How Many Working Hours in a Year: 2026 Overview
Generally speaking, there are 2,080 working hours each year.
This figure comes from a 40-hour work week, or working 8-hour days across 5 days each week.
To get this number, you can apply the following formula:
- 40 (number of hours in a workweek) X 52 (number of weeks in the year) = 2,080.
However, the true number of yearly working hours is unique to each individual, depending on their work patterns and whether they have any paid time off (PTO) or holidays.
Working Hours in a Year Based on Different Workweeks
While a 40-hour workweek is the standard workweek for US citizens, many work over or under this number. In this case, you adjust the above formula to get an accurate amount.
Note: The following figures do not factor in any PTO for holidays or non-paid time off.
Number of Working Hours in a Year for a Full-Time Employee
The definition of “full-time” is a bit of a hard thing to pin down because the number of hours differs, depending on what you require the information for. For example:
- The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) does not define full-time. It only cares about overtime, which is any hours worked over 40 in a single workweek.
- The Affordable Care Act defines full-time as hours worked over 30 in a single workweek.
- The Bureau of Labor Statistics defines full-time as 35+ hours worked per week
Because of this, let’s assume that anyone working over 30 hours a week is considered full-time. Here is the number of annual working hours according to different work patterns:
Number of Working Hours in a Year for a Part-Time Employee
Like full-time employees, no set number of hours defines an individual as part-time. But for this table, let’s assume it’s anyone working under 30 hours per week:
How Many Non-Work Hours Are There in 2026?
Now you know how much time you will spend working in 2026, how about the time spent outside of work
To understand this, we need to know how many hours there are in an entire year:
- 24 (hours per day) X 365 (number of days in a year) = 8,760
All we do now is subtract the number of working hours from the total above. We’ll base this example on a 40-hour work week:
- 8,760 (hours in 2026) - 2,080 (working hours in 2026) = 6,680
And (just for fun!), let’s figure out how many of those hours you’ll spend awake. A night’s sleep is roughly 8 hours, so:
- 8 (hours of sleep per night) X 365 (days in a year) = 2,920
For our final calculation, we need to subtract sleep hours and working hours:
- 8,760 (hours in 2026) - (2,080 working hours in 2026 + 2,920 hours asleep) = 3,760 non-working awake hours
Thankfully, anyone working a 40-hour workweek gets to spend more time outside of work than they do at work. This number can be useful to know when planning activities and rest periods.
Here are the non-working hours (including sleep time) for all the different workweeks:
How to Calculate PTO and Holiday Hours in 2026
Here’s where things get a little complicated, because this very much depends on each individual’s work contract and whether or not they get any PTO.
The US Department of Labor does not require employers to provide PTO for vacations, sick leave, or holidays. And while many states mandate PTO for sick and family leave, almost all do not mandate paid vacation time.
The good news is that 79% of private industry workers have access to paid vacation time, and the amount typically depends on how many years’ worth of service the employee has completed.
While the number of days differs between employers, this is generally what you can expect to receive if your employer provides PTO:
Then, there are the 11 federal public holidays, which may be paid in addition to standard PTO days (although an employer is not obliged to pay for any public holiday).
In 2026, the federal public holidays fall on the following dates:
- New Year’s Day: January 1 (Thursday)
- Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.: January 19 (Monday)
- Washington’s Birthday: February 16 (Monday)
- Memorial Day: May 25 (Monday)
- Juneteenth National Independence Day: June 19 (Friday)
- Independence Day: July 4 (Friday)
- Labor Day: September 7 (Monday)
- Columbus Day: October 12 (Monday)
- Veterans Day: November 11 (Wednesday)
- Thanksgiving Day: November 26 (Thursday)
- Christmas Day: December 25 (Friday)
How to calculate PTO and paid holidays across the year?
Let’s say you work an 8-hour day. You’d perform the following calculation:
- 8 x number of paid days off = total vacation in hours
Then, subtract this amount from your yearly working hours. So, for a 40-hour workweek with 10 days of paid vacation, it would look like this:
- 8 x 10 = 80
- 2,080 - 80 = 2,000 work hours per year
Should You Include Rest and Meal Breaks When Calculating Work Hours?
Calculating rest and meal breaks matters when you’re trying to understand how much you’ll be paid across a whole year.
For this, it’s important to understand the difference between compensable and non-compensable breaks:
- Rest breaks (of 20 minutes or less) are considered compensable. Therefore, you are paid for these.
- Meal breaks (of 30 minutes or more) are non-compensable, meaning they are not paid.
Since rest breaks are paid, it’s not necessary to include them in your calculations.
If you want to accurately calculate the number of non-compensable break hours, you need to do this:
- Number of work days per week X length of non-compensable break
So, if you work 5 days a week and have a 30-minute non-compensable break each day, the calculation would look like this:
- 5 x 30 = 2.5 hours
Now, apply that across the whole year:
- 2.5 hours x 52 (weeks in a year) = 130 hours
How to Calculate Work Hours in a Year if You Work Irregular Shifts
Unfortunately, irregular shifts are a common occurrence, particularly in the retail and hospitality industry, which makes it challenging to predict your wages for the year ahead.
Our best advice in this case is to use a real-time time tracker to record all of your hours.
