Semi-Monthly payroll calendars
Employees are paid twice a month on fixed calendar dates — typically the 15th and last day of the month — producing exactly 24 pay periods per year. Favored by salaried-only employers because each paycheck represents a clean fraction of annual salary.
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Browse all semi-monthly calendars by state
Each cell links to a complete schedule with start/end dates, pay dates, and federal holiday adjustment notes.
How semi-monthly payroll works in practice
Semi-monthly payroll splits each calendar month into two pay periods — typically the 1st through the 15th and the 16th through the last day — with pay dates anchored to the period end. The cadence produces exactly 24 paychecks a year, which makes it the easiest frequency to budget against and the easiest to explain in an offer letter: an annual salary divides into 24 equal paychecks, with no surprise extra-paycheck years and no leap-year drift.
The trade-off is overtime. Because pay periods don't align to whole weeks, calculating Fair Labor Standards Act overtime correctly under semi-monthly payroll requires tracking a separate seven-day workweek alongside the pay period. For salary-only workforces (most software startups, professional services, agencies), that is a non-issue. For mixed hourly-and-salaried teams, biweekly is usually a better fit.
Several states impose statutory minimums on semi-monthly schedules. California, for example, requires that wages earned 1-15 be paid by the 26th of the same month and wages earned 16-end be paid by the 10th of the following month (Labor Code §204). Texas Labor Code §61.011 requires that semi-monthly pay dates be "as nearly equally spaced as possible" and that wages be paid no more than 15 days after the period ends. The state pages on this site flag the relevant statute for each jurisdiction.