# Hours Calculator Last updated October 17, 2026FreeNo signupFormula shown Enter a start time, an end time and any unpaid break, and this hours calculator gives the time worked in hours and minutes, in decimal hours and in minutes, with the pay at your hourly rate. Start time End time An end time before the start counts as the next day. Unpaid break (minutes) A meal break you are not paid for. Short paid breaks stay in, so leave them out of this field. Hourly rate (USD, optional) Multiplies the decimal hours, so the pay for the span is exact. Hours worked 8 h 15 min 8.25 decimal hours · 495 minutes 8:30 AM to 5:15 PM, less 30 minutes unpaid. Worked 8:15Unpaid break 0:30 teampredict.ai/tools/hours-calculator The span, every way Time on the clock 8:45 (8.75 h) Unpaid break 0:30 Hours worked (h:mm) 8:15 Decimal hours 8.25 Total minutes 495 Pay before tax $165.00 At $20.00 an hour Copy resultsCopy link Decimal hours converter Hours and minutes to decimal Hours Minutes \= 8.25 hours Decimal to hours and minutes Decimal hours \= 7 h 40 min459.6 minutes, shown to the nearest minute ## Hours worked is the time on the clock minus any unpaid break. Hours worked = end time − start time − unpaid break Count from the start time to the end time, then take off the breaks you are not paid for. Everything else between the two times stays in. The calculator does the subtraction in minutes, so nothing is lost to rounding, and then shows the answer three ways: hours and minutes, decimal hours and total minutes. Payroll, timesheets and pay calculations nearly always want the decimal, which is where most mistakes start. ## A shift from 8:30 AM to 5:15 PM with a 30-minute lunch is 8.25 hours. Those are the times the calculator opens with. An invented shift starts at 8:30 AM, stops for an unpaid lunch from 12:00 to 12:30 PM, and ends at 5:15 PM, at $20 an hour. - On the clock: 8:30 AM to 5:15 PM is 8 hours 45 minutes, or 525 minutes - Unpaid lunch: 30 minutes, so 525 − 30 = 495 minutes worked - In hours and minutes: 495 minutes is 8 hours 15 minutes - In decimal hours: 495 ÷ 60 = 8.25 hours - Pay before tax: 8.25 × $20 = $165.00 The two stretches either side of lunch check the total: 8:30 AM to noon is 3 hours 30 minutes and 12:30 PM to 5:15 PM is 4 hours 45 minutes, which add up to the same 8 hours 15 minutes. _Figure: Timeline of the worked example. Work from 8:30 AM to 12:00 PM is 3 hours 30 minutes, an unpaid lunch from 12:00 to 12:30 PM is 30 minutes, and work from 12:30 PM to 5:15 PM is 4 hours 45 minutes. 8 hours 45 minutes on the clock less the 30-minute lunch is 8 hours 15 minutes, which is 8.25 decimal hours and $165.00 at $20 an hour. Typed as 8.15 hours, the same shift would pay $163.00._ ## Minutes become decimal hours when you divide them by 60. Decimal hours = whole hours + (minutes ÷ 60) An hour has 60 minutes, not 100, so the minutes on a clock are not the digits after a decimal point. 15 minutes is 15 ÷ 60 = 0.25 of an hour, which makes the example shift 8.25 hours. Typing it as 8.15 treats the minutes as hundredths and pays the shift as $163.00 instead of $165.00. That is $2.00 short on one shift, and $10.00 over a five-day week of the same shift. The error runs the other way too: 8 hours 50 minutes is 8.83 hours, not 8.5. To go back from a decimal to hours and minutes, multiply the decimal part by 60. 7.66 hours is 7 hours plus 0.66 × 60 = 39.6 minutes, which rounds to 7 hours 40 minutes. The converter under the calculator does both directions, and the table below lists every minute from 1 to 60. A multiple of 3 minutes always comes out exact at two decimal places, because 3 minutes is exactly 0.05 of an hour. The rest are rounded, such as 10 minutes at 0.17 and 50 minutes at 0.83. _Figure: Minutes to decimal hours table from 1 to 60 minutes, each minute divided by 60 and shown to two decimal places. For example 5 minutes is 0.08, 6 minutes is 0.10, 10 minutes is 0.17, 15 minutes is 0.25, 20 minutes is 0.33, 30 minutes is 0.50, 40 minutes is 0.67, 45 minutes is 0.75 and 50 minutes is 0.83. Every multiple of 3 minutes is exact at two places; the others are rounded._ ## A shift that ends after midnight still adds up the normal way. When the end time is earlier than the start time, the shift ran into the next day. Add 24 hours to the end time and subtract as usual. A night shift from 10:00 PM to 6:30 AM is 6:30 + 24:00 − 22:00 = 8 hours 30 minutes on the clock. With a 30-minute unpaid meal it comes to 8 hours worked, or 8.00 in decimal. The calculator treats any end time at or before the start time as the next day and says so under the end time, so a night shift never comes out negative. A span that starts and ends at the same time counts as a full 24 hours. ## Short breaks count as hours worked, and real meal breaks usually do not. The break field is for unpaid time only, and the federal rules decide which breaks those are. The Department of Labor's page on [breaks and meal periods](https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/workhours/breaks) starts with “Federal law does not require lunch or coffee breaks,” and then sets out what happens when an employer gives them. - **Rest breaks count.