Overtime Calculator South Africa

How overtime is calculated in South Africa

Overtime pay in South Africa is governed by Section 10 of the Basic Conditions of Employment Act (BCEA). The law sets minimum rates that employers must pay for hours worked beyond the ordinary working week, and separate rules for work on Sundays (Section 16) and public holidays (Section 18).

The BCEA's overtime, Sunday and working-time rules apply to employees earning up to R269,600.90 per year (R22,466.74 per month), effective 1 May 2026. If you are paid the national minimum wage, the minimum wage calculator works out a full month's pay for your hours, with overtime at 1.5× included. Domestic workers' overtime follows Sectoral Determination 7, with a 15-hour weekly cap; the domestic worker pay calculator prices it.

The BCEA overtime rates

Three things this calculator doesn't compute. If Sunday is one of your normal working days, each Sunday hour is paid at 1.5× in total; your salary already covers 1×, so the extra owed is half your hourly rate per Sunday hour (R38.46 an hour on R15,000 a month). Short Sunday shifts have a floor: if the Sunday rate for the hours worked (2×, or 1.5× when Sunday is a normal working day) comes to less than your ordinary daily wage, you're owed the daily wage (Section 16(2)). Public holiday pay is based on your daily wage rather than an hourly multiple, and it differs depending on whether the holiday falls on a day you normally work. The public holiday pay guide works through both cases.

Overtime on a Saturday

Saturday overtime is paid at 1.5× your normal hourly rate under BCEA Section 10, the same as weekday overtime. There is no separate Saturday premium in the Act. If you work Monday to Friday on a 45-hour week, every Saturday hour is overtime. If Saturday is one of your normal working days, your Saturday hours are ordinary time until you pass 45 hours for the week, or 8 hours for the day on a 6-day week (9 on a 5-day week).

Example: on R15,000 a month and a 45-hour Monday-to-Friday week, 4 hours on a Saturday at R115.38 an hour pays R461.54 (worked from the unrounded rate). Enter Saturday overtime in the weekday/Saturday box above, never the Sunday box, or the calculator will pay it at 2×.

Step-by-step manual calculation example

An employee earns R15,000 gross per month, works a standard 45-hour week and in a given month works 6 hours of weekday overtime and 4 hours on a Sunday they don't normally work.

Step 1: calculate the normal hourly rate

Step 2: calculate weekday overtime pay

Step 3: calculate Sunday pay

Step 4: total overtime pay

The rates are shown to three decimals because the calculator works from the unrounded hourly rate; multiplying two-decimal rates instead can be a few cents out. This overtime pay is taxed as ordinary income via PAYE, not at any special rate.

BCEA overtime limits you need to know

The BCEA does not just set the rate; it also caps how much overtime you can work. These limits protect employees from excessive working hours:

• Maximum overtime: 10 hours per week (Section 10(1)(b)). There is no separate daily overtime cap; the original 1997 Act's 3-hour-a-day limit was removed by the 2002 amendment, leaving the weekly figure as the only overtime-specific cap
• Maximum daily total: 12 hours in any one day, normal and overtime hours combined (Section 10(1A)). This, not an overtime-specific cap, is what limits a long single day
• Overtime by agreement only: an employer cannot unilaterally require overtime, except for urgent work under Section 6(2) (see below); it must be agreed between employer and employee (Section 10(1)(a)). The Act does not require the agreement to be in writing, though most contracts carry a clause
• Start-of-employment clauses lapse: an overtime clause agreed when you start, or in your first three months of employment, lapses after one year unless it is renewed (Section 10(5))
• Collective agreement exception: the weekly cap can rise to 15 hours (Section 10(6)), but only for up to 2 months in any 12-month period. That is a limited exception, not the default
• 4-month averaging: a collective agreement can average ordinary hours and overtime over a period of up to 4 months (Section 12)

Our work hours calculator checks a full schedule against the BCEA's ordinary and maximum daily hours.

