hours total and a 42-hour average. Week by week the overtime lands as 8 + 32 + 8 + 0, or 48 hours per cycle. An employer paying on the 42-hour average would pay about 8. That gap is roughly 40 hours of unpaid overtime every four weeks.

### Why does my paycheck's overtime differ from this calculator?

Usually the workweek boundary. Employers designate a fixed, recurring 168-hour workweek, and where that boundary falls decides which shifts land in which week. The same 2-2-3 rotation can produce 36 and 48-hour weeks with one boundary and 60 and 24-hour weeks with another. Other common causes: unpaid meal periods, shift differentials that should be in your regular rate, and paid-but-not-worked hours like holiday or PTO, which generally do not count toward the 40-hour threshold.

### Does my night shift differential increase my overtime rate?

Yes. 29 CFR 778.207 requires nightshift differentials to be included in the regular rate, whether they are a percentage of base or a flat cents-per-hour add-on. If you earn $25 an hour plus a $2 night differential, your overtime rate is 1.5 x $27 = $40.50, not 1.5 x $25 = $37.50. The [shift differential calculator](https://clockwage44.com/tools/shift-differential-calculator/) breaks the premium out on its own.

### Do unpaid breaks reduce my overtime?

They can. A bona fide meal period of 30 minutes or more, where you are fully relieved of duty, is not hours worked under 29 CFR 785.19. With a 30-minute unpaid meal, a four-shift week is 46 paid hours instead of 48, which is 6 overtime hours rather than 8. Short rest breaks of roughly 5 to 20 minutes are compensable and do count toward the 40.

### Is my overtime on a 12-hour rotation taxed differently?

It is ordinary wages for withholding. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (P.L. 119-21) added a federal deduction for qualified overtime for tax years 2025 through 2028, capped at $12,500 ($25,000 married filing jointly; married filing separately is excluded). Only the FLSA-required premium counts, meaning the extra half-time above your regular rate rather than the whole overtime check. Social Security and Medicare still apply in full. The [overtime calculator](https://clockwage44.com/tools/overtime-calculator/) covers the general case.

## Related Tools

- [1099 vs W-2 Calculator](https://clockwage44.com/tools/1099-vs-w2-calculator/): Compare a W-2 salary offer with a 1099 contract at 2026 federal rates, then get the equivalent 1099 rate: the gross revenue that leaves you with the same take-home.
- [401(k) Paycheck Impact Calculator](https://clockwage44.com/tools/401k-paycheck-impact-calculator/): See how a traditional 401(k) contribution changes your take-home pay after pre-tax savings and employer match.
- [Back Pay Calculator](https://clockwage44.com/tools/back-pay-calculator/): Add up unpaid hours, missed overtime, and rate shortfalls across pay periods to see the gross back pay you are owed and your estimated take-home.
- [Biweekly Pay Calculator](https://clockwage44.com/tools/biweekly-pay-calculator/): Convert an hourly rate or annual salary into your biweekly paycheck, then see weekly, semimonthly, monthly, and annual equivalents across all 26 pay periods.