My last employer owed me 1,731 dollars for vacation I never took, and I only know the number because a coworker told me to check. The final pay stub listed it as one line among others, and I had nearly signed off without reading it. Developers switch jobs often enough that this math should be routine, yet almost nobody runs it before the exit interview.
So here it is: the three calculations that decide what your last paycheck contains, with worked numbers you can replicate in a spreadsheet in about ten minutes.
Your salary has a daily rate, and it decides the last check
Salaried employees are paid for the week, not the day. When you leave mid pay period, somebody in payroll has to convert your salary into a daily rate before the partial period can be paid. The standard conversion runs through the workweek: annual salary divided by 52, then by 5 working days. Divided by 260, in other words.
At 72,000 dollars a year, that is 276.92 dollars per day. Resign effective the 15th of the month, with semi-monthly pay, and payroll counts your workdays from the 1st to the 15th, weekends excluded, then multiplies. Eleven workdays at 276.92 comes to 3,046.15 dollars.
Here is the part that surprises people. A full semi-monthly check at that salary is 3,000 dollars, so the partial check is larger than a full one. The first half of that particular month held more workdays than the fixed halves of the year assume. Proration follows the calendar you actually worked, not the neat slices your salary was quoted in.
Knowing your daily rate before you resign means you can predict the last check to the dollar, which means you can spot the week the payroll system forgot. A colleague's first final-check draft was missing three days, and the correction took one email because he could show the arithmetic instead of a feeling.
Unused PTO is cash on the table
The 1,731 dollars from my opening line was a PTO payout, and the number is not arbitrary. Vacation accrues as you work. With a 120-hour annual allowance and monthly accrual, leaving after 8 full months gives you 120 divided by 12, times 8, which is 80 hours accrued. Take 30 of them during the year and 50 hours remain.
Then the balance converts to cash. For salaried staff the hourly equivalent is annual salary divided by 2,080, the standard 40 hours times 52 weeks. At 72,000 dollars that is 34.62 an hour, and 50 hours pays 1,731 dollars. The whole calculation is three divisions and a subtraction.
One warning before you bank on it: whether that payout arrives at all depends on your state. There is no federal requirement to pay out unused vacation. California, Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts and a handful of other states treat accrued PTO as wages that must be paid. Elsewhere, a use-it-or-lose-it policy in the handbook can legally zero out your balance on your last day. Know which group your state is in before you choose between burning your remaining days in the notice period and cashing them out.
When the money has to show up
The final check also has a legal deadline, and the deadlines vary more than most people expect. In California, with at least 72 hours of notice, it is due on your last day, and without notice within 72 hours after it. Miss it and the employer owes waiting-time penalties that accrue at a full day of wages per day, capped at 30 days. Oregon is nearly as strict. Most states, including Texas, simply require payment by the next regular payday, which can leave you waiting two weeks.
Hourly readers get one extra line of protection: overtime earned in the prior period that had not yet been paid must ride on the final check, not the one after it.
Run the numbers before the exit interview
Exit weeks are rushed. You are handing over repos, writing docs nobody will read, and sitting through goodbyes. The one hour you spend on this math beforehand is the difference between signing a correct final check and chasing payroll from your new job.
All three calculations are pro rata at heart: a salary sliced into days, an allowance sliced into months, a balance converted at an hourly rate. If you want to check your own figures without building the spreadsheet, the free pro rata calculator does the divisions, and the prorated final paycheck guide covers the state deadlines and the full worked examples, including what else belongs on the check besides salary.
Your last paycheck is the one document at a job you will never get corrected by asking nicely in a standup. Read it before you sign, and make sure the arithmetic was on your side.
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