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The Global Insight

How many times do you get paid with semi-monthly?

Author

Isabella Ramos

Published Jan 21, 2026

Employees who are paid semimonthly always receive two paychecks per month. Companies that run payroll with a biweekly frequency dole out a total of 26 paychecks per year. Companies that use semimonthly pay give employees 24 paychecks per year.

What is a semi-monthly pay cycle?

With a semi-monthly pay schedule, your company issues your paycheck twice a month, every month. You’ll receive a total of 24 paychecks a year.

Is semi-monthly twice a month?

Just as a semicircle cuts a circle in half, so too does the prefix semi- semantically cut what it is affixed to in half: semiweekly means unambiguously two times per week; semimonthly means two times per month; semiannual means two times per year.

Do you get paid more semi-monthly?

Which is better biweekly or semi-monthly pay?

A semimonthly payroll is paid twice a month, usually on the 15th and last days of the month. A biweekly payroll is paid every other week, usually on a Friday. From an efficiency perspective, the semimonthly payroll is preferable, since there are two fewer payrolls per year to prepare.

How do you calculate semi-monthly pay per hour?

Divide the employee’s semi-monthly pay by the number of hours worked per semi-monthly pay period to find the employee’s semi-monthly pay period. Using the standard 86.667 hours worked per semi-monthly pay period, if the semi-monthly salary equals $1,700, divide $1,700 by 86.667 to find the hourly wage equals $19.52.

How does it work getting paid twice a month?

If you are on a semimonthly pay schedule, you will receive a paycheck twice each month. Typical semimonthly pay schedules are the 1st and the 15th, or the 15th and the last day of the month. With the semimonthly schedule, you receive 24 paychecks every year.

How often do you get a semimonthly paycheck?

With the semimonthly schedule, you receive 24 paychecks every year. Since months are not all of equal length, some paychecks will be larger or smaller than others. For example, your second paycheck in February would only cover 13 or 14 days. Most other paychecks cover a 15 or 16 day period.

How many hours are in a semi-monthly pay period?

Also, as you should know, there are 2,080 workdays in a calendar year (52 weeks multiplied by 40 hours). As a result of this, salaried employees are paid for 86.67 hours each semi-monthly pay period. You can calculate this by dividing the 2,080workdayss by the 24 semi-monthly payrolls.

Do you get paid biweekly or semi-annually?

If you are a salaried employee, whether you are paid semimonthly or biweekly does not affect your annual pay. You will receive the same amount every year regardless of the pay schedule. What differs is the amount in each paycheck and how often you receive that check.

How often do you get paid in a month?

If you get paid every two weeks, you will also see months where you will receive three paychecks instead of two. However, this will only occur if your payday falls on the first Friday of a month that has five Fridays in it. But, unfortunately, if your payday falls on the second Friday of those months, you will only receive the usual two paychecks.