Work Hours Calculator
Hours worked from a start and end time, with the break deducted, per day and per week.
Timesheets are arithmetic with a colon in them, which is exactly the kind of arithmetic that goes wrong. Forty-five minutes is three quarters of an hour, not forty-five hundredths of one, and the two are not the same when you add them up.
Enter your start time, end time and unpaid break, and this calculator gives the hours and minutes worked, the decimal hours a payroll system needs, and the weekly total.
At a glance
- What you enter
- Start hour (24 hour clock), Start minutes, End hour (24 hour clock), End minutes, Unpaid break, Shift crosses midnight, Days worked per week, Working weeks per year, Hourly rate
- What you get
- Hours worked per day, Whole hours, Minutes beyond the whole hours, Hours per week, Hours per year, Pay for the day
- Formula shown
- Yes - every step, right below your results.
- Cost and privacy
- Free, no account needed, and nothing you type is stored.
See worked examples ↓ Read the FAQ ↓ Share this calculator ↓
Results are estimates for general information only - always verify with a professional or official source before acting on them.
How to use the Work Hours Calculator
- 1 Enter Start hour (24 hour clock)
- 2 Enter Start minutes
- 3 Enter End hour (24 hour clock)
- 4 Enter End minutes
- 5 Enter Unpaid break (minutes)
- 6 Enter Shift crosses midnight
- 7 Enter Days worked per week
- 8 Enter Working weeks per year
- 9 Enter Hourly rate - Used to value the time. Enter 0 to skip it.
- 10 Press Calculate. You get Hours worked per day, Whole hours, Minutes beyond the whole hours, Hours per week, Hours per year, Pay for the day, and every intermediate step stays visible under “How is this calculated?”
- 11 Change one number at a time to see what moves the result - that is usually the most useful thing a calculator can tell you.
Worked examples
Real numbers run through this calculator. Open any example to load it into the form above and change it.
A standard nine to five thirty day
A full day with a half hour unpaid break.
You enter
- Start hour (24 hour clock)
- 9
- Start minutes
- 0
- End hour (24 hour clock)
- 17
- End minutes
- 30
- Unpaid break
- 30 minutes
- Shift crosses midnight
- No
- Days worked per week
- 5
- Working weeks per year
- 46
- Hourly rate
- $22.00
You get
- Hours worked per day
- 8.00 decimal hours
- Whole hours
- 8
- Minutes beyond the whole hours
- 0
- Hours per week
- 40.00 hours
- Hours per year
- 1,840
- Pay for the day
- $176.00
The elapsed time is 8 hours 30 minutes, and after the break the day is 8 hours exactly, or 8 decimal hours. Five days a week is 40 hours a week and about 1,840 hours a year across 46 working weeks, which at $22 an hour is $176 for the day.
A night shift from 22:00 to 06:00
A shift that crosses midnight, with a paid break.
You enter
- Start hour (24 hour clock)
- 22
- Start minutes
- 0
- End hour (24 hour clock)
- 6
- End minutes
- 0
- Unpaid break
- 0 minutes
- Shift crosses midnight
- Yes
- Days worked per week
- 4
- Working weeks per year
- 48
- Hourly rate
- $26.00
You get
- Hours worked per day
- 8.00 decimal hours
- Whole hours
- 8
- Minutes beyond the whole hours
- 0
- Hours per week
- 32.00 hours
- Hours per year
- 1,536
- Pay for the day
- $208.00
With the overnight flag the shift is 8 hours worked, or 8 decimal hours, and the paid break means nothing is deducted. Four nights a week is 32 hours a week and 1,536 hours a year, which at $26 an hour is $208 for the shift.
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Frequently asked questions
What are decimal hours and why are they different?
Decimal hours express minutes as a fraction of an hour, so forty-five minutes is 0.75 rather than 0.45. Payroll and invoicing systems read decimal hours, and typing 8.45 for eight hours and forty-five minutes short-changes you by twenty-seven minutes.
The calculator shows both: the hours and minutes for reading, and the decimal figure for entering into a system.
How is a shift that crosses midnight handled?
Tick the overnight box and the calculator adds a full day to the end time, so a shift from 22:00 to 06:00 comes out as eight hours rather than a negative number.
Without the flag the arithmetic would treat the end as being before the start, which is the most common error in manual timesheet work.
Does the break count as working time?
The break is subtracted because it is time at work but not time paid, which is what a timesheet normally records. If your break is paid, set it to zero and the full elapsed time is counted.
Whether a break must be given at all, and how long it has to be, is a matter for the law and the contract rather than for arithmetic.
Are travel time and on-call hours included?
No. Only the time between the start and end you enter counts, so travel to and from work, on-call hours and time spent answering messages at home are excluded.
Whether those hours should be paid is a contractual question. If they are, add them as extra hours in the same way you would add a longer shift.
Terms used here
Short, plain-language definitions of the words this calculator uses.