Hours Calculator
Calculate hours and minutes between two times, with breaks and overnight shifts.
Written by Golam Rabbani, Founder & Lead Engineer
How to use this hours calculator
- Enter your start time in HH:MM (24-hour) format.
- Enter your end time.
- Optionally add unpaid break minutes and tick "end time is on the next day" for overnight shifts.
- Press Calculate to see the total in hours-and-minutes, decimal hours, and total minutes.
- Use Copy to grab the result, or Reset to start over.
About this hours calculator
The hours calculator works out the duration between two clock times — exactly what you need for a timesheet, a freelance invoice, or a payroll line item. It handles overnight shifts, unpaid breaks, and the conversion between hours-and-minutes and decimal hours that most payroll systems insist on.
Internally each time is parsed into minutes-since-midnight. The end time is subtracted from the start time; if the result is negative or you tick the overnight checkbox, 24 hours are added so a 22:00 → 06:00 shift correctly returns 8 hours. The break minutes are subtracted last. We assume both times are in the same time zone and that the shift is shorter than 24 hours; if you cross multiple days, run the calculator once per day.
For example, a shift from 09:15 to 17:45 with a 30-minute unpaid break returns 8 hours, 0 minutes — which is 8.00 decimal hours or 480 minutes. An overnight shift from 22:30 to 06:30 with no break returns 8 hours, 0 minutes — 8.00 decimal — using the "next day" toggle. The decimal-hours value is what you paste into a spreadsheet column; the H:M value is what you put on a paper timesheet.
FAQ
- How do I handle an overnight shift?
- Tick the "end time is on the next day" checkbox. The tool will add 24 hours to the end time before subtracting, so a 22:00 → 06:00 shift correctly returns 8 hours rather than -16.
- What are decimal hours?
- Decimal hours express minutes as a fraction of an hour. 30 minutes is 0.5 hours; 45 minutes is 0.75. Most payroll software prefers decimal hours because they multiply cleanly with hourly rates.
- How do unpaid breaks affect the total?
- Unpaid break minutes are subtracted from the gross duration. If your break is longer than the worked time, the calculator returns an error rather than a negative total.
- Can I enter seconds?
- No. The tool works in whole-minute precision, which matches every timesheet system we have seen. For sub-minute work, use the seconds-to-time converter.
- Does the tool store my hours?
- No. Everything runs in your browser. Nothing is sent to a server or saved between sessions.