Then, you can use the historical data from the year before to predict how many work hours you’re likely to complete in the following year.
While this won’t be entirely accurate (given that your shift length and frequency fluctuate), it will give you a ballpark figure to work with.
If you don’t have any historical data and want a quicker way to calculate work hours, track your time over a few weeks or a month. Then, take an average and extrapolate it across the year, adjusting for holidays and time off.
How Many Hours Are in a Work Year: 2026 Step-by-Step Calculation Guide
Just want quick answers? Follow this guide!
1. Work Out the Total Yearly Work Hours
Start by working out your weekly work hours. Use this calculation:
- Hours worked per day X number of working days = weekly total
Next, multiply your weekly total by 52. The figure you get is your yearly total for working hours.
2. Work out PTO and Paid Holidays
Take a look at your work contract to understand how much paid time off you receive each year. Then work this out as an hourly amount.
For example, if you work 8-hour days and you get 15 days of PTO per year, you would perform the following calculation:
- 15 (days of PTO) X 8 (work hours per day) = 120 hours
- Next, subtract the amount from your yearly working hours total.
Tip: Don’t forget to factor in any paid federal public holidays. These are often separate from your PTO allowance.
3. Calculate Average Unpaid Time Off Hours
Although you can never pre-empt how many unpaid days you will take off in any given year, you can work on past data to gain an average.
To work out an average:
- Add together the unpaid time off hours from previous years and divide by the number of years.
- Then, subtract this number from your yearly working hours total.
Tip: If you don’t have any past data, you can use the national average. Federal analysis has concluded that US workers take an average of 5 unpaid days of leave per year.
4. Factor in Non-Compensable Breaks
If you take unpaid breaks throughout the day, this is how you can work out the total for the whole year:
- Calculate weekly break time by multiplying the length of your unpaid break by the number of days you work each week.
- Convert to an annual figure by multiplying that weekly total by 52.
- Adjust for time off by multiplying the break length by the total number of days you don’t work (both paid and unpaid).
- Subtract this adjustment from the annual figure to arrive at your true yearly unpaid break total.
- Subtract the yearly unpaid break total from your yearly working hours.
What This Looks Like in Practice (Example)
Assumptions (typical full-time US worker):
- 8 hours per day
- 5 working days per week
- 30-minute unpaid break per day
- 15 days of PTO
- 10 paid federal holidays
- 5 unpaid days off per year (national average)
Calculate:
- Weekly hours: 8 hours × 5 days = 40 hours per week
- Yearly hours: 40 × 52 = 2,080 hours per year
- PTO: 15 days × 8 hours = 120 hours
- Paid holidays: 10 days × 8 hours = 80 hours
- Unpaid leave (average): 5 days × 8 hours = 40 hours
Unpaid break calculation:
- Weekly unpaid break time: 0.5 hours × 5 days = 2.5 hours per week
- Annual break total: 2.5 × 52 = 130 hours
- Days not worked (paid + unpaid): 15 PTO + 10 holidays + 5 unpaid days = 30 days
- Break time during days off: 30 days × 0.5 hours = 15 hours
- True yearly unpaid break total: 130 − 15 = 115 hours
Final calculation:
2,080 − 120 (PTO) − 80 (holidays) − 40 (unpaid leave) − 115 (unpaid breaks) = 1,725 true working hours per year.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the Average Hours Worked Per Week?
According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2025, the average number of hours worked per week within the private sector was 34.2.
Metal manufacturing and textile workers have a higher average of 41.3 hours per week, while private health and education workers average 32.7 hours per week.
How Many Work Hours in a Leap Year?
A leap year has 8,784 total hours instead of 8,760. For a standard weekly work schedule of 5 x 8-hour days, it may add 8 hours to the yearly total, but only if February 29 falls on a working day.
This would equate to 2,088 work hours in a leap year, instead of the 2,080 you’d get in a non-leap year.
How Many Work Hours in a Month?
The number of work hours in a month varies depending on the number of days the month has. To get a precise number, look at how many work days there are in a particular month and multiply that by the number of hours you work per day.
However, a solid average would be 40 (hours worked in a week) X 4.33 (weeks in a month) = 173 hours per month.
How Many Work Hours in a Quarter?
The number of work hours in a quarter depends on how many days each month has in total. However, a quarter is roughly 13 weeks, so to get a good overview, you can perform the following calculation:
40 (hours worked per week) X 13 (weeks) = 520 work hours per quarter.
Do 2,080 Working Hours Per Year Include Time Off?
No, the 2,080 figure does not include any time off paid or otherwise. The number is based on working 40 hours per week for 52 weeks of the year.
How Many Work Hours in a Year Minus Federal Public Holidays?
The US has 11 federal holidays. If you work 40 hours per week, your yearly total (without holidays) would be 2,080 hours. If you subtract 11 holiday days, the yearly total would be 1,992.
However, some states have additional holidays, so this total can fluctuate depending on where you live and what is outlined in your work contract.
How many hours in a year if you work 37.5 hours a week?
If you work 37.5 hours a week, you will work 1,950 hours across a whole year (37.5 X 52).
However, this figure excludes holidays and any time off. Therefore, depending on the time off policies in your contract, the actual number of hours is likely to be lower.
