The simplest question in payroll, answered exactly: pick your clock-in and clock-out, set your break, and see your hours three ways.
The maths is subtraction with two real-world wrinkles. First, overnight shifts: if the clock-out is earlier than the clock-in, the shift rolls into the next day (10:00 PM → 6:00 AM is 8 hours, not −16). Second, breaks: unpaid meal breaks come off; paid breaks stay on. Optional rounding then adjusts the punches the way payroll does — the 7-minute rule or the nearest quarter hour.
Payroll systems store time as decimal hours, which is why 8 hours 30 minutes appears on pay documents as 8.50. If you often convert minutes by hand, the Minutes to Decimal Converter has the full 1–60 chart, and the Time Card Calculator adds a whole week up with overtime.
Built for real punch clocks: up to four in/out pairs in a day — lunch gaps excluded automatically — totalled into paid time and decimal hours.
Free — try itThe classic payroll conversion chart, 1–60 minutes, plus a two-way converter: minutes to decimal hours and decimal hours back to h:mm.
Free — try itThe flagship weekly time card: clock in/out and breaks for 7 days, overtime split at 40 hours, gross pay, print and CSV — plus Save My Week on your device.
Free — try itOne shift, two breaks, zero confusion: which break minutes are paid, which come off, and the exact paid time that remains.
Free — try itSubtract the clock-in from the clock-out, rolling into the next day if the shift crosses midnight, then subtract any unpaid break. Example: 9:00 AM to 5:30 PM is 8 hours 30 minutes on the clock; minus a 30-minute unpaid lunch leaves 8.00 paid hours.
Hours expressed as a decimal number instead of hours and minutes: 15 minutes = 0.25, 30 minutes = 0.50, 45 minutes = 0.75. Payroll uses decimals because multiplying them by an hourly rate gives pay directly.
Usually rounding: many employers round punches to the nearest quarter hour (the 7-minute rule). Try the rounding options here to reproduce your employer's method.
Yes. Any clock-out at or before the clock-in time is treated as the next day, which covers standard night shifts up to 24 hours.
This calculator works in minutes, not decimals, so nothing is lost to rounding until the very end. Each punch is first rounded (if you choose a rounding mode), the span between the rounded punches is found — adding 24 hours when the clock-out falls at or before the clock-in, which is how overnight shifts are handled — and any unpaid break is subtracted. The result is shown three ways: as h:mm, as decimal hours, and as total minutes.
You clock in at 8:47 AM and out at 5:12 PM, take a 45-minute unpaid break, earn $18/hour, and your employer rounds punches to the quarter hour. The raw span on the clock is 8:25 (505 minutes). Quarter-hour rounding moves the punches to 8:45 AM and 5:15 PM, a span of 8:30. Subtract the 45-minute break and the calculator shows paid time 7:45, which is 7.75 decimal hours (465 minutes), and a gross of $139.50 for the shift.
It is the rounding convention many payroll systems use: within each quarter hour, minutes 0–7 round down to the quarter and minutes 8–14 round up to the next one. A 9:07 AM punch becomes 9:00 AM; a 9:08 AM punch becomes 9:15 AM. This calculator's two rounding options both apply that convention to each punch.
To the punches. This tool rounds the clock-in and clock-out first, then subtracts — the same order most time clocks use. Rounding the finished total instead can give a slightly different answer, which is one reason a pay stub may differ from a hand calculation by a few minutes.
The calculator reads a clock-out at or before the clock-in as the next day, so identical times are treated as a full 24-hour shift (minus any unpaid break). If you meant a zero-length shift, check the AM/PM settings — a 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM shift needs the second time set to PM.
No. Set the break to “Paid” and the break minutes stay inside your paid time; only breaks marked unpaid come off. The break treatment you choose is shown in the result detail line so you can match it to your employer's policy.
Yes. With no rate entered (or 0), the calculator simply hides the gross-pay figure and still shows your paid time as h:mm, decimal hours and total minutes.
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