Time Card Calculator

How the Time Card Calculator Works

This time card calculator turns a week of clock punches into the numbers payroll needs. For each day you enter a clock in time, a clock out time and the length of any unpaid meal break. The calculator subtracts the punches, removes the break, adds the days together and splits the week into regular hours, overtime and, under California rules, double time. Enter an hourly rate and it also shows gross pay before taxes.

Results appear in hours and minutes (h:mm) and in decimal hours, because time clocks print the first and payroll uses the second. The page handles 12 and 24 hour entry, shifts past midnight, punch rounding and a workweek that starts on any day. Copy CSV exports the week for a spreadsheet.

Use it as a timesheet calculator to check a paycheck, fill in a paper time card, or total hours for a small team. For a single duration, such as the time between two clock readings, the Hours Calculator is quicker. To add or subtract times of day, use the Time Calculator.

How to Calculate Hours Worked Manually

1. Convert each punch to 24 hour time. Add 12 to any PM hour except 12 PM, so 4:30 PM becomes 16:30. This removes AM and PM mistakes from the subtraction.
2. Subtract clock in from clock out. Borrow 60 minutes from the hours when the minutes come out negative.
3. Subtract unpaid breaks. Take off only meal periods that were unpaid, not short paid rest breaks.
4. Add the days. Every 60 minutes in the minute column carries over as one hour.
5. Convert to decimal hours. Divide the leftover minutes by 60 and add them to the hours.

This is the default week loaded in the calculator. The minute column adds to 0 + 45 + 15 + 30 + 0 = 90 minutes, which carries as 1 hour 30 minutes, so the week is 41:30 rather than 40:90. Before breaks the punches total 44:00 on the clock, and five 30 minute lunches remove 2:30.

Overnight shift hours

When the clock out time is earlier than the clock in time, the shift ended the next day. Add 24 hours to the clock out before you subtract. A night shift from 10:00 PM to 6:30 AM is 06:30 + 24:00 − 22:00 = 8:30 on the clock, and a 30 minute break leaves 8:00 worked. Five of those nights make exactly 40:00, as the Night shift example shows.

Each shift is credited to the day it starts. When a shift crosses the end of your workweek, such as a Sunday night shift in a week that starts Monday, enter the hours after midnight on the next week's card, because they count toward that week's overtime.

Convert Minutes to Decimal Hours

Payroll multiplies hours by a rate, so 7 hours 45 minutes has to become 7.75 hours first. The rule is decimal hours = minutes ÷ 60. Values such as 20 minutes = 0.3333 repeat, so most payroll systems round them to two decimals as in the table below.

A common mistake is reading 7.30 on a payroll report as 7 hours 30 minutes. In decimal, 7.30 hours is 7 hours 18 minutes, and 7 hours 30 minutes is 7.50. The calculator shows both forms side by side so the two never get mixed up.

Overtime and Time and a Half Under the FLSA

The federal Fair Labor Standards Act requires covered, nonexempt employees to receive at least one and one half times their regular rate for every hour worked over 40 in a workweek. The workweek is a fixed, recurring period of 168 hours, seven consecutive 24 hour periods, and it can start on any day and hour the employer sets. That is why this calculator has a Week starts on setting.

In the default week, Monday through Thursday add up to 34:30, so the first 5:30 of Friday completes the 40 regular hours and the last 1:30 of Friday is overtime. The bar chart colors that part of the Friday bar as overtime.

Time and a half is the rate times 1.5: $15.00 becomes $22.50, $17.50 becomes $26.25, $22.50 becomes $33.75 and $25.00 becomes $37.50. Double time at $25.00 is $50.00.

California Daily Overtime and Double Time

California adds daily rules on top of the weekly 40 hour rule. According to the California Department of Industrial Relations, nonexempt adults earn 1.5 times the regular rate for hours over 8 and up to 12 in a workday, and double the regular rate for hours over 12 in a workday. On the seventh consecutive day of work in a workweek, the first 8 hours are paid at 1.5 times and any hours beyond 8 at double time. Choose California daily as the overtime rule to apply all three.

