What does biweekly mean? Every two weeks, and the 26-paycheck year

What biweekly means

Cambridge Dictionary lists two meanings of biweekly: happening every two weeks, and happening twice a week. The first is the one that matters for pay. When an employer says you are paid biweekly, it means one paycheck every two weeks.

The word is confusing because it can read both ways. If a notice or a schedule is not clear, look at the actual dates. Two paydays 14 days apart is every two weeks.

Why biweekly pay gives you 26 paychecks

A year has 52 weeks. Pay every two weeks and you get 52 / 2 = 26 paychecks. The IRS lists biweekly as 26 pay periods a year in its withholding tables, and semimonthly as 24.

Most months hold two of your paychecks. Twice a year, a month holds three. Those are the months that feel like a bonus, and the easy way to wreck a budget is to count them as normal income. Our guide to three-paycheck months shows how to use them.

Biweekly vs twice a month

Biweekly is every 14 days. Twice a month is a different schedule, usually called semimonthly, with set dates like the 1st and the 16th. Semimonthly pays 24 times a year. If your salary is the same, each biweekly check is smaller than each semimonthly check, because the year is split into more pieces.

For a couple, this matters when one of you is paid biweekly and the other twice a month. Rent is due on one date a month, so the paychecks need to be lined up to it. Lining up a bill date near a payday helps.

A worked example: $65,000 a year, biweekly

• Gross pay per paycheck: $65,000 / 26 = $2,500.
• Take-home per paycheck, single, before state tax: about $2,093 (from our paycheck calculator).
• Take-home over a year: $2,093 x 26 = $54,418.
• A normal month's take-home on average: $54,418 / 12 = about $4,535.
• Two paychecks in a typical month: $2,093 x 2 = $4,186.
• In a three-paycheck month: $2,093 x 3 = $6,279, which is $2,093 more than usual.