- Every period is derived from the annual figure, so the numbers on screen always reconcile back to the same salary.
- Biweekly is 26 cheques a year and semi-monthly is 24 — the same salary makes a bigger semi-monthly cheque.
- Hourly and daily rates depend on the schedule; unpaid weeks raise the hourly rate a salary implies.
- Net pay per period is the annual net split evenly — real cheques are smaller early in the year while CPP and EI are still being withheld.
How the salary converter works
Every period is derived from one annual figure. Whatever you enter is converted to a yearly amount first, then divided back down — so the hourly, weekly and biweekly numbers on screen always multiply back to the same salary, which is not true of a chain of conversions that rounds at each step.
Two of the periods are calendar-based rather than schedule-based. Biweekly pay means 26 cheques a year, because 52 weeks divides evenly into 26 fortnights. Semi-monthly means 24, because it is twice a month regardless of how the weeks fall. That is why the same salary produces a bigger semi-monthly cheque than a biweekly one, and why two people on identical salaries can see different amounts landing on the same day.
The hourly and daily figures depend on the schedule you set. The default is a 40-hour week over 52 paid weeks; drop the weeks if you are on a contract with unpaid time, and the hourly rate rises to match.
The math
Annual pay is the amount you enter multiplied by the number of those periods in a year: 52 weeks, 26 fortnights, 24 semi-monthly cheques, 12 months, or hours per week times paid weeks for an hourly rate. Every other period is that annual figure divided by its own count.
The net side runs the annual figure through the same tax engine as the income-tax calculators: federal tax on the federal brackets, provincial or territorial tax on your region’s brackets, the basic personal amount applied as a non-refundable credit at both levels, then CPP or QPP contributions and EI premiums up to their annual maximums, plus QPIP in Quebec.
One caveat about the net per-period figures: they are the annual net divided evenly. Real payroll withholds CPP and EI until you hit the annual maximum and then stops, so early-year cheques are smaller and late-year cheques larger than the even split shown here. The annual total is right; the month-to-month rhythm is smoother than reality.
Worked example
Take $36 an hour at 40 hours a week over 52 weeks. That is $74,880 a year, $6,240 a month, $3,120 semi-monthly, $2,880 biweekly and $1,440 a week — note that the semi-monthly cheque is $240 larger than the biweekly one purely because there are two fewer of them.
Drop to 48 paid weeks — four unpaid — and the same hourly rate becomes $69,120 a year, a $5,760 difference. On the net side, the tax saved on that lost income only returns about a third of it, which is why unpaid weeks cost more than they look like they should when you are pricing contract work against a salaried offer.
Key terms
- Biweekly
- Paid every two weeks — 26 cheques a year. Two months a year contain three of them, which is where the “extra” cheque comes from.
- Semi-monthly
- Paid twice a month — 24 cheques a year, usually mid-month and month-end. Larger than a biweekly cheque on the same salary.
- Gross pay
- What you earn before anything is withheld. The figure quoted in an offer letter and the one every conversion here starts from.
- Net pay
- What lands in your account after income tax, CPP or QPP, and EI. The number worth comparing between two offers.