PTO Calculator (Accrual to Days Off, Free)

If your last job tracked PTO in a spreadsheet and your new one says 'unlimited,' the math gets confusing fast. This PTO calculator turns whatever accrual rule your employer uses (per pay period, per hours worked, or a lump-sum grant) into a simple answer: how many days off you have right now, and how many you will have by a given date. It also flags the part most workers miss, which is what happens to that balance when you leave.

What this PTO calculator actually does

The tool takes your accrual rate, your start date, and any time you have already used, and projects your paid time off forward to any future date. It supports the three accrual models almost every US employer uses: per-pay-period (the most common at salaried jobs), per-hour-worked (common at restaurant and retail jobs that run on an hourly schedule), and front-loaded annual grants (often called a lump-sum allotment, common at corporate offices and some fine-dining groups).

It does not replace your HR portal as the system of record. Caps, blackout dates, probationary waiting periods, and union rules are not built in. Use it to sanity-check what your portal shows, to plan a vacation request a few months out, or to estimate what a payout would look like if you gave notice today.

How PTO is calculated

There is no federal law that requires private employers to offer paid time off in the United States, so accrual math is whatever the employer's policy says it is. The three formulas in use:

• Per pay period. Annual PTO hours divided by number of pay periods. A common policy at 80 hours per year on a biweekly schedule comes out to 3.08 hours per check (80 divided by 26).
• Per hour worked. PTO accrues as a fraction of every hour on the clock. A typical hospitality formula is 0.0385 hours of PTO per hour worked, which works out to 80 hours per year if you put in 40 hour weeks. Part-time workers accrue proportionally less.
• Lump sum. The full annual allotment lands on your anniversary or on January 1. Easy to track but punishing if you leave mid-year and the employer claws back.

Most employers also impose a maximum accrual cap (often 1.5x or 2x your annual allotment), at which point you stop accruing until you take time off. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average private-sector worker with 1 year of service gets 11 days of paid vacation, climbing to 15 days at 5 years and 20 days at 20 years. Hospitality benchmarks tend to sit at the lower end of that range.

Hospitality PTO benchmarks

Restaurant and hotel PTO policies vary widely by employer size, brand, and job class. Hourly front-of-house roles often get less than salaried managers at the same property. Common patterns from the major chains and lifestyle hotel groups:

• Independent restaurants. PTO often does not exist for hourly staff. Many independents offer a few unpaid days off and call it a day.
• Casual-dining chains (Applebee's, Olive Garden, Chili's). 40 to 80 hours per year for hourly staff after 1 year, 80 to 120 hours for managers.
• Fine-dining and lifestyle hospitality groups. 80 hours per year for hourly staff is typical, 120 to 160 for salaried managers, sometimes more for execs.
• Hotel brands (Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt). 80 to 120 hours after 1 year for hourly staff, with longer-tenured employees climbing past 160 hours.
• QSR (Starbucks, McDonald's, Chipotle). Policies have improved sharply. Starbucks offers PTO accrual to all baristas at 20+ hours per week. Most others are still in the 0 to 40 hour range for hourly.

The national average to know: 80 hours per year (10 days) is the de facto baseline for any full-time hospitality job that calls itself 'with benefits.' If you are below that, you are below market. If you are at or above 120 hours, you are at the high end of the industry.

Use-it-or-lose-it versus rollover, and what your state says

Federal law is silent on whether unused PTO carries forward to the next year. Your employer can require you to use it by December 31 or forfeit it (a use-it-or-lose-it policy), allow unlimited rollover, or set a cap on rollover hours. But some states have stepped in to protect accrued PTO, treating it as earned wages that cannot be forfeited.

California is the strictest: PTO is treated as earned wages, use-it-or-lose-it policies are illegal, and any unused balance must be paid out at separation. Colorado follows the same rule under the 2021 Nieto v. Clark's Market ruling. Montana also requires payout. Most other states allow employers to set whatever rollover policy they want, provided it is in writing and applied consistently.

If you are in a state without forfeiture protection and your policy has a December 31 deadline, plan time off accordingly. A common move: schedule a long weekend in mid-December to burn down the balance before it resets.

Will you get paid for unused PTO when you leave?

This is the single most-asked PTO question and the answer depends entirely on your state. There is no federal requirement to pay out unused PTO at separation. As of 2026 the states that legally require PTO payout when you quit, are fired, or are laid off (assuming the employer's policy treats it as earned vacation) are: California, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New York (under certain conditions), North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

In every other state, payout depends on what the employer's written policy says. If the handbook says 'unused PTO is forfeited at separation,' that is generally enforceable. If the policy is silent, courts have often (but not always) ruled in favor of the employee. Always check the handbook before giving notice if you have a meaningful balance on the books.

A practical note: in payout states, the unused PTO is taxed as supplemental income, which means a flat 22% federal withholding rate plus state, FICA, and Medicare. You will get it back at tax time if your effective rate is lower, but the paycheck will look smaller than you expect.

