How to Calculate Night Shift Pay Step by Step: Hours

Night shift pay in one line

Night shift pay is total hours times the hourly rate, plus night hours times the night differential. That is the whole method: multiply every hour you worked by your plain rate for the base pay, then multiply only the hours that fall inside the night window by the differential for the premium, and add the two together. The worked example through this guide is a full-time week with four night shifts: 40 total hours at $22.00 an hour, of which 32 are night hours paid a $3.50 differential, which earns $992.00. You can check every step below on the night-shift-pay-calculator page, which runs the same arithmetic on your own numbers.

Step 1: Count your total hours

Count every hour you worked in the week, day and night — 40 hours in the example, a full-time week. This is the number the plain rate applies to, so it must include the day hours as well as the night hours: a week of four 8-hour night shifts plus one 8-hour day shift is 40 hours, not 32, and the difference matters — at $22.00 an hour, 32 hours earn $704.00 of base pay while 40 hours earn $880.00, so leaving out the day shift understates the week by $176.00 before the premium is even added. Use the rota, not your memory, and count what you worked, including approved extra hours.

Step 2: Count your night hours

Count only the hours that fall inside your employer's night window — 32 hours in the example, four 8-hour night shifts. The night window is usually something like 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. or 11 p.m. to 7 a.m., and it comes from your contract or rota terms, so find it before you count: a shift that straddles the boundary counts only partly, and a 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. shift under an 11 p.m. start counts 7 night hours, not 8. On the example differential of $3.50, one miscounted night hour moves the week by $3.50, and a whole miscounted shift moves it by $28.00 — small beside the base pay, but exactly the kind of gap that makes a payslip look wrong. Night hours can never exceed total hours: if your count does, you have counted a day hour as a night hour somewhere.

Step 3: Find your plain hourly rate

Your plain hourly rate is your normal wage before any night uplift — $22.00 an hour in the example. This is the number that applies to all total hours, so it matters that you use the plain rate and not an already-uplifted night rate from an old payslip. If your payslip shows a night hourly figure of $25.50, that figure is already $22.00 plus the $3.50 differential, and using it as the plain rate would give a base pay of $1,020.00 on 40 hours — which double-counts the premium and overstates the week by $140.00. If you only know the uplifted figure, subtract the differential first: $25.50 minus $3.50 is $22.00, and that is the plain rate to start from.

Step 4: Find your night differential

The differential is the extra amount per night hour, and it comes from your contract, usually quoted in dollars per hour — $3.50 in the example. Some contracts quote it as a percentage instead, often 10% to 20% of the rate: convert it before you start by multiplying the percentage by your hourly rate, so a 15% differential on $22.00 is $3.30 an hour, and 32 night hours at $3.30 earn $105.60 of premium. Do not confuse the two forms — a $3.50 differential and a 15% differential are different numbers on the same rate, and mixing them up moves the example week by $6.40. If your contract pays different differentials on different nights, do not blend them into one average: run each night separately and add the premiums.

Step 5: Multiply, then add

Now do the arithmetic in order. First, total hours times the rate gives the base pay: 40 hours times $22.00 is $880.00, which is what the same week would pay with no nights at all. Then, night hours times the differential gives the premium: 32 hours times $3.50 is $112.00. Then add them: $880.00 plus $112.00 is $992.00. Doing it in this order keeps the two parts visible, which helps twice: it shows the premium separately, so you can see what the nights are worth, and it makes errors easy to spot, because the base pay is a figure you can check against a day-week payslip. If your base pay looks wrong, the total hours or the rate is wrong; if the base pay is right but the total looks wrong, the night hours or the differential is wrong.

Step 6: Check the result against your payslip

Compare the calculated night shift pay with the night line on your payslip, and treat any gap as a question, not a verdict. Small gaps usually come from rounding, from a shift split at the night-window boundary, or from a minimum shift length that rounds a short shift up. Large gaps usually come from one of three causes: night hours counted differently, a differential quoted as a percentage rather than dollars, or overtime stacking — where night hours that are also overtime hours pay the higher uplift only, or both uplifts stacked. This guide's method applies one differential only, so if your contract stacks the night differential on top of an overtime rate, apply the differential to the overtime rate for the overtime night hours. Keep the rota and the payslip together when you query a gap: a log of hours is what turns a disagreement into a correction.

Worked example, start to finish

A worker does 40 hours in a week, of which 32 fall at night, at $22.00 an hour with a $3.50 night differential. Total hours are 40. Night hours are 32. Base pay is 40 times $22.00, which is $880.00. Night premium is 32 times $3.50, which is $112.00. Total night shift pay is $880.00 plus $112.00, which is $992.00. The same worker on a week with no night hours would earn $880.00 with no premium at all, and on a week of 40 night hours would earn $1,020.00 with a $140.00 premium. Two multiplications, one addition, and the whole week is accounted for — which is why night shift pay disputes are almost always about the inputs, not the arithmetic.

Common mistakes to avoid

Applying the differential to every hour is the most expensive mistake: it turns a $992.00 week into $1,020.00 and makes a correct payslip look short. Using the uplifted night rate as the plain rate is the same mistake in disguise. Counting day hours as night hours inflates the total by $3.50 per hour at the example differential. Blending different nightly differentials into one average hides the night that is wrong. And forgetting the premium split — quoting only the $992.00 total — makes it impossible to tell whether a gap sits in the total hours, the night hours, the rate, or the differential. Keep the four inputs and the premium visible, and every night shift pay figure checks itself.