How to use the time card calculator
- Enter your times. For each day you worked, set the clock-in time and the clock-out time, and type the minutes of unpaid break.
- Set overtime and rounding. Overtime starts after 40 hours a week. Add a daily limit or a rounding rule if your employer uses one.
- Read the totals. The calculator shows hours for each day, total, regular and overtime hours, and gross pay when you add an hourly rate.
What is a time card calculator?
A time card calculator is a tool that adds up the hours on a time card. It subtracts each clock-in time from the clock-out time, takes off unpaid breaks, and totals the hours for the week. A time clock calculator and a timesheet calculator do the same job under other names.
This one also splits the week into regular and overtime hours and, with an hourly rate, turns the hours into gross pay.
Features
- One week or two weeks, with each week's overtime worked out on its own
- Unpaid breaks in minutes for each day
- Overnight shifts that end the next day
- Totals in hours and minutes and in decimal hours
- Weekly overtime, with a daily limit you can add
- Rounding to 5 minutes, a tenth of an hour or a quarter hour
- Gross pay with an overtime multiplier you set
- A PDF time card report with every day, to save or share on WhatsApp
How hours on a time card are calculated
- Shift length. Subtract the clock-in time from the clock-out time. If the shift ends after midnight, add 24 hours first.
- Unpaid break. Subtract the minutes of unpaid break.
- Weekly total. Add the hours of the seven days.
- Overtime. Hours over 40 in the week are overtime. The first 40 are regular hours.
- Pay. Multiply regular hours by the hourly rate and overtime hours by the rate times 1.5.
Worked example
An employee clocks in at 8:00 and out at 17:30 with a 30-minute unpaid lunch. The shift is 9 hours 30 minutes, and the paid time is 9:00. Five such days make 45:00: 40:00 regular hours and 5:00 overtime hours. At $20.00 an hour that is $800.00 of regular pay and $150.00 of overtime pay, a gross of $950.00.
A night shift from 22:00 to 6:00 with a 30-minute break ends on the next day. The calculator adds 24 hours to the clock-out time and returns 7:30.
Minutes to decimal hours
Payroll multiplies hours by a rate, so minutes are written as a decimal part of an hour. Divide the minutes by 60.
| Minutes | Decimal hours | Minutes | Decimal hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | 0.10 | 36 | 0.60 |
| 10 | 0.17 | 40 | 0.67 |
| 12 | 0.20 | 42 | 0.70 |
| 15 | 0.25 | 45 | 0.75 |
| 20 | 0.33 | 48 | 0.80 |
| 30 | 0.50 | 54 | 0.90 |
For example, 7 hours 45 minutes is 7.75 hours and 8 hours 20 minutes is 8.33 hours. The result panel shows both forms.
Which breaks are paid
Only unpaid breaks come off a time card. Federal regulations treat the two kinds of break differently.
- Short rest breaks. 29 CFR 785.18 says rest periods of about 5 to 20 minutes are counted as hours worked. Leave them on the time card.
- Meal periods. 29 CFR 785.19 says a bona fide meal period, ordinarily 30 minutes or more, is not work time when the employee is completely relieved from duty. Enter it as an unpaid break.
- Working lunches. An employee who must do any duties while eating is working, and the time stays on the card.
Federal law does not require lunch or coffee breaks. Some states do: Nevada requires a 30-minute meal period for 8 continuous hours, and Tennessee requires a 30-minute break for employees scheduled 6 consecutive hours.
Rounding clock times
Some employers round clock times before adding them. Federal regulation 29 CFR 785.48 accepts rounding to the nearest 5 minutes, tenth of an hour or quarter hour, as long as over time it does not fail to pay employees for all the time they actually worked.
With quarter-hour rounding, the Department of Labor explains that 1 to 7 minutes may be rounded down and 8 to 14 minutes must be rounded up. A clock-in at 8:07 becomes 8:00 and a clock-in at 8:08 becomes 8:15. Rounding that always goes down in the employer's favor breaks the rule.
Choose the rounding your employer uses. The calculator rounds each clock-in and clock-out time to the nearest step, never only down.
Weekly and daily overtime on a time card
Under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, overtime is counted by the workweek: hours over 40 are paid at not less than one and one-half times the regular rate. The Department of Labor does not allow hours to be averaged over two weeks, so the two-week card treats each week on its own.
California, Alaska and Nevada also count overtime by the day, after 8 hours, and Colorado after 12. Type the daily limit in the daily overtime box. The calculator first counts the hours over the daily limit on each day, then counts hours over the weekly limit among the rest, so that no hour is counted as overtime twice.
