Hours Calculator — Time Between Two Times

How to use Hours Calculator — Time Between Two Times

1Pick the two dates you want to compare.
2Enter the start and end times, and any break to deduct.
3Read the result — it updates immediately, and nothing is sent anywhere.

About Hours Calculator

A timesheet asks two things of you: the time worked, and that time expressed as a decimal. The second is where money gets lost. Seven hours and forty-five minutes is 7.75 hours, but written quickly it becomes 7.45 — a difference of 18 minutes per shift, which across a month of shifts is most of a working day. This calculator shows both forms side by side, along with the raw paid minutes, so the number you copy into a timesheet is the number you actually worked.

Breaks and overnight shifts are the other two places simple subtraction fails. Subtracting 09:00 from 17:30 gives 8 hours 30 minutes, which is right until an unpaid 30-minute lunch is taken into account; the break field handles that, and leaving it at zero covers paid breaks. For a shift that finishes after midnight, plain subtraction produces a negative number — 22:00 to 06:00 looks like minus 16 hours. Saying that the end time falls one day later fixes it, and the same field takes larger values for spans covering several days.

Two honest caveats. The tool does not know about daylight-saving changes, so on the two nights a year when the clocks move, a shift will be an hour out and needs adjusting by hand. And it works on one pair of times at a time rather than a weekly grid — though the decimal output is designed for exactly that next step, because decimal hours add up correctly in a calculator or spreadsheet while hours-and-minutes do not. Everything is computed in your browser; no shift times are uploaded or stored.

Frequently asked questions

How do I convert minutes into decimal hours?

Divide the minutes by 60. So 15 minutes is 0.25, 30 minutes is 0.5 and 45 minutes is 0.75 — which means 7 hours 45 minutes is 7.75 hours, not 7.45. Typing 7.45 into a timesheet quietly underpays you by about 18 minutes, which is why the decimal figure is shown here explicitly.

How do I calculate an overnight shift?

Set "days later the end time falls" to 1. A shift from 22:00 to 06:00 the next morning then comes out as 8 h 00 m. Leave the field at 0 for a shift that starts and ends on the same day; you can set it as high as 30 for a span covering several days.

Is the break deducted from my hours?

Whatever you enter in the break field is subtracted, so use it for unpaid breaks only. A common arrangement is an unpaid 30-minute lunch, which turns a 09:00–17:30 day into 8 hours. If your breaks are paid, leave the field at 0 and the gross and net figures will match.

Does it round my hours?

The main result is exact to the minute. A separate figure rounds to the nearest quarter hour, because many payroll systems work in 0.25 increments — but check your employer's rule before relying on it, since some round up, some round down, and some round to the nearest quarter only at the end of the week.

Does it account for daylight saving time?

No. It treats the clock as continuous, so a shift spanning the night clocks go forward or back will be one hour out. That is an honest limitation of a time-only calculator; for those two nights a year, adjust the result by hand.

Can it total a whole week of shifts?

Not in one go — it handles one start-and-end pair at a time. The decimal-hours output makes adding them up easy, though: decimal hours sum normally with a calculator or spreadsheet, whereas adding 7:45 and 6:30 in hours-and-minutes form invites mistakes.