What is the full-time equivalent?
The full-time equivalent is used to determine employer size under the ACA. Any employee working at least 30 hours per week is considered full time. In addition, part-time employees are counted using the full-time equivalent method of adding the total number of hours worked by all part time employees in a month, and dividing by 120.
So if a business has 10 employees who each work 80 hours per month, they would have 800 part-time hours. Dividing by 120 gives us 6.66, and the answer is rounded down to get six full-time equivalent employees.
The ACA’s employer mandate applies to any employer who has at least 50 full-time equivalent employees. This can be a combination of full-time and full-time equivalent employees, with each full-time employee counting as one, and full-time equivalent employees added as described above. If the employer had 50 or more full-time equivalent employees, they must offer affordable, minimum value health insurance to all of the full-time employees (but not to part-time employees who work fewer than 30 hours per week).
