Work Hours Calculator

How the weekly hours calculation works

For each day, the calculator takes your time out, subtracts your time in, and then subtracts your break in minutes. Type 08:00 for time in and 16:30 for time out with a 30-minute lunch, and the day comes out to 8 hours: 8.5 hours between the two clock times, minus 0.5 hours for the break.

You can type times either way: 24-hour military time (08:00, 16:30) or standard 12-hour time with am/pm (8:00am, 4:30pm) both work in the same field, so you never have to switch a format toggle depending on how your schedule is written. If a shift crosses midnight (say, 22:00 to 06:00 for an overnight shift), the calculator automatically adds a day so the math still comes out correct.

Once every day you worked is filled in, the weekly total row adds them all up and shows both a decimal figure (useful for payroll software) and an hours-and-minutes figure (easier to read at a glance). If your weekly total goes over 40 hours, the calculator flags the extra hours as overtime under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) threshold, and if you entered an hourly rate, it splits your estimated pay into regular hours and overtime hours at time-and-a-half.

A worked example

Say you worked five weekdays with a consistent 8:00am start and a 30-minute lunch, and picked up a shorter Saturday shift:

That adds up to 44.5 hours for the week: 40 regular hours plus 4.5 hours of overtime. At an hourly rate of $20, the calculator would show $800 for the regular 40 hours, plus $135 for the 4.5 overtime hours at $30 (time-and-a-half), for an estimated gross pay of $935 before taxes and deductions.

Overtime, breaks and payroll rounding: what the numbers mean

The federal FLSA overtime rule requires covered non-exempt employees to be paid 1.5 times their regular rate for hours worked over 40 in a single work week. This calculator applies that standard weekly threshold, but overtime law varies by state and by employer policy: a handful of states (California is the best-known example) also require daily overtime after 8 hours in a single day, which this calculator does not check for. Always confirm your own state's rules and your employer's actual pay policy before relying on the estimate for anything beyond a quick check.

Meal and rest break requirements are set by state law and by employer policy, not by this calculator: some states require a paid or unpaid meal break after a set number of hours, others have no requirement at all. Enter whatever break time you actually took (paid breaks are usually not subtracted; unpaid meal breaks usually are), and check your pay stub or employee handbook if you are not sure how your employer classifies a specific break.

This homepage tool does not round for you: it is built to show your exact worked time. If your employer rounds your clock times for payroll, the payroll hours calculator has a rounding option built in (off, nearest 6 minutes, or nearest 15 minutes) so you can see what your paycheck is likely to reflect.

What this calculator does not account for

This tool estimates gross pay from hours and a flat hourly rate. It does not calculate tax withholding, deductions, shift differentials, holiday pay multipliers, tips, commission, or any pay structure beyond a straightforward hourly rate plus standard weekly overtime. If your job pays a different rate for nights, weekends or holidays, add those hours up separately at their own rate rather than relying on the single rate field here. The gross pay figure is also before taxes, insurance, retirement contributions or any other payroll deduction, so it will not match the net amount that actually lands in your bank account on payday.

It also assumes a single, standard work week (Sunday through Saturday or Monday through Sunday, whichever your employer uses) for the 40-hour overtime threshold. If you are on a biweekly or semimonthly pay period, run the calculator once per work week and add the two totals together rather than entering two weeks of shifts at once, since overtime is calculated per week, not per pay period. It also does not know about paid time off, sick leave, jury duty, or bereavement leave: those hours are usually paid at your regular rate without counting toward overtime, so add them to your regular-hours total separately if your employer's policy works that way, rather than entering them as a normal shift.

Finally, this is an estimate for your own reference, not a substitute for your employer's official timekeeping system or your actual pay stub. If a number here does not match your paycheck, the most likely explanations are a different overtime rule in your state, a different rounding policy at your workplace, or a pay period boundary that splits a work week across two paychecks: check with your payroll department for the exact policy that applies to you.

Why use a browser-based work hours calculator instead of doing the math by hand

Subtracting clock times by hand is easy to get wrong in small ways that add up. Time is base-60, not base-10: the gap between 8:00am and 4:45pm is 8 hours and 45 minutes, not 8.45 hours, and typing 8.45 into a spreadsheet formula instead of converting it correctly is one of the most common payroll timesheet mistakes. This calculator does the base-60 to decimal conversion for you on every single row, so you never have to remember that 45 minutes is 0.75 of an hour, or that 15 minutes is 0.25, while you are adding up a five- or six-day week.

It also removes the accumulation problem: rounding each day's hours to a tidy number before adding the week together introduces small errors that compound. Entering exact clock times for every day and letting the weekly total be calculated once, at the end, from the exact minutes worked, is more accurate than adding five or six already-rounded daily numbers together.

Because everything runs locally in your browser rather than on a server, there is also no waiting, no account to create and no risk of your schedule being logged somewhere you did not expect. Close the tab and nothing is transmitted; come back later and your local storage brings your entries back exactly where you left them, whether you are on a lunch break checking your morning hours or finishing the week's entry on Friday evening.

Choosing the right tool on this site for your situation

This site has four related calculators built around different starting points, since not everyone has the same information on hand when they need to figure out their hours.

• Use the work hours calculator above when you have (or can look up) your clock-in and clock-out times for the week and want a full weekly timesheet with overtime and pay built in.
• Use the add up work hours page when you already know how many hours you worked each day and just want them totaled, without entering clock times at all.
• Use the payroll hours calculator when you have a single total (for a day, a pay period, or a project) and want it converted to payroll-ready decimal hours, with an optional quarter-hour or six-minute rounding rule and gross pay.
• Use the time card calculator when your schedule or timesheet is written in 24-hour military time and you want a weekly table built around that format from the start.

All four tools share the same underlying math (time in, time out, and break become hours; hours multiplied by a rate become pay), they are just organized around the information you are most likely to already have when you land on each page.

Tips for accurate time tracking

A few habits make the difference between a rough estimate and a number you can actually trust on payday.

• Record your actual clock-in and clock-out times as they happen, not your scheduled shift times: a few minutes of early arrival or a late departure adds up over a week.
• Enter breaks the way your employer classifies them: most unpaid meal breaks should be subtracted, but short paid rest breaks usually should not be.
• If a shift crosses midnight, enter the time out as the next day's time (for example 22:00 to 06:00) and let the calculator handle the day rollover automatically.
• Double check your state's overtime rules if you regularly work long single days: some states add daily overtime rules on top of the federal weekly 40-hour threshold this calculator uses.
• Save or print your weekly total before you clear the form if you want a record to compare against your actual paycheck.