Compressed working weeks: an exception worth knowing about

BCEA Section 11 lets an employer and employee agree in writing to a compressed working week: up to 12 hours in a day, including meal breaks, without those extra hours counting as overtime at all. The trade-off is that the employee works fewer days, and three conditions still apply: no more than 45 ordinary hours in the week, no more than 10 hours of overtime (hours past 45 in the week), and no more than 5 days worked in that week. This is genuinely different from ordinary overtime; the hours inside a valid compressed-week agreement are paid at your normal rate, not 1.5×, because they were never overtime to begin with. In practice it is most common in shift-based industries (manufacturing, security, healthcare) where a 4-day, 11.25-hour-day pattern replaces a standard 5-day week.

Time off in lieu of overtime pay (TOIL)

An employer and employee can agree that overtime is paid partly or wholly in paid time off instead of money, commonly called TOIL (time off in lieu). BCEA Section 10(3) allows two arrangements for weekday and Saturday overtime:

• at least 90 minutes of paid time off for each overtime hour, instead of overtime pay, or
• your ordinary wage for each overtime hour plus at least 30 minutes of paid time off

For Sunday work, Section 16(3) lets an agreement give you paid time off for Sunday pay you are owed but were not paid: the time off must be worth the shortfall. If your employer pays none of the Sunday pay, each Sunday hour at 2× is worth 2 hours of paid time off. The time off must be granted within one month, or within up to 12 months if a written agreement allows it (Section 10(4)). The arrangement must be agreed, never imposed by the employer.

The BCEA earnings threshold: does overtime apply to you?

The BCEA earnings threshold was updated to R269,600.90 per year (R22,466.74 per month) with effect from 1 May 2026. Employees earning at or under this threshold are covered by the BCEA's overtime, Sunday and working-time rules, unless they are senior managers, sales staff who travel to customers and set their own hours, or work under 24 hours a month for the employer (Section 6(1)). Employees earning above this threshold have their overtime terms governed by their individual employment contracts.

If you earn above the threshold but your contract states that overtime is payable at BCEA rates, that contract term is valid and your employer is bound by it. If your contract is silent on overtime, your employer is not legally required under the BCEA to pay you overtime at 1.5× or 2× rates. Negotiating these terms before signing your contract is critical for higher-earning employees.

Can your employer force you to work overtime?

No. Overtime must be agreed to, either in your employment contract or at the time it's requested (Section 10(1)(a)), and the Act does not require that agreement to be in writing. Without an agreement, an instruction to work overtime is unlawful, so refusing it is not insubordination. The one exception is urgent work the employer could not reasonably have planned for and that cannot wait for ordinary hours (Section 6(2)). In AMCU obo Mkhonto v CCMA [2023] ZALCJHB 23, four employees dismissed for refusing two hours of overtime were reinstated with full back pay. Three had no current overtime agreement at all: two of them did have an overtime clause in their contracts, but it had been agreed when they started and had lapsed after one year under Section 10(5). The fourth had agreed, and was reinstated because dismissal for a first refusal that is not wilful or malicious is too harsh; a warning should come first.

That said, once agreed to, whether via a current clause in your contract or a one-off request you accept, overtime becomes enforceable like any other term of employment, and, if you earn at or under the earnings threshold and are not in a Section 6(1) group, the BCEA's weekly cap still applies, whatever your contract says.

Does overtime pay affect your UIF contributions?

Yes. Overtime pay counts as remuneration for UIF purposes, so it forms part of the amount your 1% employee contribution, and your employer's matching 1%, is calculated on. This only matters up to the UIF earnings ceiling of R17,712 per month: if your total remuneration for the month, overtime included, pushes you over that cap, UIF is still deducted only on the first R17,712, not on the full amount. Use our UIF calculator to work out your monthly contribution and your potential benefit payout if you're ever between jobs.

Frequently Asked Questions