Payroll
What is biweekly vs semimonthly?
Biweekly pays every two weeks, 26 times a year on a fixed weekday. Semimonthly pays twice a month, 24 times a year on fixed dates.
Biweekly keeps periods aligned to whole workweeks, which makes overtime straightforward, and produces two months a year with three paychecks.
Semimonthly gives finance tidy calendar periods, and each period holds a consistent share of monthly salary, but pay dates land on different weekdays and periods split workweeks in half. For hourly teams with overtime, that split is a recurring headache.
Example
A $52,000 salary is $2,000 per biweekly check across 26 periods, or $2,166.67 per semimonthly check across 24.
Handle this automatically
Kloqk is a free employee time clock for small business. It records the punches, applies your rules, and does this arithmetic for you.
Related terms
General information for US employers, not legal advice. Wage and hour rules change and vary by state, so confirm specifics with your state labor agency or counsel.