Billable hours per year

Worked example

52 weeks x 5 days = 260 days. Take off 15 vacation, 10 holiday and 5 sick days for 230 working days, or 1,840 hours at 8 hours a day. If 70% of that is billable, you have 1,288 billable hours, which is 24.77 a week or 161 eight-hour days. At $75 an hour that is $96,600 of revenue.

How it works

The usual mistake is pricing as if every working hour is billable. Sales, invoicing, email, learning and gaps between projects all take time, so only a share of working hours can be charged. That share is your own number: track a few weeks before trusting a figure. 70% is only a starting guess, not a published benchmark.

Feed the billable hours into the hourly rate calculator to get the rate that hits an income target.

Sources and basis (checked 2026-10-08): arithmetic on the numbers you enter. No published rates, tax rules or benchmarks are built in; any figure described as a rule of thumb is labelled as one. This is a planning estimate, not financial, tax or legal advice.

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FAQ

How many billable hours are there in a year?

It depends on your own days off and admin load. With 230 working days, 8-hour days and 70% billable the answer is 1,288 hours.

What share of my time should be billable?

There is no single correct figure. Track your own time for several weeks. 70% is a planning placeholder in this tool, not a published standard.

Do I count public holidays?

Count the ones you do not work. If you choose to work a holiday, leave it out of the holidays field.

How do I use this to set my rate?

Divide the income you need (after costs and tax) by the billable hours. The hourly rate calculator on this site does that for you.