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Hours Calculator
Find the hours and minutes between two clock times, overnight shifts included.
Adding up hours is annoying for one reason: time is base 60 and your instincts are base 10. Three shifts of 7 hours 45 minutes come to 23 hours 15 minutes, or 23.25 hours. Type each one as 7.45 and a spreadsheet adds them to 22.35, quietly underpaying somebody by almost an hour.
Calculating hours worked
- Enter the start time and the finish time.
- If the finish is earlier than the start, the calculator treats the shift as crossing midnight.
- Press calculate and read the result in hours and minutes, plus the total in minutes.
- Subtract any unpaid break from the total minutes yourself.
- For payroll, divide the minutes by 60 to get decimal hours, using the table below.
Hours and minutes versus decimal hours
Payroll systems almost always work in decimal hours, where 30 minutes is 0.5 and 45 minutes is 0.75. Timesheets are usually filled in as hours and minutes, where 30 minutes is written as 30. Converting between the two is where errors creep in.
To convert minutes to decimal, divide by 60. So 7 hours 45 minutes is 7 + (45 ÷ 60) = 7.75 hours. Writing it as 7.45 is a common slip: it drops 18 minutes from every such shift, an hour and a half over a five-shift week.
Minutes to decimal hours
| Minutes | Decimal | Minutes | Decimal |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | 0.083 | 35 | 0.583 |
| 10 | 0.167 | 40 | 0.667 |
| 15 | 0.250 | 45 | 0.750 |
| 20 | 0.333 | 50 | 0.833 |
| 30 | 0.500 | 60 | 1.000 |
Cases that trip people up
- Overnight shifts that cross midnight — the finish time is numerically smaller than the start.
- Unpaid breaks, which have to come out before the total is calculated.
- Clock-in rounding policies, where some employers round to the nearest five or fifteen minutes.
- Overtime thresholds that kick in after a set number of hours in a week.
- Daylight saving changes, which make one day 23 hours long and another 25.
Hours calculation questions
How do I calculate hours between two times?
Convert both times to minutes past midnight, subtract, then divide by 60. From 09:15 to 17:45 is 1,065 minus 555 equals 510 minutes, which is 8.5 hours.
How do I handle a shift that crosses midnight?
Add 24 hours to the finish time before subtracting. A shift from 22:00 to 06:00 becomes 22:00 to 30:00, giving 8 hours.
How do I convert minutes into decimal hours?
Divide by 60. So 45 minutes is 0.75 hours and 20 minutes is 0.333 hours. Writing 45 minutes as 0.45 is the classic timesheet error.
Should breaks be subtracted?
Unpaid breaks, yes; paid breaks stay in the total. The calculator does not take breaks off for you, so subtract them from the total minutes. Check your contract or local rules, since this varies by employer.
Why does my total differ from my employer’s by a few minutes?
Usually rounding policy. Many systems round each clock-in and clock-out to the nearest quarter hour, which can shift a weekly total slightly in either direction.
