Work hours & pay
FTE calculator
Enter weekly hours and the full-time week at your organisation; get the full-time equivalent for a whole team or for one person.
Use your organisation's full-time week; 37.5, 38 or 40 hours are the most common.
How FTE is calculated
A full-time equivalent compares hours worked with one standard full-time job: FTE = hours worked per week ÷ full-time hours per week. For a team you add up everyone's weekly hours first and divide the total; for one person you divide their own hours. A result of 1.0 is one full-time job, 0.5 is half of one.
Example: five part-time staff work 120 hours a week between them. With a 40-hour standard week that is 120 ÷ 40 = 3.0 FTE, so the five people do the work of three full-timers, an average of 0.6 FTE or 24 hours each. One person working 24 hours on their own is also 0.6 FTE, or 60% of full time.
| Hours per week | FTE at 40 h | FTE at 37.5 h |
|---|---|---|
| 10 | 0.25 | 0.27 |
| 16 | 0.40 | 0.43 |
| 20 | 0.50 | 0.53 |
| 24 | 0.60 | 0.64 |
| 30 | 0.75 | 0.80 |
| 32 | 0.80 | 0.85 |
The same hours give a higher FTE when the full-time week is shorter, which is why FTE figures from two organisations are only comparable if they use the same standard.
Using FTE correctly
FTE is the right unit for budgets, staffing plans and workload: a manager asking for 0.5 FTE is asking for about 20 hours of capacity a week, whether one person or two provide it. Headcount answers a different question, how many people need desks, training and licences. Reporting both avoids confusion.
Use contracted hours for planning and actual hours for analysing workload, and decide how to treat overtime and leave. Many HR systems count paid leave as worked time for FTE, so a person on holiday stays at 1.0. Pay is usually prorated by FTE, so a 0.6 FTE role on a $50,000 full-time salary pays $30,000.
Legal definitions can differ from the HR one. Under the US Affordable Care Act, full time means 30 hours a week or 130 hours a month, and for the employer size test part-time hours in a month are divided by 120, with no more than 120 hours counted per person. If you are checking a legal threshold, use that rule rather than your internal standard week.
Frequently asked questions
How do you calculate FTE from hours?
Divide the hours worked per week by the hours of a full-time week. 30 hours in an organisation with a 40-hour week is 0.75 FTE; for a team, add up everyone's hours first.
Is 0.8 FTE full time?
No, it is 80% of full time, usually four days a week. With a 40-hour standard it is 32 hours, and pay and leave are normally prorated to 80%.
What is the difference between FTE and headcount?
Headcount is the number of people; FTE is the amount of work time they provide. Four people on 20 hours each are a headcount of 4 but only 2.0 FTE with a 40-hour week.