A heavy overtime week grows your gross pay and, for that one check, your withholding too. Neither means overtime is taxed at a special rate; it just means one check is bigger than the withholding tables expect.
Estimates only.
Overtime pay is taxed at exactly the same rates as your regular wages. There is no separate "overtime tax." What throws people off is how payroll withholding tables work: they estimate your annual tax liability by assuming whatever you earned this period repeats for the rest of the year. A week with a lot of overtime produces a bigger check, and the withholding table treats that bigger check as if it were your new normal, pulling out a larger share than a typical week would. Come tax time, that extra withholding is not lost. It is reconciled against your actual annual income, usually showing up as a bigger refund or a smaller balance due.
Take the example the calculator above can run: 40 regular hours plus 5 overtime hours at $22 an hour, 1.5 multiplier. Regular pay is 40 times $22, or $880. Overtime pay is 5 times $33 (the time-and-a-half rate), or $165. Total gross for the week is $1,045. FICA comes out at the same 7.65 percent employee share it applies to every other dollar of wages: about $80 on this check. Federal income tax withholding on the check is calculated as if a $1,045 week repeated 52 times a year, which typically withholds a bit more per dollar than your actual annualized tax rate, since your average week is lower. None of this changes your real annual tax bill, only the timing of what gets withheld.
| Base hourly wage | Overtime rate (1.5x) | Gross for 5 OT hours |
|---|---|---|
| $15.00 | $22.50 | $112.50 |
| $18.00 | $27.00 | $135.00 |
| $20.00 | $30.00 | $150.00 |
| $25.00 | $37.50 | $187.50 |
Overtime wages count toward the Social Security wage base the same as regular wages: $184,500 for 2026 (SSA). If a heavy overtime stretch pushes your year-to-date wages past that figure, the 6.2 percent Social Security withholding stops for the rest of the year on everything you earn, overtime included, and your check rises by that share. Medicare's 1.45 percent keeps applying with no cap, plus an extra 0.9 percent once wages pass $200,000 for a single filer.
The 1.5 multiplier applies to your "regular rate," and the FLSA regular rate is not always just your hourly wage. Nondiscretionary bonuses and shift differentials, pay tied to meeting a set goal or working a particular shift, get folded into the regular rate before the multiplier applies, which raises the real overtime rate above a base-only estimate. Enter your true regular rate above if bonuses or differentials apply to your job.
Sources: U.S. Department of Labor, Overtime Pay, SSA contribution and benefit base.
Payroll withholding tables assume every check repeats all year, so a single large check gets withheld as if you earned that much every period. It looks like overtime is taxed at a special rate, but it is not; the extra withholding usually squares up as a larger refund or smaller balance due when you file.
It can push part of a check's annualized-equivalent income into a higher withholding bracket for that pay period, which is why the check feels lighter. Your actual annual tax bracket is based on total yearly income, not any single week, so one heavy week rarely changes your real marginal rate for the year.
Yes. Overtime wages are regular wages for FICA purposes. They count toward the annual Social Security wage base ($184,500 for 2026) exactly like base pay, and Medicare applies to all of it with no cap.
Usually not for a single occasional check. If overtime becomes a regular, predictable part of your pay, some workers add extra withholding on the W-4 to avoid a large one-time bill at filing, but the correct adjustment depends on your full tax picture.
Often, yes. The FLSA regular rate used to calculate overtime can include nondiscretionary bonuses and shift differentials, not just base pay, which raises the true overtime rate above a base-only estimate for workers who earn those extras.