Overtime Pay Calculator — Tennessee (2026)
Overtime in Tennessee 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 state-free taxation in 2026. Tennessee does not levy a personal state income tax, so the only mandatory withholding on your earnings is federal income tax plus FICA (Social Security and Medicare).
Tennessee Overtime Pay Calculator
Your base pay per hour.
Hours beyond 40 in the workweek.
Overtime rules that apply in Tennessee
Tennessee 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 music workers around Nashville.
Is overtime taxed more in Tennessee?
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.
Since Tennessee has no income tax, overtime keeps a larger share than in most states — only federal tax and FICA apply.
Exempt vs non-exempt in Tennessee
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 Tennessee.
Cost of living in Tennessee sits 9% below the national average (index 91), median household income is $67,631, and a one-bedroom apartment in Nashville rents for roughly $1,700 a month.
Local and payroll taxes Tennessee adds on top
Tennessee adds no state-mandated employee payroll deduction beyond FICA, so nothing extra is taken from your gross pay at the state level.
Tennessee has no income tax. State sales tax is 7% (up to 9.75% with local) — one of the highest combined rates in the US.
Overtime hours carry exactly the same local withholding as regular Tennessee 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 Tennessee
Tennessee has no income-tax reciprocity agreements, so if you live here and work across a state line you generally file a nonresident return in the work state and claim a credit at home to avoid double taxation.
Remote and hybrid work complicates this further: most states tax income where the work is physically performed, so a Nashville resident spending part of the year at a client site in Kentucky may owe a nonresident return there. Keep a day-count log if you split time between states.
The rest of your Tennessee tax bill
Tennessee charges a 7% state sales tax, homeowners pay an average effective property tax of 0.66% of market value, and the minimum wage in force during 2026 is $7.25 an hour.
Local rates lift combined sales tax to about 9.55%, the highest average in the US.
Income tax is only one part of a state's take. Tennessee 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. With no state income tax, Social Security, pensions, 401(k) and IRA withdrawals are all free of state tax here.
Tennessee vs Kentucky on the same salary
On a $75,000 salary, a single filer keeps about $61,593 a year in Tennessee against roughly $58,723 in Kentucky — a difference of $2,869, or $239 a month.
Effective combined rates are 17.9% in Tennessee and 21.7% in Kentucky. Set that gap against living costs: index 91 here versus 91 there, with property tax at 0.66% and 0.83% respectively.