Work Hours Calculator
Calculate the hours and minutes between a start time and end time. Subtract lunch or break time to get net hours worked. Also calculates pay at your hourly rate.
Frequently Asked Questions
If your end time is earlier than your start time (e.g., night shift), this calculator automatically adds 24 hours to the end time to handle overnight shifts correctly.
Divide the minutes by 60 and add to the hours. For example, 7 hours 30 minutes = 7 + (30÷60) = 7.5 decimal hours.
Working out weekly hours
Total the hours for each day, subtract unpaid breaks, and add the days together. The arithmetic is simple; the mistakes come from mixing time formats.
The 7:30 problem
Seven hours thirty minutes is 7.5 hours, not 7.30. Minutes are sixtieths, not hundredths, so writing times as decimals without converting produces errors on every single entry.
| Minutes | Decimal |
|---|---|
| 10 | 0.17 |
| 15 | 0.25 |
| 20 | 0.33 |
| 30 | 0.50 |
| 40 | 0.67 |
| 45 | 0.75 |
Worked example
A week of 8:15, 7:45, 9:00, 8:30 and 6:20, with a 30-minute unpaid lunch each day.
- Raw totals: 8.25 + 7.75 + 9.0 + 8.5 + 6.33 = 39.83 hours
- Less breaks: 5 × 0.5 = 2.5 hours
- Paid total: 37.33 hours
Note how close that came to 40 before breaks were deducted. Getting the break handling right is often what decides whether a week crosses into overtime.
Breaks and what counts as paid
Short rest breaks — roughly 20 minutes or less — are generally treated as paid working time. A genuine, uninterrupted meal break usually is not. If you're expected to stay at your desk and cover the phone through lunch, that is typically working time even if it's labelled a break.
Overtime
Under US federal rules, overtime applies to hours past 40 in a single workweek, each week standing on its own. Working 48 one week and 32 the next is 8 hours of overtime, not zero, even though the fortnight averages 40. Some states add daily overtime rules on top.
For a detailed breakdown of how the overtime rate is worked out, see How Overtime Pay Is Calculated.