HoursBiweekly vs semi-monthly payroll: what's actually different
They sound identical — both pay roughly twice a month — but they behave differently in ways that matter for hourly crews, especially around overtime.
| Biweekly | Semi-monthly | |
|---|---|---|
| Schedule | Every 2 weeks, same weekday (e.g. every other Friday) | Fixed dates, usually the 1st & 15th or 15th & last day |
| Paychecks/year | 26 (two months a year have 3 paydays) | 24, perfectly even |
| Period length | Always exactly 14 days | 13–16 days depending on the month |
| Overtime math | Clean — every period holds exactly 2 whole workweeks | Messy — workweeks straddle period boundaries |
| Best for | Hourly crews | Salaried staff, matching monthly accounting |
The overtime wrinkle
Federal overtime is calculated per workweek — over 40 hours in a single week pays 1.5×, no matter how you cut paychecks. Biweekly periods contain exactly two complete workweeks, so the split is always clean. Semi-monthly periods start and end mid-week, so payroll has to decide which paycheck carries a straddling week's overtime — the common convention is that a workweek belongs to the period in which it ends. It's workable, but it's the #1 source of confusion (and mistakes) in small-shop payroll.
Two traps to avoid regardless of schedule:
- Never average weeks. A 47-hour week plus a 33-hour week on one biweekly check is 7 hours of overtime, not zero. Use the overtime calculator to see the dollars.
- Count worked hours, not shift hours. Unpaid lunches come out before comparing to 40 — the lunch break calculator handles that.
Which should a small crew pick?
Biweekly, almost always. Workers grasp "every other Friday," the overtime math is clean, and timesheets align with paychecks. Choose semi-monthly only if your bookkeeping demands calendar-month alignment and you're mostly paying salaries. Weekly is even simpler for workers but doubles your payroll runs; monthly is rare for hourly work in the U.S. (and not permitted for some worker types in several states).
Pick weekly, biweekly, semi-monthly, or monthly — timesheets, the weekly overtime split, and totals follow the rules above automatically, including the straddling-week convention for semi-monthly.
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