How much is 5 hours a week: 260 hours, $1,885 to $9,831 a year

5 hours a week is 260 hours a year, or about 21.7 hours a month. Before tax, that pays $1,885 a year at the $7.25 federal minimum wage and $9,831 a year at the average US private-sector wage. If those 5 hours go to driving for a delivery app, the table below shows what is left after the car and the IRS take their share.

The numbers

Assumptions: $20 gross per logged-in hour (a round example rate, not a platform figure). 10 miles per hour at the IRS standard mileage rate of 76 cents (July to Dec 2026). Self-employment tax at the full 15.3% (IRS, used as an upper estimate) plus 10% federal income tax (the bottom 2026 bracket, IRS). Rounded to the cent.

The working is below, along with the version for jobs that don’t involve a car.

5 hours a week as time

The Bureau of Labor Statistics counts anyone who usually works fewer than 35 hours a week as part-time. It uses that line for statistics only, not as a legal definition. By that measure, 5 hours is part-time by a wide margin.

5 hours a week as pay, at real wage floors

Minimum wage depends on where you work. The rates below come from the Department of Labor’s state minimum wage table (updated July 1, 2026). The two averages come from the BLS jobs report for September 2026. All figures are before tax, and yearly figures are rounded to the nearest dollar.

Notes on the table:

1. Michigan’s rate rises to $15.00 on Jan 1, 2027. At 5 hours a week, that adds $6.35 a week.
2. Florida’s $15.00 rate (and $11.98 for tipped workers) began Sept 30, 2026 under a state constitutional amendment, according to a law-firm summary. The DOL table still shows $14.00 because it was updated before the change.
3. Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee have no state minimum wage law. Georgia and Wyoming set theirs at $5.15. Employers covered by the federal wage law (FLSA) still have to pay $7.25 in all of those states.
4. Oregon pays $16.80 in Portland and $14.55 in non-urban areas. Check the rate for your own city and county as well as your state.

For entry-level jobs that pay above these floors, see best paying part-time jobs with no experience.

Employee or contractor: which table applies to you

None of the minimum wages above apply to independent contractors. Under the DOL’s misclassification guidance, minimum wage and overtime protections exist only where there is an employment relationship. If an app treats you as a contractor, no wage floor protects those 5 hours. Your hourly rate is whatever the orders paid, divided by however long they took.

The rules are in flux. The DOL no longer applies its 2024 contractor rule in its investigations. On Feb 26, 2026 it proposed a replacement built on two core factors: who controls the work, and whether the worker has a real chance of profit or loss. Comments closed Apr 28, 2026, and no final rule had been issued as of mid-October 2026.

So there are two different “5 hours a week” numbers:

• Employee: hours × wage. Simple, with a legal floor.
• Contractor: (earnings − costs − self-employment tax − income tax) ÷ every hour worked, including the unpaid ones.

The opening table is the second kind. Here is how it was built.

Worked example: one 5-hour delivery week

Assumptions

1. 5 logged-in hours a week, including waiting between orders.
2. $20 gross per logged-in hour. This is an example rate, not a quote from any platform. Swap in the figure from your own earnings screen.
3. 10 miles per hour, including the drive out to where orders come in and the drive home.
4. Car cost at the IRS business rate of 76 cents a mile (July 1 to Dec 31, 2026). The rate was 72.5 cents from Jan 1 to June 30.
5. Self-employment tax at 15.3% of net earnings (12.4% Social Security plus 2.9% Medicare), used as a rough upper estimate.
6. Federal income tax at 10%, assuming the side income falls in the bottom bracket. State income tax is left out because it depends on your state.

The week

Gross:          5 hrs × $20.00           = $100.00
Miles:          5 hrs × 10 miles         = 50 miles
Car cost:       50 × $0.76               = $38.00
Net before tax: $100.00 − $38.00         = $62.00
SE tax:         $62.00 × 15.3%           = $9.49
Income tax:     $62.00 × 10%             = $6.20
Take-home:      $62.00 − $9.49 − $6.20   = $46.31
Per hour:       $46.31 ÷ 5               = $9.26

The year (52 of those weeks)

Gross:          $100.00 × 52             = $5,200.00
Car cost:       $38.00 × 52              = $1,976.00
Net before tax: $5,200.00 − $1,976.00    = $3,224.00
SE tax:         $3,224 × 15.3%           = $493.27
Income tax:     $3,224 × 10%             = $322.40
Take-home:                               = $2,408.33

The weekly figure × 52 comes to $2,408.12. The 21-cent gap is rounding. If you cost the first half of 2026 at 72.5 cents instead, the year’s car cost falls to $1,930.50, which is $45.50 less.

So $20 an hour gross becomes $9.26 an hour take-home, which is $2.01 above the federal minimum wage, with no legal floor under it.

If this is your only income, the result improves. $3,224 of net earnings is well under the 2026 standard deduction of $16,100 for a single filer, so federal income tax may be zero. Self-employment tax is a separate tax and still applies. Without the income tax line, take-home is $12.40 − $1.90 = $10.50 an hour.

For the same calculation on full-length shifts, see Is DoorDash worth it? Driver math after gas, wear and tax.

