Overtime Pay Calculator — Kentucky (2026)
Overtime in Kentucky starts with the federal FLSA floor: 1.5× your regular rate for every hour beyond 40 in a workweek. Some states add daily overtime or double-time rules on top. This calculator shows gross overtime pay and what survives federal, FICA and Kentucky taxation in 2026. Kentucky uses a flat personal income tax of 4.00% applied to taxable income after a state standard deduction of $3,270.
Kentucky Overtime Pay Calculator
Your base pay per hour.
Hours beyond 40 in the workweek.
Overtime rules that apply in Kentucky
Kentucky follows the federal weekly standard: overtime is owed after 40 hours in a workweek, with no general daily overtime requirement.
The "regular rate" is not just your base hourly wage — non-discretionary bonuses, shift differentials and commissions must be folded in before multiplying by 1.5, which raises the true overtime rate for many bourbon workers around Louisville.
Is overtime taxed more in Kentucky?
No — overtime is ordinary wages. It can feel over-taxed because per-period withholding tables annualize a big check as if every week looked like that, temporarily withholding at a higher rate that you recover at filing.
The Kentucky layer applies to overtime exactly as to base pay, at rates up to 4.00%.
Exempt vs non-exempt in Kentucky
Salaried does not mean exempt. To be exempt from overtime a worker must clear both a salary threshold and a duties test; misclassification is one of the most common wage claims filed in Kentucky.
Cost of living in Kentucky sits 9% below the national average (index 91), median household income is $60,183, and a one-bedroom apartment in Louisville rents for roughly $1,100 a month.
Local and payroll taxes Kentucky adds on top
Many Kentucky cities and counties levy an occupational license tax on wages, from about 0.5% to 2.5% in Louisville. That deduction sits outside the federal and state income tax lines, so build it into your own budget on top of the numbers above.
Most Kentucky cities and counties levy a local occupational license tax of 0.5%–2.5% (Louisville Metro: 2.2%).
Overtime hours carry exactly the same local withholding as regular Kentucky hours; the extra pay is taxed at your marginal rates, not at a special penalty rate, even though the deduction line looks bigger.
Working across a state line from Kentucky
Kentucky holds income-tax reciprocity agreements with Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin. If you commute between them, your wages are taxed only by your state of residence — file the exemption certificate with your employer so the wrong state is not withheld from every paycheck.
Remote and hybrid work complicates this further: most states tax income where the work is physically performed, so a Louisville resident spending part of the year at a client site in Tennessee may owe a nonresident return there. Keep a day-count log if you split time between states.
The rest of your Kentucky tax bill
Kentucky charges a 6% state sales tax, homeowners pay an average effective property tax of 0.83% of market value, and the minimum wage in force during 2026 is $7.25 an hour.
6% statewide with no local sales tax, though services are increasingly covered.
Income tax is only one part of a state's take. Kentucky recovers revenue through sales and property tax as well, which is why headline income tax rates alone are a poor guide to how far a salary really goes. Kentucky exempts Social Security and the first $31,110 of pension income per person.
Kentucky vs Tennessee on the same salary
On a $75,000 salary, a single filer keeps about $58,723 a year in Kentucky against roughly $61,593 in Tennessee — a difference of $2,869, or $239 a month.
Effective combined rates are 21.7% in Kentucky and 17.9% in Tennessee. Set that gap against living costs: index 91 here versus 91 there, with property tax at 0.83% and 0.66% respectively.
Kentucky income tax brackets 2026 (single filer)
| Taxable income | Rate |
|---|---|
| $0 and up | 4.00% |