Work Schedule
Set your daily work hours and breaks
In minutes
Compensation
Enter your hourly rate to calculate earnings
Calculate Your Work Hours and Pay
Enter your start time, end time, and break duration for each day. The calculator totals your daily hours, weekly hours, identifies overtime (hours beyond 40/week or 8/day depending on your state), and estimates gross earnings based on your hourly rate. Whether you are an hourly employee tracking time for payroll, a freelancer logging billable hours, or a manager verifying timesheets, this tool ensures accuracy and helps you get paid correctly.
How overtime works: Federal law (FLSA) requires 1.5× pay for hours over 40 per workweek for non-exempt employees. California adds daily overtime after 8 hours and double time after 12 hours. Our calculator supports both weekly-only and daily+weekly overtime rules.
Time Calculation Basics
Clock-in to clock-out minus breaks equals hours worked. 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM with a 30-minute unpaid lunch equals 8.5 hours minus 0.5 hours equals 8.0 hours worked. If your employer counts time in 15-minute increments, clocking in at 8:07 AM rounds to 8:15 AM, costing you 7 minutes per day. Over 250 working days per year, that rounding costs you approximately 29 hours of pay — nearly a full workweek of lost earnings.
Decimal hours conversion: Payroll systems often use decimal hours instead of hours:minutes format. 15 minutes equals 0.25 hours. 30 minutes equals 0.50. 45 minutes equals 0.75. 7 hours 45 minutes equals 7.75 decimal hours. This conversion matters because payroll software calculates wages by multiplying decimal hours by your hourly rate. Understanding the conversion helps you verify your pay stub accuracy and catch errors before they compound over multiple pay periods.
Overtime earnings example: Working 48 hours in a week at $25/hour: 40 regular hours multiplied by $25 equals $1,000. 8 overtime hours multiplied by $37.50 (1.5×) equals $300. Total gross: $1,300. That is $162.50/day average versus the regular $125/day — overtime is worth pursuing if available. The extra $7.50/hour on overtime adds up quickly: 5 hours of overtime per week at that rate generates an additional $1,950 over the course of a year.
Night shift and split shifts: If your shift crosses midnight (11 PM to 7 AM), the calculator handles the date transition automatically. For split shifts (working morning and evening with a long gap), enter each segment separately and the calculator sums the total. Overnight healthcare shifts, security rotations, and hospitality work often involve these non-standard schedules that manual time tracking handles poorly.
Overtime Rules and Regulations
Federal overtime (FLSA): Covers non-exempt employees with hours over 40 in a workweek at 1.5× regular rate. The workweek is a fixed 7-day period set by the employer — it does not have to align with the calendar week. Exempt employees (generally salaried professionals earning above $684/week in 2026, executives, administrators, and certain computer professionals) are not entitled to overtime.
State-specific rules: California requires daily overtime (over 8 hours/day at 1.5×, over 12 hours/day at 2×) in addition to weekly overtime. Alaska requires overtime for hours over 8/day and over 40/week. Colorado mandates overtime after 12 hours/day and 40/week. Nevada requires overtime after 8 hours/day and 40/week for employees earning less than 1.5 times minimum wage. Always verify your state's specific rules, as they may provide greater protections than the federal baseline.
Double time: California is the most notable state requiring double-time pay (2× regular rate) for hours worked over 12 in a single day and for the first 8 hours worked on the 7th consecutive day of work. At $25/hour, double time pays $50/hour, making those extra hours extremely lucrative but also physically demanding. Other states generally do not mandate double time unless contractually agreed upon.
Verifying Your Paycheck
Understanding how your hours translate to pay helps you catch payroll errors, which are more common than most people realize. The ADP Research Institute found that payroll errors affect approximately 49% of employees at some point. Common mistakes include incorrect overtime calculations, wrong decimal hour conversions, missed break deductions, and incorrect hourly rates applied to specific shifts.
Track your hours independently using our calculator and compare against your pay stub each period. Verify that your gross pay matches: (regular hours multiplied by regular rate) plus (overtime hours multiplied by overtime rate). If discrepancies appear, document them with your timesheet and bring them to payroll or HR promptly. Most payroll errors can be corrected in the next pay period if caught quickly, but delays make corrections more difficult.
Frequently Asked Questions
Subtract your start time from your end time, then subtract any unpaid breaks. For example, if you clock in at 8:00 AM and clock out at 4:30 PM, that equals 8 hours and 30 minutes elapsed. Subtract a 30-minute unpaid lunch and you have 8.0 hours worked. Our calculator handles AM/PM conversion automatically, so you can enter times in either 12-hour or 24-hour format. For shifts that cross midnight (such as 11:00 PM to 7:00 AM), the calculator correctly handles the date transition and computes the total hours across both days. This eliminates a common source of error when manually calculating overnight shift durations.
Under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), overtime is defined as any hours worked over 40 in a single workweek for non-exempt employees, and it must be paid at 1.5 times your regular hourly rate. Some states have additional overtime rules beyond the federal requirements. California, for example, requires overtime pay for hours worked over 8 in a single day (daily overtime) and double time for hours over 12 in a day, in addition to the weekly 40-hour threshold. Colorado, Alaska, and Nevada also have daily overtime provisions. Exempt employees — typically salaried professionals, executives, and certain administrative roles earning above a minimum salary threshold — are not entitled to overtime under federal law. Always check your state's specific overtime laws, as they may provide greater protections than the federal baseline.
Divide the minutes by 60 and add the result to the hours. For example, 7 hours and 45 minutes: 45 divided by 60 equals 0.75, so the decimal equivalent is 7.75 hours. Common conversions to memorize: 15 minutes equals 0.25 hours, 30 minutes equals 0.50 hours, and 45 minutes equals 0.75 hours. Payroll systems universally use decimal hours for wage calculations, so converting accurately is essential. If your timesheet shows 37 hours and 20 minutes, that equals 37.33 decimal hours. At $25 per hour, your gross pay would be $933.33 before taxes and deductions. Rounding errors from incorrect conversions can compound over multiple pay periods, so precision matters.
Paid breaks (typically 10–15 minute rest periods) count as hours worked and should not be subtracted from your total. Federal law does not require employers to provide rest breaks, but many states mandate a paid 10-minute rest break for every 4 hours worked. Unpaid breaks (typically 30–60 minute meal periods) are subtracted from your worked hours. Federal law requires unpaid meal breaks only in specific circumstances, but most states mandate a 30-minute unpaid meal period for shifts exceeding 5 or 6 hours. California requires a 30-minute meal break before the end of the fifth hour of work and a second meal break for shifts exceeding 10 hours. If your employer requires you to work through a meal break, that time must be compensated at your regular rate (or overtime rate if it pushes you over the threshold).
Standard full-time employment is defined as 40 hours per week. Over 52 weeks, that equals 2,080 hours per year (40 multiplied by 52). However, most full-time employees do not actually work all 2,080 hours. After accounting for typical paid time off — 10 days of vacation (80 hours), 10 paid holidays (80 hours), and 5 sick days (40 hours) — the actual working hours drop to approximately 1,880 per year. This distinction matters when calculating your effective hourly rate from an annual salary. If you earn $60,000 per year and work 1,880 actual hours, your effective rate is $31.91 per hour, not $28.85 (which you'd get dividing by 2,080). Understanding your actual working hours helps you evaluate job offers, negotiate rates, and budget your time accurately.
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