Typically, there are 52 weeks in a calendar year. That means employers that pay their workforces on a biweekly basis will have a total of 26 pay days in a given year — except, of course, for years in which there is a 27th pay day.
That idea may seem confounding to HR professionals, those stressed out by mathematics or those who happen to fit into both groups. But it’s a matter of simple calculation that 26 pay days, multiplied by 14 workdays per biweekly pay period, equals 364. By definition, a schedule of 26 pay days in a year leaves out one day of a 365-day year, or two days of a 366-day leap year.
Normally, employers don’t notice the discrepancy, according to Robert Pritchard, shareholder at Littler Mendelson. But those extra days accumulate, and given enough time — generally every 11 to 12 years, Pritchard wrote in a recent analysis — employers will find themselves in a calendar year where 14 or more days follow the 26th pay day.
This scenario makes a 27th pay day necessary, and employers should be prepared well in advance to deal with the budgetary implications, Pritchard told HR Dive.
“Paying biweekly is perfectly lawful,” he said. “But the critical point is that the employer simply needs to be aware that every 11 or 12 years, they will be faced with this issue if they choose to pay biweekly. And they need to plan for it.”
Get the math right
For 2026, employers whose first pay day occurs on Jan. 2 will face the 27th pay period issue. Proper planning means deciding how much employees will be paid over the course of the year’s schedule in advance, Pritchard said. There are few ways to make the math work.
One method is to divide the affected employee’s salary by the number of the days in the year, then multiply this daily amount by 14 — the number of days in the biweekly pay cycle.
Option two is to maintain the pay cycle as-is but to acknowledge the fact that an extra pay out will occur at the end of the year and budget accordingly. If an employer knows that this is the case, it may decide to consider this when budgeting for annual bonuses, incentive pay or other perks. The extra paycheck may mean fewer such incentives in the affected year.
3 ways to approach a year with 27 biweekly pay cycles
| Option 1: Divide salary by total days in the year | Option 2: Maintain 26-week pay cycle and pay an additional 27th check at the end of the year | Option 3: Divide salary by 27 |
|---|---|---|
| X=14×(70,000/365) | X=70,000/26 | X=70,000/27 |
NOTE: The formulas above assume a $70,000 annual salary and a 365-day calendar year, where X equals the biweekly amount to be paid to the employee.
Option three involves dividing the employee’s salary by 27. This results in a lower biweekly paycheck than the employee would have received in a typical year with 26 pay cycles, Pritchard noted, but employers considering this change may choose to time it to align with the first pay period in which the employee receives a pay increase, if applicable. The employer would then revert to a divide-by-26 approach for the following year.
Mind the FLSA and state laws
Each option comes with caveats. Under options one and three, the employee will receive a lower biweekly paycheck than they would otherwise receive in a 26-week schedule.
Should the employee’s check fall below a certain threshold, that may put the employer’s plan at odds with either the Fair Labor Standards Act or state or local wage-and-hour laws, which require salaried employees to be paid a certain amount on a regular basis in order to retain their exempt status, Pritchard said.
Under the FLSA, for instance, employees generally must be paid at least $684 per week in order to qualify for the law’s overtime exemption for qualified executive, administrative or professional employees.
Employers must ensure that their approach to dealing with the additional pay period does not result in a salaried employee losing applicable exemptions, Pritchard said. If a divide-by-27 approach would result in the employee not earning enough to meet the threshold, “that just might mean that the employer has no choice but to continue to pay the higher biweekly salary amount even though that means in 2026, the employee will receive more.”
The cost of issuing a 27th paycheck can be significant — representing about a 4% increase in payroll per employee spread across the total number of workers, Pritchard added. Preparation to absorb any additional costs is key, and employers should adjust their salary budgets and accounting practices accordingly, he said.
Employers also are required to adhere to their own commitments regarding incentive pay, Pritchard continued, so if an employee is subject to an incentive plan for 2026, the employer must comply with that plan.
“Certainly, the employer might be in a position to change the plan prospectively subject to all the requirements of state law, but if there is an existing commitment to pay an incentive amount, that amount needs to be paid free and clear according to the terms of the plan, regardless of this 27th pay day issue,” Pritchard said.
Communicate changes to employees well in advance
Once a decision is made, employers should disclose that decision to the workforce, Pritchard said. Sometimes no communication is necessary, such as when the employer decides to maintain the 26-week pay schedule with no changes aside from the additional 27th paycheck at the end of the year.
Under the other two approaches, however, the employer must provide notice about the effect that the change will have on employees’ biweekly pay.
State laws vary widely on when employers must disclose reductions that result from payroll adjustments. In Missouri, for instance, employers must provide 30 days’ notice of a reduction in pay. But for most jurisdictions, it’s sufficient for employers to provide notice of one full pay period in advance of the work being performed, Pritchard said.
Benefits program contributions also are at issue. If the employer takes a deduction from employees enrolled in its healthcare plan, for example, it must ensure that the appropriate amount is taken from the employee’s paycheck throughout the course of the year.
This could take the form of only deducting the employee’s contributions from their first two paychecks of each month, or only from the first 26 paychecks, leaving the 27th with no deductions. This ensures the employee is not overpaying for applicable benefits, Pritchard said.
