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Biweekly payday calendar
Enter your last payday and how often you are paid. Get your next payday and how many days away it is, every payday for the next year, a flag when your year has 27 biweekly (or 53 weekly) paychecks, and an .ics file that drops all of them into your phone's calendar.
How it works — counting forward from one payday
A pay schedule is fully determined by one payday and a frequency, so that is all the calendar asks for. Suppose your last payday was Friday, January 2, 2026 and you are paid every two weeks. The next three are Friday, January 16, 2026, then January 30, then February 13: fourteen days each, always the same weekday. Stepping through the whole of 2026 gives 26 paydays, and because 26 × 14 = 364 days is one short of a year, the whole pattern lands a day earlier each calendar year, two days after a leap year.
That drift is the whole story of the 27-pay-period year. Start from the same January 2 schedule and 2027 begins with a payday on January 1; fourteen-day steps then land the last one on December 31, so the year holds 27 paydays. The other Friday alignment, starting January 9, 2026, gets only 26 in 2027. The calendar checks your own anchor against the current year and shows the banner only when it applies. Weekly schedules do the same thing with 53 checks: Friday paydays get 53 in 2027.
Within a year the same drift creates the three-paycheck months budgeters wait for. On the January 2 alignment the months of 2026 with three biweekly paydays are January and July; on the other alignment they fall elsewhere. The table of the next 26 paydays makes them easy to spot, and the .ics carries the same 26 dates as all-day events so they appear on your phone alongside your shifts.
Semimonthly and monthly schedules are not fixed steps, so the calendar handles them by rule. Twice-monthly pay alternates the 15th and the last day of the month: from January 15 the next paydays are January 31, February 15 and February 28, 24 a year, always. Monthly pay keeps your day of the month and clamps when a month is too short: a schedule anchored on the 31st pays on February 28 and then March 31. When a scheduled date falls on a weekend or holiday, the actual deposit date is an employer rule, not a calendar one, so the dates shown are the scheduled ones.
Knowing when the check lands is half the question; the other half is what should be in it. Price a week with the overtime pay calculator, or if you work a rotation, lay it over the month in the rotating schedule generator and see which pay periods carry a 48-hour workweek. The schedule pages cover twelve common patterns.
FAQ
How many biweekly paychecks in 2026? 2027?
26 in 2026, on either Friday alignment. 2027 depends on which one you are on: a schedule whose paydays land on January 1 and December 31, 2027, has 27 paychecks that year, while the other Friday alignment has 26. Weekly schedules follow the same logic, with 53 paydays in 2027 for Fridays. Enter your own last payday above and the calendar counts your year exactly.
What is a 27-pay-period year?
A year is 365 or 366 days, which is 26 biweekly periods plus one or two days. Those leftover days accumulate, and roughly every 11 years (every 5 or 6 for weekly pay) an extra payday lands inside the calendar year: 27 checks instead of 26, or 53 instead of 52. Some salaried employers divide annual salary by 27 that year, so each check shrinks slightly; hourly workers simply receive one more check.
Biweekly vs semimonthly — which pays more?
Neither, over a year: 26 biweekly checks and 24 semimonthly checks add up to the same annual pay. Each biweekly check is smaller, annual pay divided by 26 rather than 24, about 7.7% less per check, but two months a year bring three checks. For hourly shift workers biweekly is simpler, because overtime is a weekly calculation and two whole workweeks fit inside each pay period.
When is payday if it falls on a holiday?
Most employers pay on the previous business day when a payday lands on a bank holiday or weekend, because ACH direct deposits do not settle on those days; a few pay the next business day. The FLSA sets no rule, but many states require wages on the regularly scheduled day, which is why paying early is the usual choice. This calendar shows the scheduled date; your handbook states the holiday rule.
Can I import paydays to my calendar?
Yes. Download .ics saves the next 26 paydays as all-day events titled Payday, one per date, and the file imports into Apple Calendar, Google Calendar and Outlook. If your last payday or frequency changes, delete the old events and download again. The ShiftCheck app shows the same countdown to your next check on the calendar where your shifts are painted, next to what the check should contain.
SHIFTCHECK FOR IPHONE
A payday countdown on the same calendar as your shifts.
Paint your shifts on a calendar — differentials, weekly overtime, holiday premiums, and time off computed automatically. Know your paycheck before it lands.
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