For bonuses, double time and salaried overtime, use the overtime calculator.
Time records employers must keep
Federal regulation 29 CFR 516.2 requires employers to record, for each employee who is owed overtime, the hours worked each day and the total hours worked each workweek, along with the time and day the workweek begins. Payroll records are kept for at least three years, and time cards for at least two.
A time card you keep yourself is a useful check against those records. Copy the result each week and compare it with your pay stub.
What you can use it for
- Add up a week of shifts before you hand in a timesheet
- Check the hours on a pay stub
- See when a week passes 40 hours
- Convert hours and minutes into decimal hours for payroll
- Estimate gross pay for a week or a two-week pay period
What the calculator includes
- Period: one or two weeks of seven days, Monday to Sunday. One shift per day.
- Breaks: whole minutes, up to 600 a day, and shorter than the shift.
- Pay: an hourly rate up to $10,000 and an overtime multiplier from 1 to 5. The result is gross pay before tax; the paycheck calculator turns it into take-home pay.
- Overtime: a weekly limit and an optional daily limit. Seventh-day rules and double time are not applied.
Is it private?
Yes. The calculation runs in your browser. Your times and your result are not sent to a server and are not saved, so the card is empty again when you reload the page.
Tips for an accurate estimate
- Enter the times from the time clock, not the scheduled times. A few minutes a day add up over a week.
- Enter only unpaid breaks. Rest breaks of 5 to 20 minutes are paid time and stay in the hours.
- Use the same rounding rule your employer uses, so the totals match your pay stub.
- Start the week on the day your employer's workweek starts. Overtime is counted inside that week.
- Copy the result before you leave the page. The card is not saved.
Related calculators
Frequently asked questions
- How do I calculate hours worked on a time card?
- Subtract the clock-in time from the clock-out time and take off any unpaid break. From 8:00 to 17:30 with a 30-minute lunch is 9 hours. Add the days to get the week.
- How do I convert minutes to decimal hours?
- Divide the minutes by 60. Fifteen minutes is 0.25 hours, 30 minutes is 0.50 and 45 minutes is 0.75, so 7 hours 45 minutes is 7.75 hours.
- Is a lunch break paid?
- A meal period of 30 minutes or more is unpaid under federal rules when you are completely relieved from duty. Rest breaks of about 5 to 20 minutes count as hours worked.
- What is the 7-minute rule?
- It is quarter-hour rounding. The Department of Labor says 1 to 7 minutes may be rounded down and 8 to 14 minutes must be rounded up to the next quarter hour.
- How does the calculator handle a night shift?
- When the clock-out time is earlier than the clock-in time, the shift is read as ending the next day. From 22:00 to 6:00 is 8 hours before breaks.
- How is overtime counted on a two-week time card?
- Each week is counted on its own, because federal rules do not allow hours to be averaged over two weeks. A 50-hour week and a 30-hour week have 10 overtime hours.
- Is a time clock calculator the same as a timesheet calculator?
- Yes. Time card calculator, time clock calculator and timesheet calculator are three names for a tool that turns clock-in and clock-out times into hours worked.
Sources
Every rate, bracket and limit this calculator uses comes from the official sources below. The method is shown on this page, so any result can be checked by hand.
- U.S. Department of Labor, 29 CFR Part 785, Hours Worked. Rest periods counted as hours worked (785.18), bona fide meal periods (785.19) and rounding of clock times (785.48).
- U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, Fact Sheet #53: The Health Care Industry and Hours Worked. Quarter-hour rounding: 1 to 7 minutes rounded down, 8 to 14 minutes rounded up.
- U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, Fact Sheet #23: Overtime Pay Requirements of the FLSA. Overtime after 40 hours in a workweek, the 168-hour workweek, no averaging of weeks, and the $405 salary example.
- U.S. Department of Labor, 29 CFR Part 516, Records to Be Kept by Employers. Daily and weekly hours an employer must record, and how long payroll records and time cards are kept.
- State labor agencies, California Department of Industrial Relations, Overtime; Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development, Wage and Hour; Colorado COMPS Order #40; Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries; Kentucky Revised Statutes 337.050. Daily overtime, double time and seventh-day rules in California, Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Kentucky.
- Nevada Legislature, Nevada Revised Statutes, Chapter 608 (Compensation, Wages and Hours). Daily and weekly overtime, paydays, final pay, itemized deductions, meal and rest periods and paid leave.
- Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development, Wages and Breaks; minimum wage and overtime questions; unemployment insurance tax rates. Paydays, final pay within 21 days, the 30-minute break, minimum wage and overtime, and the $7,000 unemployment tax wage base.