Benefit Experts
Free employer calculator

Full-Time Equivalent Calculator for ACA Planning

Estimate one month of full-time and full-time-equivalent employees before completing the required prior-year review.

Estimate one month of your ACA workforce count

Enter the full-time count and the combined hours for employees who were not full-time that month.

Generally employees averaging at least 30 hours a week or 130 hours in the month.
Enter the number of non-full-time employees included in the hours total.
First limit each non-full-time employee to 120 hours, then add those amounts. Example: 125 and 60 hours become 120 + 60 = 180. Exclude employees counted as full-time above.

How the rule works

A monthly estimate is only the first step

For ACA employer shared-responsibility purposes, an employee is generally full-time for a month at an average of at least 30 hours of service a week or 130 hours in the month. For the remaining employees, combine hours of service, cap each person at 120 hours, and divide by 120.

Applicable large employer status generally depends on the average of the 12 monthly workforce counts from the preceding calendar year. Related employers may need to be aggregated. Review seasonal-worker and other special rules before relying on the result.

FTE calculator questions

Does one month at 50 FTEs make us an applicable large employer?

Not by itself. The general test uses the average of the 12 monthly counts from the preceding calendar year, subject to aggregation and special rules.

Do part-time employees have to be offered coverage?

Their hours can affect whether the employer is an applicable large employer. That does not by itself mean each part-time employee must receive an offer to avoid an employer shared-responsibility payment.

Where can I verify the calculation rules?

Need help reading the result?

Benefit Experts helps Washington employers connect workforce counts, coverage strategy and benefits administration.