Time Card Calculator — Add Up Your Work Hours
Enter your clock-in and clock-out times for each day of the week, along with any unpaid break minutes, and the calculator totals your hours — per day and for the whole week, in both hours-and-minutes and the decimal format payroll uses. Add an hourly rate to see regular pay, overtime pay at 1.5x beyond 40 hours, and your total for the week.
Overnight shifts are supported — a clock-out earlier than the clock-in counts past midnight. Days missing a clock-in or clock-out are skipped.
How Work Hours Are Calculated
Each day's hours come from a simple formula: clock-out time minus clock-in time, minus any unpaid breaks. Clock in at 8:30 AM, clock out at 5:00 PM, and take a 30-minute unpaid lunch, and you worked 8 hours even though you were on site for 8 and a half. The calculator applies that formula to every day you fill in, then adds the days together for a weekly total. Days missing either time are simply skipped, so a partial week works fine.
Overnight shifts need one extra step: when the clock-out time is earlier than the clock-in time, the shift crossed midnight, so 24 hours are added before subtracting. A 10:00 PM to 6:00 AM shift therefore counts as 8 hours, not negative 16. If your time clock prints 24-hour times like 22:00, the military time converter translates them, and for one-off additions outside a weekly card the time calculator adds and subtracts any times you give it.
Decimal Hours for Payroll
Payroll systems don't multiply "38 h 45 m" by an hourly rate — they need a single number, so timesheets convert minutes into decimal hours by dividing by 60. That makes 38 hours 45 minutes into 38.75 hours, and 38.75 × $20 is a clean $775.00. Mixing the two formats is the classic timesheet mistake: typing 8.30 for 8 hours 30 minutes underpays by 12 minutes, because 8.30 decimal hours is actually 8 hours 18 minutes.
| Minutes | Decimal hours |
|---|---|
| 15 minutes | 0.25 |
| 30 minutes | 0.50 |
| 45 minutes | 0.75 |
Every 6 minutes is exactly 0.1 hours, which is a handy mental shortcut: 12 minutes is 0.2, 18 minutes is 0.3, and so on up the clock. The calculator above shows both formats for each day and for the weekly total, rounded to two decimal places, so you can copy whichever your payroll system expects.
Overtime Basics
In the United States, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) sets the most common rule: non-exempt employees earn overtime for hours worked beyond 40 in a workweek, paid at no less than 1.5 times their regular rate — "time and a half." Work 45 hours at $20 an hour and the last 5 hours pay $30 each, for $900 instead of $850. The 40-hour threshold applies per workweek, a fixed recurring period of 168 hours, and hours can't be averaged across weeks.
The details vary by country, state, and contract. Some US states add daily overtime — California requires time and a half after 8 hours in a single day and double time after 12 — while many countries cap weekly hours or set different multipliers entirely. Salaried, exempt, and contract workers may not be owed overtime at all. This calculator applies the 40-hour weekly rule at 1.5x, the most common default, so treat its overtime split as a starting point and check the rules that actually cover your job.
Time Clock Rounding
If your pay stub never quite matches your watch, rounding is usually why. US regulations allow employers to round punches to the nearest quarter hour under the "7-minute rule": punch times up to 7 minutes past the quarter round down, and 8 or more round up. Clock in at 8:07 and the system records 8:00; clock in at 8:08 and it records 8:15. Rounding to the nearest 5 or 6 minutes is also permitted.
The catch is that rounding must be neutral in practice — it has to round in the employee's favor about as often as the employer's, and a system that always rounds against workers isn't lawful. Many modern systems skip rounding entirely and pay to the exact minute. If your employer rounds, enter the rounded punch times from your time clock in the calculator above so your totals match what payroll will compute.
Frequently Asked Questions
Subtract your clock-in time from your clock-out time, then subtract any unpaid breaks. For example, clocking in at 8:30 AM and out at 5:00 PM is 8 hours 30 minutes; with a 30-minute unpaid lunch, you worked 8 hours. Repeat for each day and add the days together to get your weekly total. The calculator above does this for every row and sums the week for you.
Divide the minutes by 60. So 15 minutes is 0.25 hours, 30 minutes is 0.50, and 45 minutes is 0.75 — a 38 hour 45 minute week is 38.75 decimal hours. Payroll systems multiply decimal hours by your hourly rate, which is why timesheets use this format. The calculator shows both forms side by side.
Under the US federal FLSA, overtime starts after 40 hours of work in a single workweek and must be paid at least 1.5 times the regular rate. Some states add daily rules — California, for example, requires overtime after 8 hours in a day. Rules also differ by country and by contract, so check what applies to you. This calculator applies the common 40-hour weekly rule.
It depends on the break. In the US, short rest breaks of roughly 5 to 20 minutes generally count as paid work time, while bona fide meal periods of 30 minutes or more are typically unpaid and excluded. Enter only your unpaid break minutes in the calculator — paid breaks should stay inside your clocked time.
If your clock-out time is earlier than your clock-in time, the calculator assumes the shift crossed midnight and adds 24 hours. So clocking in at 10:00 PM and out at 6:00 AM counts as 8 hours on the day you clocked in. There is nothing extra to enter — just type the times as they appeared on the clock.