Hours Calculator - Calculator Soup

The Hours Calculator calculates time as the number of hours and minutes between a start time and end time. Calculate hours in a time span as you would for payroll or time sheets or find how many hours you worked in a day. Includes options to deduct lunch or breaks, and select 12-hour or 24-hour clock time.

Enter numbers such as 1215 for 12:15 or 137 for 1:37. Start and end times do not need the colon : as the calculator understands your inputs in hours and minutes hhmm format.

If you enter a single number from 1 through 12 the hours calculator assumes 1:00 through 12:00, on the hour, with no minutes.

The calculator uses "12 pm" as noon and "12 am" as midnight.

If you prefer to find hours worked using a full-featured time card calculator see our partner website Time Card Calculator.

Calculator Settings

Use the optional calculator settings to customize your hour calculations. Be sure to click Save so your settings are updated in the hours calculator.

• Clock format: Choose between 12-hour and 24-hour clock time
• Deduct breaks: Option to enter lunch or break time
• Enter breaks: Choose to enter total break time in minutes, or as break start and end times
• Round inputs: Round input and output times to the nearest 15 minutes, 5 minutes, or 6 minutes. Read more about Rounding Work Start and End Times if your company uses time clock rounding rules.
• Enter = Tab: Best if you're doing one-handed entry on a desktop keypad. Choose whether the Enter key functions as Enter or Tab. If you select Yes, pressing the Enter key will tab cursor focus to the next field on the page. If you select No, pressing the Enter key is like clicking the Calculate button and will complete the hours calculation.

Converting Between Clock Time and Decimal Hours

Suppose you calculated a total time of 7:15, 7 hours and 15 minutes. The equivalent time in decimal hours is 7.25 hours. It's easy to make this conversion from clock time to decimal time because we know that 15 minutes is a quarter of an hour, and 0.25 is a quarter of 1.00.

But what if you wanted to calculate your pay for the week and your total work time was 40 hours and 22 minutes? You need to multiply your hourly pay rate by hours worked, but how would you convert your partial hour of 22 minutes to a decimal number of hours?

Converting from minutes to decimal hours

40:24 is 40.0 hours plus 24 minutes. First convert the minutes part to hours: divide minutes by 60.

24 minutes divided by 60 minutes makes the conversion from minutes to decimal hours.

24 min ÷ 60 = 0.4 hours

Adding 0.4 decimal hours to 40.0 hours, the total is 40.0 + 0.4 = 40.4 hours

In Reverse, converting from decimal hours to minutes

To get 0.4 hours as minutes, multiply decimal hours by 60.

0.4 hours × 60 = 24 minutes

Adding 24 minutes to your 40 hours is 40:24, which is read as "40 hours, 24 minutes."

Rounding Work Start and End Times

In the calculator settings, you can choose to round start and end times to the nearest:

• 15 minutes: also known and the "7 minute rule" or rounding to the quarter hour. For example, a clock time of 9:07 or less will round down to 9:00 while a clock time of 9:08 or greater will round up to 8:15. This is generally only done for work start and end times.
• 5 minutes: For example, 9:01 and 9:02 will round down to 9:00 while 9:03 and 9:04 will round up to 9:05.
• 6 minutes: also known as "1/10 hour" or tenth of an hour. For example, 9:01 and 9:02 round down to 9:00 while 9:03, 9:04, and 9:05 round up to 9:06. This may look unfair at first because, unlike 15 and 5 minute rounding, 6 minute rounding has an odd number of values that round -- 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. The center value rounds up so the split is 2 down and 3 up. Statistically this is fair since when clocking in, 9:03 is rounded up and one extra minute is lost by the employee. However, when clocking out, that time is also rounded up on the middle value so the employee gains that extra minute. Statistically over time this averages out fairly for both the employer and employee.