** [29 CFR 785.18](https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-29/section-785.18) describes rest periods “running from 5 minutes to about 20 minutes” and says “They must be counted as hours worked.” A paid 15-minute break never goes in the break field. - **Real meal periods do not.** [29 CFR 785.19](https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-29/section-785.19) says bona fide meal periods are not worktime, and that “Ordinarily 30 minutes or more is long enough for a bona fide meal period.” - **A lunch spent working counts.** The employee has to be completely relieved from duty. The same rule says an office employee required to eat at the desk is working while eating. _Figure: Three kinds of break under the federal rules. A short rest break, running from 5 minutes to about 20 minutes, counts as hours worked. A bona fide meal period, ordinarily 30 minutes or more and completely relieved from duty, is not work time, so it is the unpaid break. Eating at the desk while required to work counts as hours worked._ Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Breaks and Meal Periods; 29 CFR 785.18 (rest) and 785.19 (meal). The Department's [fact sheet on hours worked](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/22-flsa-hours-worked) adds that the workday runs from the first principal activity to the last, so it “may therefore be longer than the employee's scheduled shift.” Enter the times the work actually started and stopped, not the times on the rota. ## Full-time workers averaged about 8 hours on each day they worked in 2025. The BLS [American Time Use Survey](https://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.nr0.htm) for 2025 found that “On days they worked, full-time employed people worked an average of 8.1 hours.” Its [Table 4](https://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.t04.htm) gives the figures to two places: 8.07 hours for full-time workers, 7.66 for all employed people and 5.36 for part-time workers, and 8.02 hours on weekdays against 5.41 on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays. Like every payroll figure, those are decimals. Converted, 7.66 hours is 7 hours 40 minutes and 5.36 hours is 5 hours 22 minutes. _Figure: Bar chart from the BLS American Time Use Survey, 2025 annual averages. On days they worked, full-time workers worked 8.07 hours, which is 8 hours 4 minutes; all employed people 7.66 hours, or 7 hours 40 minutes; part-time workers 5.36 hours, or 5 hours 22 minutes. All employed people worked 8.02 hours on weekdays, 8 hours 1 minute, and 5.41 hours on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays, 5 hours 25 minutes._ Source: BLS American Time Use Survey, 2025 results, Table 4 (released June 25, 2026). Includes work at main and other jobs, excludes travel for work. Hours and minutes are the decimal figures converted and rounded to the nearest minute. The survey counts work at a main job and any other job, so a second job shows up in the same totals. If you [work a second job](https://www.teampredict.ai/blog/moonlighting), run each job through the calculator on its own, since each one has its own start and end times. ## Clock times may be rounded only if the rounding evens out. Many time clocks round each punch. [29 CFR 785.48](https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-29/section-785.48) describes the practice of recording start and stop times “to the nearest 5 minutes, or to the nearest one-tenth or quarter of an hour,” and accepts it as long as it does not, over time, fail to pay employees for all the time they actually worked. This calculator does not round: it works to the minute. For a whole week of punches with rounding and breaks, use the [time card calculator](https://www.teampredict.ai/tools/time-card-calculator). When the week passes 40 hours, the [overtime calculator](https://www.teampredict.ai/tools/overtime-calculator) works out time and a half, and the [hourly to salary calculator](https://www.teampredict.ai/tools/hourly-to-salary-calculator) turns an hourly rate into weekly, monthly and yearly pay. ## Hours show how long people work, not whether they plan to stay. A count of hours tells you how much time the team put in this week. It says nothing about who is already looking for the exit. TeamPredict works on that part, reading public LinkedIn signals to flag resignation risk early, so a gap in the rota shows up as a warning while there is still time to talk, rather than as a notice period you have to cover. ## Methodology & sources The formula this calculator uses is shown in full above, and every assumption is an input you control. There are no hidden industry presets. All math runs in your browser; nothing you enter is stored or sent to a server. For the reasoning behind the formula and its edge cases, see: - [U.S. Department of Labor: Breaks and meal periods](https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/workhours/breaks) - [U.S. Department of Labor, Fact Sheet #22: Hours worked under the FLSA](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/22-flsa-hours-worked) - [29 CFR 785.18: Rest periods](https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-29/section-785.18) - [29 CFR 785.19: Meal periods](https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-29/section-785.19) - [29 CFR 785.48: Use of time clocks and rounding](https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-29/section-785.48) - [BLS: American Time Use Survey, 2025 results (Table 4, time spent working)](https://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.t04.htm) Embed this calculator Add the Hours Calculator to your own site, blog post, or internal wiki. It's free. Please paste this snippet where you want the calculator to appear: ```

Calculator by TeamPredict

``` Copy embed codeFree to embed. Please keep the attribution link. ## Frequently asked questions How do I calculate hours worked? Take the end time minus the start time, then subtract any unpaid break. A shift from 8:30 AM to 5:15 PM is 8 hours 45 minutes on the clock, and less a 30-minute unpaid lunch that is 8 hours 15 minutes. To multiply by an hourly rate, turn the minutes into a decimal first: 15 ÷ 60 = 0.25, so the shift is 8.25 hours. How do you convert minutes to decimal hours? Divide the minutes by 60. 15 minutes is 0.25 hours, 30 minutes is 0.5, 45 minutes is 0.75 and 20 minutes is 0.33 to two places. Add the whole hours in front, so 7 hours 45 minutes is 7.75 hours. Going the other way, multiply the decimal part by 60: 0.66 of an hour is 39.6 minutes. How many hours is 9 to 5? 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM is 8 hours on the clock. If the day includes an unpaid 30-minute lunch, the hours worked are 7 hours 30 minutes, which is 7.5 decimal hours. A paid 15-minute break does not come off, because the federal rules count short rest breaks as hours worked. Does a lunch break count as hours worked? Usually not, when it is a real meal period. Under the federal rules a bona fide meal period, ordinarily 30 minutes or more, is not work time as long as the employee is completely relieved from duty. If someone has to eat at the desk while working, the time counts as hours worked. Short rest breaks of 5 to about 20 minutes count as hours worked. How do I calculate hours for a shift that goes past midnight? Add 24 hours to the end time before you subtract. A shift from 10:00 PM to 6:30 AM is 6:30 + 24:00 − 22:00 = 8 hours 30 minutes on the clock, and 8 hours with a 30-minute unpaid meal. The calculator does this by itself: any end time at or before the start time counts as the next day. ## Turnover is cheaper to prevent than to calculate. TeamPredict flags resignation risk early from public LinkedIn signals, giving you lead time to retain your best people before they hand in notice. [Start 30-Day Free Trial](https://app.teampredict.ai/signup) No charge today · Cancel anytime ## Keep reading [Time Card Calculator A full workweek of clock-in and clock-out times, with breaks, the weekly total and overtime after 40 hours. Read more](https://www.teampredict.ai/tools/time-card-calculator) [Overtime Calculator Time and a half after 40 hours in a workweek, with the regular rate worked out when a bonus is paid. Read more](https://www.teampredict.ai/tools/overtime-calculator) [PTO Accrual Calculator Hours of paid time off earned each pay period and per hour worked, and the balance under a cap. Read more](https://www.teampredict.ai/tools/pto-accrual-calculator)