Working Hours Calculator

About the Working Hours Calculator

How many hours do you actually work each day, once breaks are taken off? How many is that a week, or a year? Is a shift pattern within the limits of your contract or the law? What does it come to in pay? The working hours calculator turns a start time, an end time and an unpaid break into hours worked per day, per week and per year, and — if you enter an hourly rate — the matching pay.

It accepts times in 24-hour format (17:30) or with am and pm (5:30 pm), handles overnight shifts that finish after midnight, and gives hours both in hours and minutes and as decimal hours for payroll.

How to Use the Working Hours Calculator

Enter the start time and end time of a typical shift.

Enter the unpaid break in minutes.

Enter the days worked per week and, optionally, the weeks worked per year.

Optionally, enter your hourly rate to see pay.

How the Hours Are Calculated

  shift length   = end time − start time      (+ 24 h if the end is past midnight)
  hours worked   = shift length − unpaid break
  hours per week = hours worked × days per week
  hours per year = hours per week × weeks per year
  pay            = hours × hourly rate

Step-by-Step Example

9:00 to 17:30 with a 30-minute unpaid lunch, 5 days a week, at 15 an hour.

  Shift:      17:30 − 09:00 = 8 h 30 min
  Worked:     8 h 30 min − 30 min = 8 h
  Per week:   8 h × 5 = 40 h
  Per year:   40 h × 52 = 2,080 h
  Pay:        120 a day, 600 a week, 31,200 a year

A classic 40-hour week.

Overnight Shifts

10 pm to 6 am with a 30-minute break.

  Shift:   06:00 + 24 h − 22:00 = 8 h
  Worked:  8 h − 30 min = 7 h 30 min  (7.5 decimal hours)

When the end time is earlier than the start time, the calculator assumes the shift runs past midnight. A shift that starts and ends at the same time is treated as a full 24 hours.

Decimal Hours

Payroll and timesheet systems usually want decimal hours rather than hours and minutes. The conversion divides the minutes by 60:

  15 min = 0.25 h     30 min = 0.5 h     45 min = 0.75 h
  7 h 30 min = 7.5 h  8 h 15 min = 8.25 h  7 h 20 min = 7.33 h

A common mistake is writing 7 hours 30 minutes as 7.30, which a payroll system reads as 7.3 hours — 12 minutes short of the real figure, and less pay.

Full-Time and Part-Time Hours

There is no single legal definition of full time, but most employers treat 35 to 40 hours a week as full time. Many countries also cap working hours: in the European Union the Working Time Directive limits average working time to 48 hours a week, and many countries require a minimum daily rest period and a break during long shifts. Part-time work is anything below the employer's full-time hours, and part-time pay and leave are usually calculated pro rata from them.

Hours Per Year

The yearly figure assumes the same pattern every week. A full-time employee on 40 hours a week is paid for 2,080 hours a year, but with, say, 5 weeks of paid holiday and public holidays they actually work about 1,880. To see hours actually worked, enter fewer weeks per year. Hourly-paid workers who are not paid for holidays can use the reduced weeks to estimate annual earnings.

Shift Patterns

Not every job repeats the same day five times a week. Common patterns include four long days (for example four 10-hour shifts), compressed hours such as a nine-day fortnight, rotating shifts that alternate days and nights, and continental or 2-2-3 patterns used in round-the-clock operations. To use the calculator with these, enter a typical shift and the average number of shifts per week. Four 10-hour shifts with a 30-minute unpaid break give 9.5 hours a day and 38 hours a week; a 12-hour pattern averaging 3.5 shifts a week gives about 40 hours after breaks.

Overtime

Hours beyond a contract's normal hours may be paid at a higher overtime rate, often 1.5 times the normal rate, and some jurisdictions require overtime pay above 40 hours a week or 8 hours a day. This calculator does not apply overtime rates. To estimate overtime pay, work out the extra hours from the weekly total and multiply them separately by the overtime rate.

Paid and Unpaid Breaks

Only unpaid breaks should be deducted. Short rest breaks are often paid and count as working time, while a longer lunch break is often unpaid. If you take a paid 15-minute break and an unpaid 30-minute lunch, enter 30 minutes as the break. Check your contract or local employment rules, which decide which breaks are paid.

Understanding Your Result

The headline gives the hours worked per day in hours and minutes.

The decimal line gives the same figure as decimal hours.

The per week and per year lines scale it up.

The shift line shows the shift length and the break deducted.

The pay line, when a rate is entered, gives daily, weekly and yearly pay before tax.

When Should You Use This Calculator?

Use it to check the hours in a job offer or shift pattern.

Use it to convert a shift into decimal hours for payroll.

Use it to estimate weekly and yearly earnings.

Use it to compare full-time and part-time options.

Common Mistakes

Deducting paid breaks. Only unpaid breaks come off.

Writing 7 hours 30 minutes as 7.30. In decimal it is 7.5.

Forgetting overnight shifts cross midnight. Enter the clock time; the calculator handles the rest.

Assuming 52 paid working weeks. Holidays reduce hours actually worked.

Mixing up am and pm. 5:30 without pm means 05:30 in the morning.