Sick leave versus vacation versus PTO

Some employers bundle everything into a single PTO bucket. Others keep vacation and sick leave separate, which matters because 15+ states and dozens of cities now require employers to provide paid sick leave by law (California, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Vermont, Maryland, Michigan, Rhode Island, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Minnesota, Illinois). Sick leave accrual under these laws is usually 1 hour for every 30 or 40 hours worked.

If your employer offers 'unlimited PTO,' read the fine print on sick leave. In some states (notably California), unlimited PTO does not satisfy the sick leave mandate because there is no defined accrued balance to draw from. Employers in those states have to track sick leave separately even under an unlimited policy.

Negotiating PTO when you change jobs

PTO is one of the most negotiable parts of a hospitality job offer and one of the least negotiated. If you are coming from a job where you had 120 hours per year and the new offer is 80 hours, you can absolutely ask for a match. The two ways employers usually accommodate without changing the base policy are:

• Front-loaded grant in year one. They start you with a one-time allotment of the difference (e.g., an extra 40 hours up front) so you do not have to wait a year to be made whole.
• Tier credit. They credit you with extra years of service for accrual-tier purposes only, so you immediately step into the second or third accrual band.

Get any negotiated PTO terms in your offer letter or a signed addendum, not just verbal. HR turnover is real and the manager who agreed to it in interviews may not be there in 18 months when you try to take the time off.

When this calculator is right and when to check the portal

Use the calculator for forward-looking planning: a vacation 6 months out, a payout estimate before giving notice, sanity-checking that the HR portal matches the policy on paper. The math is straightforward and the tool will not be wrong about it.

Where it can disagree with your HR portal: blackout periods (some restaurant groups freeze PTO accrual during peak season), probationary waiting periods (90 days is common before accrual begins), unpaid leave (FMLA and personal leave usually pause accrual), and policy changes mid-year. If the portal shows a balance that is meaningfully different from what the calculator projects, the portal wins, and ask HR for a breakdown of the gap.

Frequently asked questions

How much PTO will I have by a specific date?

Enter your start date, your accrual rate (per pay period, per hour, or annual lump sum), any PTO you have already used, and the target date. The calculator projects forward week by week and shows the balance on that date, accounting for accrual caps if you set one. The answer is exact for the math; whether HR's system shows the same number depends on whether the policy has any blackout periods, waiting periods, or pauses for unpaid leave.

How much PTO will I accrue per year?

Multiply your accrual rate by your work pattern. If you accrue 0.0385 hours per hour worked and you work 40 hours per week for 52 weeks, you will accrue 80 hours (10 days) per year. If you accrue 3.08 hours per pay period on a biweekly schedule (26 pay periods), you will accrue 80 hours per year. If you get a 120-hour lump-sum grant on your anniversary, you accrue 120 hours per year regardless of hours worked. Most hospitality jobs accrue between 40 and 120 hours per year, with 80 hours as the de facto industry baseline for any 'full-time with benefits' role.

How is PTO calculated when I work overtime?

Depends on the policy. If accrual is per hour worked, overtime hours typically count toward accrual at the same fractional rate (so working 50 hours a week instead of 40 increases your accrual). If accrual is per pay period or a flat annual grant, overtime does not change your PTO accrual at all. Check the handbook, because some employers specifically exclude overtime hours from PTO accrual calculations to avoid runaway balances.

Do I get paid for unused PTO when I quit?

In about 19 states, yes. Accrued PTO must be paid out at separation as a matter of law in California, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New York under certain conditions, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, West Virginia, and Wyoming. In every other state it depends on what your employer's written policy says. If the handbook explicitly says PTO is forfeited at separation, that is generally enforceable. Always check before giving notice.

When does PTO accrual reset?

Depends on the policy. The two common reset cycles are anniversary year (your accrual resets on your hire-date anniversary every year) and calendar year (resets every January 1). Lump-sum grants follow the same cycle: an anniversary grant lands on your hire date each year, a calendar grant lands on January 1. If your policy is use-it-or-lose-it with a calendar reset and you are in a state that allows forfeiture, December is the month to use it or lose it.

Does sick leave count as PTO?

Depends on the employer. A 'combined PTO' policy bundles vacation, sick, and personal days into one balance. A 'separate PTO and sick' policy tracks them in different buckets, often because state law requires it. In states with paid sick leave mandates (California, New York, Massachusetts, and a growing list of others), employers usually have to track at least some sick leave separately from vacation PTO even if they call the broader pool 'PTO.' Check your paystub: most jurisdictions require employers to print the sick leave balance on the stub.

What is a good amount of PTO for a hospitality job?

For a salaried hospitality manager or corporate role, 120 to 160 hours per year (15 to 20 days) is competitive. For an hourly front-of-house or back-of-house role with benefits, 80 hours per year (10 days) is the industry baseline. Below 40 hours and the policy is mostly symbolic. Above 200 hours (25+ days) and you are at the top end of the industry, usually only at lifestyle hotel groups or large fine-dining restaurant groups with mature HR programs.

Once you know your PTO balance, the next question is usually whether your paycheck is doing what it should. If you are working overtime hours, run them through the overtime calculator to confirm your employer is paying the right rate, especially if you are tipped or salaried but non-exempt.