Salary to an effective hourly and daily rate.
Hourly rate
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Daily rate (8 hrs)
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After-tax hourly
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What an hour of your salary is really worth
A monthly salary hides the price of your time. Converting it to an hourly rate is the quickest way to judge a freelance gig against a job, to decide whether an extra project is worth the evenings, or to sense-check what a recruiter quotes for a contract role. The method is plain: divide annual pay by the hours you work in a year. This calculator assumes a 52 week year, multiplies that by the hours per week you enter, and gives you an hourly figure, a daily figure at eight hours, and an after-tax hourly rate run through the salaried income tax slabs.
The after-tax line is the one most people forget. Pakistan taxes salaried income on progressive slabs administered by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), so the rate you genuinely earn per hour is lower than the gross rate, and the gap grows as your salary climbs into higher bands. The slabs change with each Finance Act, so the after-tax figure reflects the rates this calculator currently applies and you should confirm the live position before quoting it.
Turning PKR 3 million into an hourly rate
Take a PKR 3 million annual salary at 40 hours a week. That is 2,080 working hours in the year. Gross hourly pay is PKR 3,000,000 divided by 2,080, which is about PKR 1,442 an hour, and a standard eight hour day works out near PKR 11,538. Now apply tax: income tax on PKR 3 million under the salaried slabs is PKR 300,000, leaving PKR 2.7 million after tax. Divide that by the same 2,080 hours and your after-tax hourly rate is about PKR 1,298. The difference, roughly PKR 144 an hour, is the slice the FBR slabs take from each hour you work.
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The chart sets the gross hourly rate beside the after-tax one so the tax wedge per hour is visible at a glance.
Why your hours assumption changes everything
The hourly figure is only as honest as the hours you feed it. The 40 hour default describes a tidy work week, but if you routinely put in 55 hours your true rate is far lower than the headline suggests, and the calculator will show that the moment you raise the hours field. This is the most useful thing the tool can teach a salaried person tempted by a higher-paying job that quietly expects ten extra hours a week: divide the new pay by the new hours and the premium can vanish. The same lens helps freelancers. If a client offers a fixed fee, convert it back to an hourly rate against the hours you expect to spend and compare it to your salaried baseline.
Where the simple division falls short
A common mistake is treating the 52 week figure as paid working time. In reality you take leave and public holidays, so your effective hourly rate for hours actually worked is a little higher than the simple division implies, because you are paid for days you do not work. The calculator uses the full 52 weeks deliberately for a clean, comparable number, but keep the nuance in mind when you benchmark against a contractor who only bills time on the job. Note too that this tool models income tax only; it does not deduct your provident fund or EOBI, and it assumes the salaried rate card.
This calculator suits salaried employees weighing a contract or freelance offer, anyone pricing a side project, and jobseekers translating a contract day rate back into salary terms. For the full deduction picture rather than just income tax, use the take-home salary calculator, and for a complete gross-to-net breakdown use the gross to net salary calculator.
How many working hours are in a year in Pakistan?
At a standard 40 hour week the simple arithmetic this calculator uses gives 2,080 hours, since it multiplies your weekly hours by 52. Adjusted for annual leave and public holidays the hours you actually work are fewer, often nearer 1,900, which is why a contractor billing only worked time can charge more per hour than the raw salary division suggests.
Should a freelancer charge their salaried hourly rate?
Usually no, it should be higher. A freelancer covers their own gaps between projects, unpaid leave, equipment, and income tax that an employer does not withhold for them, so the sustainable freelance rate sits well above the salaried hourly figure this tool produces. Use the after-tax hourly rate here as a floor, not a target.