The same 46:00 week gives a different answer under the federal weekly rule alone, because only the 6 hours above 40 count as overtime and nothing is paid at double time.

Once regular hours pass 40 in the week, the rest move to overtime. Seven 10 hour days at $20 give 40:00 regular, 28:00 overtime (daily overtime, all of Saturday, and the first 8 hours of the seventh day) and 2:00 double time, for $1,720.00 gross. Alternative workweek schedules under a California wage order are not modeled.

Unpaid Meal Breaks and Paid Rest Breaks

Federal law does not require employers to give lunch or coffee breaks, but it does decide which breaks count as work time. Under 29 CFR 785.19, a bona fide meal period is not work time when the employee is completely relieved from duty, and ordinarily 30 minutes or more is long enough. Under 29 CFR 785.18, rest periods of about 5 to 20 minutes must be counted as hours worked.

That gives a simple rule for this time card calculator with lunch: enter the length of unpaid meal periods in the Break column and leave short paid breaks out. Two paid 10 minute breaks and an unpaid 30 minute lunch in a 9:00 AM to 5:30 PM shift means a break entry of 30, which gives 8:00 worked. Entering 50 would cut 20 minutes of paid time from the card.

Time Clock Rounding and the 7 Minute Rule

Many time clocks round punches to the nearest 5 minutes, tenth of an hour (6 minutes) or quarter hour (15 minutes). The calculator rounds each clock in and clock out to the nearest increment before subtracting, which is how those systems work. Quarter hour rounding is often called the 7 minute rule because 7 minutes past a quarter rounds down and 8 minutes rounds up.

Federal regulation 29 CFR 785.48(b) accepts these practices for enforcement only when they do not, over a period of time, result in failure to pay employees for all the time they actually worked. Rounding is expected to average out. It should not round early arrivals away while also cutting late departures.

The Quarter hour rounding example shows the problem. Punches of 7:53, 8:04, 7:58, 8:08 and 7:56 AM in, with 4:07, 4:02, 4:11, 3:55 and 4:06 PM out and a 30 minute lunch each day, total 37:52 at exact times. Rounded to 15 minutes they total 37:30, so the employee loses 22 minutes, or $7.33 at $20 per hour ($750.00 instead of $757.33). Rounding the same week to 6 minutes gives 37:48 and to 5 minutes gives 37:40. To see whether rounding averages out, compare rounded and exact totals over several weeks. The caption under the total shows that difference for every week you enter.

Biweekly Timesheets and Pay Periods

Many employers pay every two weeks, but FLSA overtime is figured one workweek at a time, and averaging hours over two or more weeks is not permitted. For a biweekly timesheet, run the calculator once for each week and add the results, rather than entering 80 hours as one period.

Take a 45:00 first week and a 36:00 second week at $20 per hour. Week one pays 40 × $20 + 5 × $30 = $950.00 and week two pays 36 × $20 = $720.00, for $1,670.00. Treating the 81 hours as one 80 hour period would show only 1 hour of overtime and $1,630.00, which is $40.00 less than the amount owed.

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources & References

• U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division. Fact Sheet #23: Overtime Pay Requirements of the FLSA, revised October 2019. dol.gov
• U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division. Fact Sheet #22: Hours Worked Under the FLSA, revised July 2008. dol.gov
• U.S. Department of Labor. Breaks and Meal Periods. dol.gov
• eCFR. 29 CFR 785.48 Use of time clocks, (b) rounding practices. ecfr.gov
• eCFR. 29 CFR 785.18 Rest and 785.19 Meal. 785.18, 785.19
• California Department of Industrial Relations, Labor Commissioner. Overtime FAQ (daily, double time and seventh day rules). dir.ca.gov

Results are estimates of hours and gross pay from the times you enter, not payroll, tax or legal advice. State laws, union contracts and exemptions vary. Every number on this page was recomputed with the calculator's own code. Rules reviewed: 2026.