The tax part nobody mails you a form about

5 hours a week of contractor work can be taxable even if no tax form ever arrives. The IRS rules:

• $400. You must file Schedule SE and pay self-employment tax once your net self-employment earnings reach $400 for the year. At 5 hours a week, that is about $1.54 an hour of net earnings ($400 ÷ 260). The worked example clears it in about 7 weeks.
• $2,000. The 1099-NEC and 1099-MISC threshold for payments made after Dec 31, 2025. It used to be $600.
• $20,000 and more than 200 transactions. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act restored this 1099-K threshold. The planned $600 threshold no longer applies. 5 hours a week will almost never reach it.
• No form does not mean no tax. The IRS says all income must be reported, whether or not a 1099-K arrives.
• $1,000. You generally have to make quarterly estimated tax payments if you expect to owe $1,000 or more. The worked example comes to about $816 a year ($493.27 + $322.40), which is under that line. A higher hourly rate, or a day job that doesn’t withhold enough, can push you over it.

Half of self-employment tax (the part that matches what an employer would pay) is deductible when you work out adjusted gross income. That lowers the income tax line slightly, so the worked example overstates the total tax a little. This is general information, not tax advice. If the numbers are tight, a tax professional can run your actual return.

What changes the answer

The two inputs that matter most are the gross rate and the miles. Below is take-home per hour using the same tax assumptions as the worked example (15.3% plus 10%, so you keep 74.7% of net) and 76 cents a mile. Rounded to the cent.

How to read it:

• Miles cost more than they look. Every extra 5 miles per hour costs about $2.84 of take-home per hour ($3.80 × 0.747). At $15 gross and 15 miles per hour, the work pays less than $3 an hour.
• Unpaid time is already counted if you use logged-in hours. If your app reports earnings per “active” hour, convert it first: active rate × share of time that is active = logged-in rate. For example, $25 per active hour with orders 70% of the time (an assumption, so use your own share) is $17.50 per logged-in hour.
• Other costs are not in the table. Your phone plan, any insurance beyond your normal policy, and supplies such as insulated bags all lower every figure above.
• Short shifts carry fixed costs. The drive to a busy zone and back costs the same whether you stay one hour or five. Spread over fewer hours, it takes a bigger share of each one.

Compared with: minimum wage jobs and a no-car hustle

Same 5 hours, same 10% income tax assumption. Employees pay half of the 15.3% Social Security and Medicare rate (7.65%) through payroll, and the employer pays the other half. Contractors pay the full 15.3% themselves. We assume the employee jobs have no work costs.

Hourly figures are rounded to the cent. Yearly figures are calculated from unrounded hourly rates and rounded to the dollar.

A $15 employee job beats a $20 driving gig by about $3.09 an hour, because the gig pays for its own car and both halves of payroll tax. A contractor gig only comes out ahead when it uses few or no miles. For more hustles ranked the same way, see most effective side hustles, ranked by after-tax pay per hour.

If the person working is a teenager

Under the federal child labor rules for non-farm jobs, 5 hours a week is within the limits for 14- and 15-year-olds. They can work:

• Up to 3 hours on a school day
• Up to 18 hours in a school week
• Only between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. (9 p.m. from June 1 to Labor Day), and outside school hours

Children under 14 generally can’t work in FLSA-covered non-farm jobs. 16- and 17-year-olds have no hour limits in jobs not declared hazardous. States can add their own rules, so check yours.

What other side hustlers report

A June 2026 Self Financial survey of 1,001 adults found that 5 to 10 hours a week was the most common time spent on a side hustle (47.1%). Another 33.1% spent 11 to 20 hours, and 4.2% spent more than 30. Average side-hustle income was $553 a month, up from $443 in the 2025 survey.

$553 ÷ 21.7 hours = $25.48 an hour, but that figure flatters. The average includes people working 11 to 20 hours and more, so it is not a 5-hour rate. It is also gross, before costs and tax. Treat it as an upper reference point, not a target.

Red flags: high pay for “just a few hours”

The FTC’s job scam guidance says a promise of a lot of money for little work in a short time is almost certainly a scam. Other warning signs:

• You are asked to pay to get the job.
• You are asked to deposit a check and send part of the money on to someone else.
• The job is reshipping, mystery shopping, nanny or caregiver placement, or charges a placement fee.
• Task scams: simple, repetitive tasks such as liking videos or rating products, often in sets of 40. The FTC received about 20,000 reports of these in the first half of 2024 alone, up from zero in 2020. Job-scam losses topped $220 million over those six months.
• Social media starting points: in 2025, one in three people who lost money to a job or business-opportunity scam said it started on social media.

Compare any offer with the tables above. If a “few hours a week” role promises far more than the $37.81 BLS average and needs no skills, that gap is the warning. Report scams at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.

Sources

• DOL: state minimum wage laws
• DOL: employee or independent contractor
• BLS: Employment Situation, September 2026
• IRS: standard mileage rates
• IRS: self-employment tax
• IRS: understanding your Form 1099-K
• Self Financial: side hustle statistics
• FTC: job scams

Verdict in one number

$9.26 an hour. That is what 5 hours a week of $20-an-hour delivery driving nets after miles and tax, about $3 an hour less than a $15 employee job pays for the same 5 hours.