🕗Hours calculator

✓ Tested & verified Updated: Aug 11, 2026 How this works

Hours calculator

Start End Unpaid break (min) Days Pay rate (optional)

Total worked

—h:mm

Payroll wants decimal hours; a clock shows h:mm. Both are here so the wrong one never gets typed in.

Decimal hours—
Per day—
Minutes—
Pay—

Try also

How do you turn hours and minutes into decimal hours?

The TimerPlan hours calculator gives every total twice — as h:mm and as decimal hours — because 7:30 on a clock is 7.5 hours on a timesheet, and typing 7.30 instead is this subject’s most expensive mistake. Minutes are sixtieths, so the conversion is minutes divided by sixty, not the minutes moved behind a decimal point.

Written out, the gap is small and constant: 15 minutes is 0.25, 20 is 0.33, 40 is 0.67, 45 is 0.75. Typed wrongly on a daily timesheet, a twelve-minute error per day is about a working week a year.

The calculator subtracts an unpaid break before it multiplies by the number of days, which is the order payroll uses, and it counts a shift that ends earlier in the day than it started as an overnight one rather than returning a negative.

The conversion table worth keeping, since it is the same six numbers every time:

Minutes	Decimal hours	Minutes	Decimal hours
5	0.08	35	0.58
10	0.17	40	0.67
15	0.25	45	0.75
20	0.33	50	0.83
25	0.42	55	0.92
30	0.50	60	1.00

Six minutes is exactly a tenth of an hour, which is why US time cards so often round to six-minute blocks: the decimal figure stays tidy without anyone having to think about sixtieths.

For a full week with a different break each day and overtime split at forty hours, use the time card calculator. For the plain gap between two times with no break or multiplier, the time duration calculator is faster, and to add a length to a start time instead, use the time calculator. If the hours came from a running clock rather than a pair of times, the stopwatch and count-up timer are where they start.

Frequently asked questions

Is 7:30 the same as 7.30 hours?

No. Seven hours thirty minutes is 7.5 decimal hours, because thirty minutes is half of sixty. Writing 7.30 in a decimal field claims seven hours and eighteen minutes, so every day recorded that way loses twelve minutes. It is a small error that survives audits because it looks like a plausible number, which is exactly why both forms are printed side by side here.

Should the break come off before or after multiplying by days?

Before, always, because it is an unpaid break per shift rather than per week. Subtracting a single break from a weekly total is a mistake in the employee’s favour on a five-day week by two hours, and payroll systems do not make it. If the break varies by day, the time card calculator takes a different break on each row.

How do I handle a shift that runs past midnight?

Enter the times as they are — 22:00 to 06:00 — and the calculator reads an end earlier than the start as crossing midnight, giving eight hours. It says so in a line under the result, because the alternative reading, minus sixteen hours, is what a calculator that does simple subtraction returns, and a spreadsheet will do exactly that unless it is told the dates.

Do rounding rules apply here?

Not on this page, which reports the true figure. Rounding to a quarter hour or to a tenth of an hour is a payroll policy applied per shift, and the time card calculator offers both because a week is where it belongs. US federal rules permit rounding as long as it does not consistently favour the employer over time, which is the part people forget.

Can I include a pay rate?

Yes, and it uses the decimal figure rather than the clock figure — which is the whole point of showing both. Pay is calculated at a flat rate here; overtime at one and a half past forty hours is on the time card calculator, where a full week is in view and the threshold means something.

How this works

Both times are parsed into minutes past midnight and the difference is taken forwards, so an end earlier than the start is read as crossing midnight rather than as a negative interval. The unpaid break is subtracted from that per-shift figure before it is multiplied by the number of days, which is how payroll treats it. Hours are produced by dividing total minutes by sixty for the decimal form and by integer division and remainder for the h:mm form, so the two are guaranteed to describe the same quantity rather than being two roundings of it. Pay, when a rate is entered, is the decimal figure multiplied by the rate — never the h:mm number, which is the mistake the page exists to prevent. Nothing is rounded unless you ask for it on the time card page, and nothing is stored.

Worked example

With Start 9:00 am, End 5:30 pm, Unpaid break (min) 30, Days 5, this page works out — h:mm. Payroll wants decimal hours; a clock shows h:mm. Both are here so the wrong one never gets typed in.

Sources:

Getting a timesheet right

Both forms, always. One of them is for reading and one is for typing into a form, and mixing them up is the standard error.

Break first, then days. Per shift, not per week.

Overnight is normal. A shift ending earlier in the day than it started is eight hours, not minus sixteen.